The visual translation of the social crisis in the urban fabric - the case of the city of Athens -
KTH – Royal Institute of Technology Masters in Urbanism Studies Elena Stamouli
Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody. Jane Jacobs
ABSTRACT How the political, financial and social crisis can be printed out and visualized in the urban fabric? How the political and social instabilities can be printed out in urban public spaces? How the human engagement in occupational movements and constrained inhabitation can highlight the value of democracy and justice of urban public spaces in times of social uncertainty? The research on the possibilities of an urban public space is certainly endless, even if we are concentrated in a small part of it. Every alternate approach exposes its relative and intricate nature. Each researcher approaches the subject in a specific manner using different tools of analysis. Making a case study and concentrating in a certain urban environment allows me to comprehend in depth the alterability of a public space and how it gets transformed according to the given circumstances. A genuine public space is inseparably linked to the notion of democracy and adaptability. Different people can use freely different spaces in different times. The social crisis and the redefinition of values within a society can play a vital role to the future of the cities. Two friends meet in a park before going to work, a homeless person begins his daily routine. The space has simultaneously double purpose, meeting point and a home. One single space can simultaneously receive interpersonal contact as well as singular and collective memory. The space can be the tribune at which all voices find a way to be heard, or it can play the role of a shelter on which someone can find temporary safety. When conditions are already difficult in terms of social cohesion, all different faces of a public space could be more easily distinguished. Seeking to comprehend the framework in which people co exist, the relations and associations forming in flux between the place and the community and how users leave their marks on the space, I made an effort to read the public space in two separate ways which often interweave. I gave a role to the public space according to the way people decided or were forced to act within it and redefine it; public space as a political stage and as a constrained
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INTRODUCTION Nowadays half of the world’s population lives in cities. All great civilizations have been developed in this urban environment. People exchanged goods and ideas, a procedure that has brought about the growth of trade, wealth and culture. In this respect, public open spaces in an urban fabric have played a key role in defining the social network. My initial intension was focusing on one specific manner of use of public urban spaces, however I realized that studying on one city and its different social groups and urban characteristics could be more beneficial in terms of acknowledging the actual existence of an urban public space and how given political and social circumstances can be visualized within it. The city is a multifaceted structure, which unfolds different qualities according to the circumstances. In times of social recession, people redefine their values and they pursuit an environment in which they can express their feelings towards the new. The urban fabric provides the most familiar framework in which people can act as active citizens. Nowadays, the Greek capital is experiencing major challenges and presents great material for research. The public space obtains different roles, and I believe that the two most important ones in times of social instability are the following: • •
Public space as a political stage Public space as a constrained inhabitation
In order a genuine public space to fulfill its purpose of hosting different activities, has to be flexible and friendly towards all kinds of social groups. Each different group treats the space in an utterly different way according to its needs and interests influence it and familiarize with it differently. All different uses, functions, activities, marks and readings provide diversity and spatial value. All these are possible only if the design of the space permits to its users to act within in without restrictions and boundaries. As Kevin Lynch has stated, the spatial environment and the objects, which surround it, can often be used in various ways that its creators never actually thought of. Additionally, it is clear that there an endless list of ways that someone can engage a public space, however, in times of economical and social unrest, cities tend to play a much more significant role in peoples lives, and become the stage in which people are asked to perform their rights. In order to continue with this research, it is essential to comprehend the actual definition of the urban public space and its relation to the human activity in it. What is the definition of “public”? 1. Of or concerning the people as a whole 1.1. Open to or shared by all the people of an area or country 1.2. Of or provided by the government rather than an independent, commercial company 1.3. Of or involved in the affairs of the community, especially in government 1.4. Known to many people; famous 2. Done, perceived, or existing in open view The above definition of a dictionary is not sufficient to describe the essence and complexity of the public space. Hannah Arendt1 below presents a much more open and meaningful definition of the public space, a concept of place that cannot be limited to the institutional setting, but it refers mainly to all the dynamics created in this, its social functioning and the life that gets due to its constant renegotiation. The space of appearance comes into being wherever men are together in the manner of speech and action, and therefore pre- dates and precedes all formal constitution of the public realm and the
1 Hanna Arendt, The human condition, (The university of Chicago Press, London,1998), p.198
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various forms of government, that is, the various forms in which the public realm can be organized. Its peculiarity is that, unlike the spaces which are the work of our hands, it does not survive the actuality of the movement which brought it into being, but disappears not only with the dispersal of men [...] but with the disappearance or arrest of the activities themselves. Wherever people gather together, it is potentially there, but only potentially, not necessarily and not forever. In this same book, Arendt links the theoretical definition of public spaces to the Ancient Greek city of Athens. In 5th century Athens, which constitutes her main example, the conception of the city concerned a community of people rather than a territory, and according to her this is the city where there is the ideal political public life.2 One of the spaces that visualized this Greek theory was the Agora which in Greek means “the place of assembly” and, early in the history of Greece, designated the area in the city where free-born citizens could gather to hear civic announcements, muster for military campaigns or discuss politics.
