Who Rules the City

The 'Right to the City' is an interesting concept that speaks to the evolution and politics that make up how the experiences in the 'city' are formed. I had never diagnosed the composition of the city politically or economically until reading David Harvey's 'The Right to the City". I thought that I was in tune with politics and how it transformed the social aspects of city life. The way people interact within the infrastructure, the social constructs of the layout, and the conditions in which 90 percent of its inhabitants live, I’ve managed to overlook. There’s a certain sense that I’ve gained when visiting bigger cities but having never lived in one, my experiences have only made me naïve in my understanding of how the city has been contrived through history.

Harvey raises a compelling concept of the capitalistic nature of the majority of the humanity. Success and the distribution of said success systematically forms the city in way that the most successful see fit. Immediately reading this made me start to analyze the experiences that I’ve had while traveling to big cities, most of which, I would not personally choose to live. To keep it simple, and speak to more confidently of this topic because of the time spent in these regional cities, Charlotte and Charleston come to mind. Both of these southern cities, deep in the conservative bowels of the Bible Belt, are deeply rooted in a ‘Top Heavy’, politically speaking, ‘Right’ leaning approach to distributing the fundamental innerworkings of the city. A simple dissection of city blocks in the historic seaside Battery district in Charleston stands out by far in my mind. Many of the major political players and most successful and transformed that part of the city into what they envision appropriate in their wants and needs.

The interesting contradiction of this argument is what is defined as being a part of the city. As I look at Charlotte NC, the wealthiest regions are not located in the urban context of the city but rather within a stone throw. This concept is intriguing as gentrification has exploded in epidemic proportions over the past few decades. It was never as apparent to me as it was last semester in Charleston SC. Spending a few months there and learning the history of the city opened my eyes to the social movement that was taking place. Working for a firm that specialized in development reinforced the underlying issue of the wealthy and successful determining the way the city grows. Many of the high-end designs that we were designing were for developers that may have purchased properties from families that had been in those properties for many decades. These older structures, often the classic downtown Charleston Home, were then redesigned in a way that only the upper echelon buyers could afford. But what happened to the family that was forced to sale? They are removed from the area, one that they probably have know for the majority of their lives. It is almost like removing the identity of the area which was once steeped in culture and vibrancy. 

Downtown Charleston Residential Blocks

The contrast was walking through the Battery Neighborhoods and seeing the Range Rovers, Benz’s, and Maserati’s lining the streets or pulled into an automated gated fence. Every once and a while, you would pass one of the residences on the street but well known southern cultural cordiality of speaking wouldn’t happen. I can only imagine how it was before this transformation of the city into one for the rich. I can imagine a tight knit community of families that looked out for each other, not locked fences or gates. I can imagine smiles on every face that you passed on the sidewalk.