Summary Of Tearing Down The Streets By Jeff Ferrell

Urban spaces are not only the physical areas of a city, but they are also places of contested meaning and culture. The normative meanings and practices of places in cities can be controlled when public spaces becomes less public and more private. Jeff Ferrell explores the increasing trend of controlling public spaces and the resulting actions of people who are taking back their cities in his book “Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy” (2001). This book looks at the revanchist city; one that regulates and closes off public spaces, and further marginalizes the marginalized. Ferrell uses examples of direct action taken to reclaim space throughout the book, such as BASE jumping, critical mass, pirate radio, graffiti and street

music.
Although Ferrell doesn’t explicitly explain his positionality, he writes himself into the book as he has also lived the experiences he writes about.

His open subjectivity is a strength, and it allows us to better understand the ideas he is conveying. His first hand experiences, and other similar actions, are all DIY, accessible and inclusive. Those are key factors that can be seen from every one of Farrell’s examples, that direct action for reclaiming public space is accessible and inclusive especially for the people directly affected. This idea can perhaps be expanded and applied to social movements and resistance in general. It’s easy to assume that resistance from civil society is always towards fighting the good fight, but examples such as the rise of the Alt-right or white pride parades** are also forms of resistance where the line between positive and harmful is blurred. Taking the concept behind “if I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution,” we could potentially use inclusiveness and accessibility as measures of ‘good’ movements. This does assume an understanding of human morals and goodness, but if the aim is to create space for genuine human interaction and achieving comfort and enjoyment for the most amount of people, those assumptions don’t seem very problematic. show that the impossible is

possible!
The book touches on urban design decisions that are quite explicitly planned for exclusion, such as . This brought home how difficult it is to wait for change to happen legally, because when a city includes a sitting time limit in their planning decisions, that rule is quickly taken up and enforced but to challenge or change it would require endlessly jumping through bureaucratic hoops. It also goes the other way, by legalizing certain activities they become subject to harsher regulations instead of being left alone to be performed legally. For example, if critical mass events were legalized then there would have to be a lot more formal organization, security, and rules, taking away from the group dynamic.