fig.1. Ancient Agora of Athens
It was in this inspirational urban space where great philosophers were reflecting and questioning the meaning of life. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle public speeches, which took place in Agora, changed the entire western philosophy. It is more than clear that people were engaging the public space in order to communicate their ideas and dreams. All of us co-exist within the city; in the public space, which forms it and gives it energy and life. Every single person experiences the public space in a completely different manner. It creates feelings of pleasure or dissatisfaction, security or insecurity, invites or repels, is accessible or not. Therefore, it offers various readings but also mutations according to the actions that seek to be objectified within it. The use and the character of the public space is altered according to a wide variety of factors, such as time, the uses to which it is adjacent, safety and aesthetic quality. Another factor that determines how, by whom and when a public space is used is its form as it is defined by the design. Doreen Massey3 underlines that the "openness" of public space and the unconditional accessibility to them, in order to achieve their democratization, is a romantic approach which does not take into account that the premises are derivatives of social relations which are fundamentally unequal and
2 Hanna Arendt, The human condition, (The university of Chicago Press, London,1998), p.196 3 Group work, Urban spaces on debate, Alexandria [2010],p.33
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conflictual. The concept of an “open” space is a precarious notion. All spaces are social regulated in some way, if not with explicit rules (do not walk on the grass, access to animals is prohibited etc.), then through a potential competitive plan, which exists due to the absence of specific control measures. In my own effort to read and understand the public space, I discovered that the way of experiencing and understanding all its different uses today, cultivates an illusion of expression, movement and action in public space, an illusion of freedom, which in long term prevents us from arrogating the space. Only when the illusion crumbles, the public space really gets recovered and can be used freely. A great example is the organized movement of the users of an already partly ruined park in Patissia in Athens, who overthrew the plans of the mayor for the conversion of planted area in parking. Residents themselves were able to replant the area and to reshape it. Recognizing the space as their own, they protected it and they exploited it freely without having restrictions on how to behave in it.
fig.2. the park in Patissia,Athens
According to David Harvey4, the possibility of free ownership of space has become, both theoretically and in social practice, a significant and vital form of freedom. In an effort to analyze the public space and to report on issues rarely arise, the authors of the book “Public Space” pose three main axes, around which articulate their own approach as to what is and what ought to be public space. They identify spaces that respond, ie designed according to the needs of their users and can be adjusted to them, democratic spaces, which allow to people to fight for their rights and essential spaces which encourage people to link with the place, society and the rest of the city. This demarcation should not be encountered as a strict one; therefore all three types of public spaces can alter throughout time and redefine themselves. To the next chapter I will examine the democratic –or not-, character of the space, and how it is underlined when social circumstances redefine the everyday life of people. Different professionals have tried to identify the true open - or not-, identity of the city and how the urban fabric acts as a political stage for the masses in times of challenge.
