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Why focus on URBAN social movements?

Why focus on URBAN social movements?. Urban social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s changed the direction of urban political geography

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Why focus on URBAN social movements?

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  1. Why focus on URBAN social movements? • Urban social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s changed the direction of urban political geography • Scholars moved away from electoral politics and the study of voting behavior to look at a range of governmental and extra-governmental influences on city life • These include social networks influence of ratepayers groups, businessmen’s associations, and a range of non-profits

  2. Scholars began to focus on the structural inequities in cities and the informal and formal associations developed by citizens to address these inequities • Analyses extend beyond class divisions to look at other social divisions in society [gender, ethno-cultural differences et cetera] - Harvey Social Justice and the City • Castells The City and the Grassroots • Katznelson City Trenches • Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals • Piven and Cloward Poor Peoples Movements • Joe Feagin and Harlan Hahn Ghetto Revolts

  3. Urban social movements represent a new relationship between production based and consumption based politics, between work and home.

  4. What are Urban social Movements? • Collective actions consciously aimed at transforming the social interests and values embedded in any city 1. Demands focussed on collective consumption: good produced directly or indirectly by the state 2. Demands focussed on cultural identity 3. Political mobilization in relation to state

  5. A SOCIAL movement is not necessarily an URBAN social movement: • It must intend to transform some aspect of city life • Environmental movement, Civil rights movement, feminist movement are not URBAN social movements -- BUT can be linked with them, or have some aspect expressed at the level of the city

  6. An Urban Protest is not Automatically and URBAN social movement • An urban social movement must be multi dimensional, • It encompasses a range of issues and urban stakeholder groups

  7. A single institution or organization does not constitute an urban social movement • Protest and advocacy groups can link to urban social movements, but they are not sufficient in themselves • E.g. Network for Social Justice, Women Plan Toronto, Urban Alliance on Race Relations, OCAP -- all are urban in their focus, but limited.

  8. Civil Rights Movement in US • Example of multi-scalar movement that was partly urban in focus • Addressed [among other things] segregation and racial inequity around access to services [schools, transportation] commerce, voter registration

  9. White flight to suburbs leaving decaying inner city housing Housing segregation and landlord abuse in northern cities Formation of black ghettoes in US cities Migration from small southern towns to industrializing cities Mechanization of agriculture in the southern United States

  10. Racial Unrest U.S. Cities 1960s • 1964-1968 329 important riots involving hundreds of thousands of black people in 257 American cities leading to 52,000 arrests, 8,000 injured and 220 killed • 1968 Assassination of Martin Luther King provoked 202 violent incidents in 172 cities • 1969 269 civil related disorders reported by National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders • 1970-71 FBI reported 269 race related disorders in N.A. cities

  11. Causes of Racial Unrest • Deprivation and poverty were not the principle causes of rioting • Rioting tended to occur in cities where there was police harassment and lack of local democratic government

  12. Grass Roots Protests Paris Commune 1871 First point of contact between emerging labour movement and urban movements Rent Strike in Glasgow 1915 Establish tenant committees to improve housing conditions Watts Riots 1960s Non labour movement focussed on racial inequalities at a variety of scales

  13. Grass Roots Protests [continued] • Grands Ensembles of Paris • Revolt against social segregation produced by the construction of large scale high rise modernist social housing projects • Gay Movement of San Francisco • Struggles for equity based on spatially defined gay community in San Francisco • Squatters Movements Berlin • Territorially based movements attempting to develop and autonomous neighborhoods with different social cultural and economic forms • Days of Action Toronto 1990s • Multi issues movement challenging reduction and reorganization of services at urban and provincial levels

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