Proletariat in the streets, Bourgeoise in the sheets

 

    The city is at war with itself. There is the city below—the street, the sidewalk, the storefront—and there is the city above—the penthouse, the office, the condominium. One belongs to the people, the other belongs to the person. David Harvey succinctly describes the issue in “The Right to the City”:

 

“Urbanization… has played a crucial role in the absorption of capital surpluses and has done so at every increasing geographical scales but at the price of burgeoning processes of creative destruction that entail the dispossession of the urban masses of any right to the city whatsoever. The planet of slums collides with the planet as a vast building site.”

 

    The tall city has become more of an investment solely aimed at maintaining and expanding personal capital. Cities like Manhattan, Detroit, and San Francisco all face issues of homelessness, and yet ironically boast hundreds of apartments that are occupant-less. The surplus capital of the city and it’s proprietors is not being invested in the city itself. Instead, as always, the rich get richer. They aren’t interested in urban health until the health of their bank accounts comes into question. The city below tries to urbanize, to encourage growth outwards, and the city above tries to capitalize, to encourage growth upwards. The effect of capital ventures on the health of the city is directly tied to the allotment of surplus capital that the city generates; once it leaves the city, it leaves the City. That is to say, once it leaves the architecture that constitutes the street, the sidewalk, the storefront, it leaves the inhabitants that contribute to the richness therein and thereout. “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they shall eat the rich.”