4 Hurvey,D., quote from an interview in Athens [2012]
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Public space as a political stage The urban landscape apparently acts as an important political action field and rebellion. The tangible features are significant, the physical and social change, the review and the territorial [re] organization of these places are tools in the political and social fight. 5 David Harvey When human values and rights, such as freedom, education, dignity, nutrition, employment, are under negotiation, the social balance is disrupted. It is a vital need for humans to defend their rights. Unfortunately, there are places around the globe where human rights are brutally violated and people are incapable to defend themselves. In democratic societies, people have the opportunity to defend their civil rights and demand a better and more promising future for themselves and their children. Cities play a major role in how people express their indignance by being their allies in the effort to be politically heard. As I have already indicated I believe that the true examination of an urban public space is almost impossible. Kevin Lynch states that the analysis of these spaces gets complicated due to the different backgrounds and intentions of their users. However, in this part of the paper and due to the aspect of the public space that is under investigation, I think that it is essential to debate the true sense of the democratic character of the public space. Firstly, I would like to give the definition of democracy:
5 Harvey,D., Rebel cities; from the right to the city to the urban revolution, Verso, [2012], p.117 4 Definition according to Oxford Dictionary
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Democracy > dēmokratia, from dēmos 'the people' + -kratia 'power, rule' : rule by the people6 John R. Parkinson clearly states that democracy is not merely the interplay of arguments and reasons in some abstract public sphere but is performed by people, with aims, on stages.7 Parkinson also asks us to be problematized by every bit of this definition. Who are “the people”, what does “rule mean”, how and where that rule is exercised? However, the existence of true democracy in the urban sphere is debated. Chantal Mouffe in her paper "Deliberative democracy or Agonistic Pluralism"8 also identifies the pluralistic character of the modern society and the "multiplicity of voices" that it encompasses. More specifically, Mouffe proposes an alternative to the model of "deliberative democracy" which she calls "agonistic pluralism". In order to understand the notion of this alternative view, it is important to define the terms "politics" and "political". According to Mouffe, the political refers to the "dimension of antagonism that is inherent in all human society" whereas politics refers to the ensemble of practices, discourses and institutions that seek to establish a certain order and to organize human coexistence in conditions that are always potentially conflictual because they are affected by the dimension of the political”. Moreover, Mouffee underlines that politics aims at the creation of unity in a context of conflict and diversity. However, in order for this conflict to be compatible with the notion of the "pluralistic democracy", it is important to identify the way in which conflicting interests interact. Thus, it is of crucial importance to identify two types of political relations; one of “antagonism” between enemies and one of “agonism” between adversaries. The aim of democratic politics is to shift from a conflict between enemies -antagonism-, to a struggle between adversaries -agonism-. Chantal Mouffe9 indicates that according to democratic politics the public space conceived as the terrain where consensus can emerge. For the agonistic model, on the contrary, the public space is the battleground where different hegemonic projects are confronted, without any possibility of final reconciliation. Although, the terminology is similar, Mouffe’s conception of the agonistic public space is quite different than the one of Hanna Arendt. According to Arendt the “agonism” does not includes the sense of “antagonism”. While Arendt puts great emphasis on human plurality and insists that politics deals with the community and reciprocity of human beings, which are different, she never acknowledges that this plurality is at the origin of antagonistic conflicts. Arendt ends up envisaging the public space in a consensual way. People come together not as enemies but as antagonists who acknowledge their different backgrounds and intentions, but they found a common spatial ground in which they confront one common opponent. It is also clearly stated that when we talk about a public space, we are dealing with a series of public spaces. According to the agonistic approach, public spaces are always plural and the agonistic confrontation takes place in a multiplicity of discursive surfaces. In Athens, demonstrations take place both in squares in front of civic buildings and in streets of major spatial importance. There is always a reason why people choose specific public spaces to express their disappointment, but even if these spaces differ from times to times, people still find grounds where they can demonstrate their will. The right of everyone to express, socialize, discuss, react; is without room for doubt a democratic right, which leads them to reclaim a spatial tribune of expression. When an opinion, a position or a problem remain limited and do not arise in this stage tend to lose value and power, ignored and ultimately seem to lose their existence. I cannot negate the existence of other means of political, social and ideological expression but as mentioned by Mike Davis social media [for example] are
