MeghanIsMe

Architecture vs. the People: a discussion of how elements in urban design are being created with the intent of moving people like the homeless out and making them someone else's problem without any concern for the underlying structural inequality.

From the article: "Since so very few have a hand in actually shaping the city, most people are captives of the spaces they inhabit and subjects of their categorical powers and biases. Many more are even fiercely excluded from participating at all in the city's making."

This is one of the things that literature about the right to the city is getting at. The right to the city isn't just about the right to be there; it's about the right to have a part in producing urban space.

The powers that be often don't have any interest in fixing structural issues that create homelessness. They just want the problem to go somewhere else. I think people who do things like pour concrete over anti-homeless spikes are heroes, producing space that's just a little less actively hostile to the powerless.