7 Parkinson,J.R., Democracy and Public space; The physical sites od democratic performance, Oxford University Press, [2012],p.23 8 Moufee,C., Deliberative democracy or Agonistic Pluralism, Social Research; Prospects for Democracy, Vol.66,No 3, [1999], p.754-757 9Moufee,C., Agonistics; thinking the world politically,Verso [2013], p.1-6,107-115
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certainly important but not omnipotent -the crystallization of political position through free discussion still finds the most fertile ground in a truly urban tribune.10 Nowadays the use of social media has been held responsible for the isolation of the contemporary man within the walls of his private sphere. This virtual space tries to act as a substitute of the tribune that the public space offers, but fortunately it seems that it cannot replace it. Often those who deny the importance of physical space confuses the medium and the message; they focus on the means of communication and they oversee what it is communicated. What happened and communicated in Cairo in 2011 and in Kiev in 2004 was not virtual, was a mass occupation of public space by real citizens.11 Nevertheless, internet is a very strong means of communication, which connects people in order to coordinate and claim the space in which they will fight for their rights. New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman clearly expressed the opinion that the Occupy Wall Street Movement proved that no matter how instrumental new media have become in spreading protest these days, nothing replaces people taking to the streets. Judith Buttler 12 has set a very interesting question, which came first, the protest or the space? In “Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space,” Occupation Wall Street protesters, admirers and camp followers argue that both perspectives are correct: in essence, the movement and the space it occupied became inseparable, one and the same. Without suitable urban public spaces, true democracy and free expression cannot exist; absent a thriving society that yearns to speak freely, setting aside public space is a hollow gesture. Democracy depends to a surprising extent on the availability of urban public spaces. The unavailability of these spaces is under treat. By overlooking the need for such space we run the risk of undermining some important conditions of democracy in the modern world.13 If we go back to the history of mankind, we would realize that man and woman were always trying to find a way to defend their human rights against all those forces, which were trying to indistinct them.
fig.4. Women fought for equality in 1917
In 1930, in order to protest against the British tax policy, Mahatma Gandhi set off on a historic 240mile journey along the Indian coastline to collect his own salt. Such production of salt was illegal according to the Imperial laws. Over 60,000 people joined the march that went on for 23 days.
10 Davis,M., Be realistic; Demand the impossible, Haymarket Books, [2012],p.3 11Parkinson,J.R.,
Democracy and Public space; The physical sites od democratic performance, Oxford University Press, [2012],p.1-2 12 Butler,J., Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street, European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, eipcp.net [2011] 13Parkinson,J.R., Democracy and Public space; The physical sites od democratic performance, Oxford University Press, [2012],p.2
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Nelson Mandel's anti-apartheid movement in 1950 South Africa set the tone for worldwide protest against color divide. On June 26 that year, thousands of South Africans took part in the "Stay at Home" movement. That day was celebrated as the National Freedom Day of the country until 1994. One of the most popular protests in the history of mankind is the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989. Persistent mass protests had forced the governments of East and West Germany to take down the wall and reunite the people after 28 years. The crucial day came on November 9th. In 2011, over a million people gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo to protest against the 30-year-long Hosni Mubarak regime. Two weeks after the protest, Mubarak was forced to resign. Consequently, historical facts clarify that some of the most crucial decisions on human rights and equality were made on streets. When people, with different background and starting points but common goal, move as a whole, then they actually protest. Occupations, civil movements, riots are simply ways of manifestation of different groups of people who have the need and the right to express their demands for changes of their quality of life. There is no doubt that in times of political, economic and therefore social uncertainty people automatically have the need to socialize, to find comfort and a place to express their indignation. “Indigniados”, this is the name of the Spanish movement which created the slogan “Shhh..be quiet, do not wake up the Greeks!”. These were the words that inspired Greeks to find a way to wake up and answer back. This idea was spread extremely quickly and the movement of “Aganiktismeni” (Indignants) was created. The ultimate goal of the movement was for people of all different political and social backgrounds to come together, and act in an agonistic way. The democratic character of the city fabric gives to their idea flesh and bones. Deserted and forgotten parts of the city are repurposed and play their role to the civic awakening. Squares regain their old power and through the coexistence and discussion, life is brought back to the urban sphere.
fig.5. Restrictions in days of demonstrations in Athens
fig.6-8. Police, rioters and citizens in Athens
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As it is supported by Jurgen Habermaas14, through the theming of the genuine and the authentic concept of a public space, a political and social project of emancipation from an oppressive mass power which restricts the autonomy of speech and the Enlightening idea of a purely political space. The last few years Athens city has become a battlefield, where people gather and claim their civil rights. The second Greece went under the IMF15 financial support program; the political and social situation in the country became very fragile. The day the Greek Parliament was voting for a new law, “Aganaktismeni” were gathering outside this building (orange) demonstrating mainly peacefully. There were also groups of people acting in an extremist way. Rioters were ripping the pavements using the coble stones as “weapons” for the war against the authorities. The actual form of the public space was under destruction. Demonstrations exceed the limits of "Legality" disrupting the appearance of legality and the character of public space gets completely transformed. Rioters and their violence undermine the right of people to converse and there, to speak freely within the space transforming it into a battlefield. The public space is a banned landscape. In this second case, the authorities had to take action either by controlling the demonstration with aerial gases and violence or by making sure that nothing similar will take place the next time. The only possible way to reassure that the situation will not go out of their control was to prohibit access (pink) to all the crucial public spaces by introducing steel fences and additional police forces (green). Therefore, today the main response of established power in each intense and outside a defined framework, behavior appears to be the suppression. It is a process -as manifested in the public space splitting demonstrations while simultaneously is cracking conceptually the space. Disperses people and constrains their movement while it dissolves their chances for a peaceful presence in the area. Into this procedure is included by default some kind of violence; physical, verbal, sound, chemical etc. The result of this is the elimination of the right of people to be and express themselves in the public space and as this situation is repeated, a sense of fear for their physical integrity is cultivated. This situation unfortunately leads them to quit gradually and stop using the public space as a political stage. When a crowd obtains a political tribune outside a statutory framework, then the forces threaten the status quo. These decisions, as it was expected, irritated the majority of the population, who declared that this constitutes a fascist action against democracy. The democratic character of the public space was automatically vanished, by setting access restrictions and boundaries, as if it is private property belonging to someone specific, and not to the whole. There was, however, a long debate on the issue of vandalism and extreme behaviors in the public space, and whether these are robust reasons to restrict the access to them. This is a never-ending discussion, but my personal view on this matter is that the public space contains a genuine democratic essence and this characteristic can be both very positively strong but can also approve extreme actions. In this case these actions should be individually restrained without isolating the entire space. Michel de Serteau in 1998 gives a new content in the concept of resistance in relation to the space. He focuses in those practices through which individuals and collective subjects re-arrogate a space, which does not belong to them, and they do not control it, while they simultaneously they themselves are in networks of surveillance. These practices affect the daily life and represent a broad range of ways of experiencing space as walking through, naming spaces and the memory of polis. There is also another side of the coin. An action taken place in Athens made me realize once again the gigantic power of an urban public space, and how this space can automatically be transformed into a political platform.(next page)
14 Habermaas,J., The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society,Beacon press , [1985] 15 IMF: International Monetary Fund
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fig.9. lights in Kotzia Square
Kotzia square, Athens. One day before the elections. A cold Monday in Athens a member of Atenistas 16 had an idea in order Athenians to send a message to whoever is going to be the new Mayor of the city from January 1st. People would bring light where accustomed darkness has grown and would throw a parade to streets that are too scary to walk on. By Thursday everyone was ready. Friends, street performers, both Greek and foreign, someone brought a saxophone, people brought wine and thousands of tea lights. The appointment was set for 9 pm but started arriving in the square an hour earlier and started gathering to lit the candles. Everything was running in a very calm manner, almost silent, people were whispering in an effort not to destroy the devout atmosphere. A beautiful bright carpet already paved the square. More and more people arrived with their candles; many hundreds more were sharing a common faith. The image was so intense, coming through you and fascinating you. At the heart of a city severely slandered, people managed to make the most powerful statement with almost nothing, just with their presence and their intervention. People were saying out loud that “We're here because we love this city and we do not plan to go anywhere!”. Music started warming even more the atmosphere and the parade started. People started walking towards the darkest streets of the city center. Immigrants came out in the balconies smiling with their most beautiful smiles, participating in their own way to this party, their own party. This party went deeper in the most neglected and forgotten parts of the city. Everything came to life and people were smiling in sounds of trumpets. Pedestrians were joining the parade as if they were expecting for something like this to happen. This fiesta touches everybody; places of anger like Vathis square were brighten up even for a while. A very loud voice transformed the identity of public spaces in an effort to send a political message. When the last candle flame stopped burning everyone went back home, squares and streets wore their old masks and were ready to play their discouraging role again. People protested in a very peaceful manner against all social “crimes” committed. They are waiting for justice and light! A gentle and peaceful occupation of a central square17 of Athens, disrupted flow of traffic in the square, and challenged the entrenched sense of its monumental symbolism. Therefore, it becomes apparent that in every public space, even a "small" group action can redefine the space itself and its ideological connotation. Through these short movements, occupiers succeed to re-own the space and use it in its actual existence. The design of the public space is a factor of major importance, which either empowers or prevents actions. For example, people who actualized this idea in Kotzia square and the streets around it, were strictly connected to these sites. If their activity had taken place in another part of the city, would have lost its meaning of lighting up the dark sides of the city.
16 Atenistas: a group consisted of Athenians actualizing DIY projects in the city - http://atenistas.org 17 Kotzia square is located in front of Athens City Hall
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Public space as a constrained inhabitation Cities throughout the centuries had multiple different faces; the one, which proves that there is something immoral with the human race, is the constrained inhabitation of the city’s public spaces. The act of inhabitation occurs through senses, images and symbols that generate a sense of warmth, safety and order. It also requires the substance of a roof, which would provide the sense of stability and protection. Unfortunately, people who do not have an alternative choice and they are obliged to live “outside”, never fulfill this basic necessity. Home is not only about walls and roof; the sense of home consists of images, memories, familiar smells and noises, warmth and safety. Home links us with our past, is a lifetime benchmark and since it expresses the personality of the people, who inhabit it, is automatically a precondition of integration in the society. Homeless people try to establish a substitute of home in public corners of the city, which can offer, at least, some of the above characteristics. The problem of non-shelter is global and it gets more severe as the international social crisis is a fact. In New York, since 2013, the number of homeless people exceeds 60.000, out of which 22.000 are children. According to the latest data from the United Nations (UN), 100millions of people around the world are homeless. This data is from 2005 and they do not include neither what has happened the last ten years of the global crisis, nor the statistics about the youth-homelessness, the new European phenomenon; product of the savage financial recession. In western societies the presence of homeless people was much more intense than in Greece, where this group of people was smaller and remained invisible. Data from the European Commission states that homeless people in Europe reach 4,1millions, a number, which according to the NGOs, is much bigger in reality. In the past, this group of cities population was mainly consisted of people with psychological problems, dependent of various substances or with high levels of delinquency. These people were
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feeling safer living in the margin, trying to avoid public spaces. The national political, economic and therefore social crisis had a massive impact not only to the quantitative growth of the population of this group but also to its identity. People who until recently had a “normal” lifestyle18, lost their jobs and being unable to meet their financial needs ended up in streets, facing the most severe type of poverty and social segregation. The number of the homeless had risen up to 30% the last 5 years, since Greece is sinking in the worst crisis in the after war era. Today, almost 30.00019 people live on the streets. According to NGOs’ researches there is an intensive change in the aging composition, since the 80% of these people belong to the “productive age” category, something that was not happening in the past. The 60,7% are between 41=55, 24,4% 26=40.
fig.11. the rise of the number of homeless in Athens
Athens city looks different, people started looking for shelter in public spaces; squares, parks, arcades and streets. Municipalities and the Church multiplied their food supplies to meet the needs of the poor. Homeless people often abut to a square, whish is as a space of constant actions and compromises finally gets deserted and forms a void within the city fabric. This is a space where two different worlds actually meet. A world that constantly moves rejecting anything unfamiliar and strange. The other world belongs to all these scared people who search for their next shelter. People who spend the nigh alone on a bench or under a tree, being cold in the temporary home that the public space creates for them. The next morning, they have to deconstruct their home and abandon their site in order to go look for food and afterward they are asked to find their next space to inhabit. Everyone loses a piece of this public space, in which a war between two worlds takes place. The square was full of activities; children laughing and playing, people talking, people of the city used to care about the space and perceive it as a public stage. It was neither a place for homeless people to sleep nor for people to just walk by with ignorance. 20
18 20% of homeless population has Academic education 19 according to NGOs the actual number of homeless people rises up to 40.000 20 socialactivism.gr
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According to John.R.Parkinson,21 for public space to be genuinely accessible to all, there must be rules that regulate interactions between individuals, a freedom for each consistent with a like freedom for all [..]democracy is treated as if it is only a matter of individual liberty. That is a mistake; it is about how we resolve conflicts over the exercise of such liberty. In the case of homelessness, things alter extensively. There is an evident incapacity on behalf of the occupier to adapt to this principle, since they occupy the public space for survival reasons and not for recreation. The bad leaving conditions make them skeptical and defensive, ending up being socially isolated.
fig.12. the transformation of a neglected public space into a shelter
The city is part of society, reveals its norms, its ideologies because it contains them, it embodies them. The public space of Athens, as well as any other city, is a part and a projection of the social life. As it was also stated in the beginning of this chapter, as long as there are people obliged to live in the “outside”, the ideology and the purpose of the city will be under thorough examination. It is therefore clear that the majority of the cities are designed in order to be experienced in very specific ways. Squares and parks are designed in order to serve the needs of middle class citizens who visit these public spaces in order to use them in a very exclusive manner. When circumstances change and things might get darker, the vail, which covers the real complex identity of a city, falls and the pragmatic situation, is revealed. Athens has to fight with its daemons and find ways to adjust to the new conditions. The fact that people who inhabit public spaces, live without amenities such as water, electricity, health care, causes problems both to the area and to themselves. They create zones of exclusion and since they do not have access to these amenities they degrade, at least temporarily, the area in which they live in. Spaces between the private and the public, despite the safety that might provide, they also burden the condition of homeless people. The entrance of a building, in the recess of a shopping window, areas in which pedestrians do not pay attention, someone will put a cardboard and a blanket and he/she will sleep for the night. Sometimes these spaces do not actually exist holistically, half body lies on the street, half on the building. The exclusion and the right, the claim and eviction are turning people against people. The threshold becomes once again the transition point, where social procedures take place. In the city boundaries, the frills, where the city finds the non - city. But sometimes, in the city’s heart, or where the bridge creates its own topo. There, these people reside. All together, and each one separately appropriate these pieces of public space, which were simply left out, neglected by the city itself. When you walk in Solwnos Str., one of the busiest streets of Athens, having all your senses alerted, you could acknowledge that homeless people actually inhabit spaces of movement. They stand and live in a world of motion and activity. In "fast" spaces, in spaces of transition where we can overtake them and remove them from our memory, with all the speed of today motoring. Remaining
21 Parkinson,J.R., Democracy and Public space; The physical sites od democratic performance, Oxford University Press, [2012], p.26
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anonymous towards the authorities, people passing by and even among them. They stay there, in a mistaken hidden place of a superstructure, up until the city reaches them, catches them and make them move to the next node, to the next “junction” of the river.22 Unfortunately, intentionaly or unintentionaly there are cities really unfriendly towards all those people who do not have the luxury to have a permanent shelter. Cities, in an effort to protect themselves from this social «plague» as many refer to it, have initiated new anti-homeless strategies23. There are not only the homeless who are targeted but I will focus only on them. Londoners expressed their indignantion against the spikes placed in various spaces within the city. They were widely condemned as dehumanizing, and compared with the strips of spikes used to deter pigeons from roosting. Sadly, anti-homeless spikes are nothing new, they can be found from Tokyo to Nottingham.
fig.13. “anti-homeless” spikes
fig.14. homeless person in UK
Many of these tactics have their origins in a more positive movement to «design against crime»24, which aims to make public spaces feel safer. The original goal was a lot more public friendly while these new strategies perceive the public as a threat and treat everyone as a criminal. Spikes are just the latest trend on ‘defensive urban architecture’and is based on a completely unhumanitarian basis. This is definately not the solution to the problem of homelessness. However, it is a clear proof that architects and authorities are blind towards an actual mal condintion of the todays society. They believe that they can just ignore a problem by introducing monsterous design elements instead of cooperating in order to find an actual solution. Athens city has not, at least yet, adopted these kinds of strategies and I think that it is possibly due to a national mentality in difficult times that underlines the value of helping each other. When this is not very easy to happen, due to the overall financial circumstances, people at least do not put more obstacles to the everyday life of people who are already in desperation and misery.
22 Makas Andreas, Michailidou Despina, Socials groups and Public space 23 http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/12/anti-homeless-spikes-latest-defensive-urbanarchitecture 24 http://www.designagainstcrime.com
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CONCLUSION The majority of us lives and moves within a city; sometimes we perceive it superficially while other we are radically affected while we are in constant and direct friction with it. Simultaneously, the city itself gets transformed according to our reactions within it. The perception that the public space is only about a successful design and formation is totally incomplete. The city is a leaving organism, which gets transformed and affected by the current social circumstances. None of what was narrated in this paper would be a reality if there were not a social crisis; political circumstances are visually reflected clearly in the city fabric. Human engagement or contrarily the deliberate indifference towards the public space and its effects, its use as another urban accessory and a necessary bad part of a privatized city; are the settings that promote the creation different urban games of different levels. As these games expressed the space reacts and produces certain dynamics. When political, financial and social conditions are unstable, the city is the first to be transformed. Proofs of the difficult conditions are clearly visible within the urban fabric. The public space becomes a political stage or even a home! Without these spaces, democracy simply cannot function efficiently. In public spaces, we find pieces of our memory as individuals and as a whole. All different roles of the space get offended by people who consider it as a subject for individual occupation and exploitation, while simultaneously they push out all those people for whom the space is a part of their everyday lives and existence; a living room, a passage, an extension of their living space or even one last shelter. Architects, urban planners and designers, urbanists, authorities and every other related profession have a major role in the actual form and function of the city and most particularly of its public spaces. My argument and conclusion is that we all need to acknowledge the fact that the city is the set of people’s lives. It is truly conceited to believe that we as professionals can control every human activity within the city fabric and manipulate it. The city can be perceived as the core of every society, where all political actions take place affecting its actual spatial identity. Therefore if we want to perceive ourselves as responsible and conscious professionals we need to study and go deep in the social and humanitarian aspects that form societies, instead of isolating factors and concentrating in designs and numbers.
The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights! David Harvey
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• BIBLIOGRAPHY Arendt,H., The human condition, The university of Chicago Press, [1998] Calvino,I., Invisible Cities, Harcourt [1974] Davis,M., Be realistic; Demand the impossible, Haymarket Books, [2012] Gehl J., Life between buildings; using public space, island press, [2011] Habermaas,J., The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society,Beacon press ,[1985] Harvey,D., Rebel cities; from the right to the city to the urban revolution, Verso, [2012] Jacobs, J., The death and Life of great American cities, Random House, [2002] Lefebvre, H., The urban Revolution, University of Minnesota Press, [2003] Moufee,C., Agonistics; thinking the world politically,Verso [2013] Moufee,C., Deliberative democracy or Agonistic Pluralism, Social Research; Prospects for Democracy, Vol.66,No 3 [1999] Parkinson,J.R., Democracy and Public space; The physical sites od democratic performance, Oxford University Press, [2012] Stavridis,S., From the city screen to the city stage,Ellinika Grammata [2002]
• ARTICLES Purcell,M., Possible worlds: Henri Lefebvre and the right to the city, journal of Urban Affairs,Vol.36,N.1, [2013] Dikec,M., Justice and the spatial imagination, University of California,Department of Urban Planning,Vol.33, [2001] Butler,J., Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street, European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, eipcp.net [2011] Makas,A., Michailidou,D., Socials groups and Public space, Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Architecture, [2013]
• ILLUSTRATIONS COVER: graffiti in Pireos Av. By Pvlos Tsakonas - https://pavlostsakonas.wordpress.com FIG.1. : http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Stoicism
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FIG.2. : http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Stoicism FIG.3. : http://www.fifoto.com/blog/athens FIG.4. : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Woman%27s_Party FIG.5. : illustration made by the author; Elena Stamouli
FIG.6-8. : http://margotbworldnews.com/News/Feb/Feb14/AthensinFlames.html http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2011/07/01/political-party-files-lawsuit-againstgreek-police-on-tear-gas-violence/ FIG.9. : http://atenistas.org FIG.10. : http://lollitop.blogspot.se/2012/01/homelessness-around-world_05.html FIG.11. : chart made by the author; Elena Stamouli FIG.12. : diagram made by the author; Elena Stamouli FIG.13. : http://thefunambulist.net/2014/06/16/weaponized-architecture-the-spikes-are-notthe-problem-homelessness-is/ FIG.14. : http://hyperallergic.com/131525/disciplinary-architecture-or-deterrence-by-design/
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