Urban Policy and Research

ISSN: 0811-1146 (Print) 1476-7244 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cupr20

Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-

term Change

Natalie Osborne

To cite this article: Natalie Osborne (2016) Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term
Change, Urban Policy and Research, 34:4, 406-407, DOI: 10.1080/08111146.2016.1212972

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08111146.2016.1212972

Published online: 19 Jul 2016.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 87

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cupr20

Download by: [Bogazici University] Date: 01 February 2017, At: 14:54

406    Book ReviewS

Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, Mike Lydon and Anthony
Garcia, Washington, DC, Island Press, 2015, 256 pp., $USD25 (paperback), ISBN: 978 1 61091
526 7

Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change by Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia
­(foreword by Andrés Duany) is a handbook-style work on “tactical urbanism” – i.e. small, targeted,
low-cost, often temporary, often unsanctioned, interventions in urban spaces. These interventions
are designed to experiment with and demonstrate alternative ways of designing, appropriating and
engaging with urban space, illustrate alternative imaginaries of city life, and engage those who are often
excluded from the dominant processes that govern and produce urban space. Tactical Urbanism centres
stories, instructive examples, how-to-guides and descriptions of specific tactical urbanist techniques
(in this way, the book is reminiscent of some of Wendy Sarkissian’s books). For activists and those
interested in the practices of tactical urbanism, the book is a useful resource and a compelling read.
The book opens by contextualising tactical urbanism as disturbances in the service of hope – hope
for more vibrant and engaging urban spaces, for more inclusive forms of planning – and for tactile
imaginaries of what our cities could be. Some of the antecedents of tactical urbanism are recounted,
including open streets, mobile libraries and food trucks, and some of the political, social and cultural
trends shaping the uptake of tactical urbanism today, including the Great Recession and the Occupy
movement are outlined. The book then devotes considerable space to some in-depth accounts of
tactical urbanism, and this is perhaps the strongest contribution of the volume. These stories are rich,
well contextualised and instructive without being abstracted. The penultimate chapter outlines some
principles or “steps” that can be used to guide tactical urbanism processes elsewhere, but they are
designed to be applied in a loose, flexible and non-linear way. Tactical urbanism is necessarily local,
situated and deeply contextual, and the authors are cautious here to warn against one-size-fits-all
approaches. Appropriately, the book concludes with a call to action.
Tactical Urbanism is not an academic work, though it may be of interest to academics interested in
urban activism, the Right to the City, and insurgent and radical planning practices. Although the work
of some planning, geography and urban theory scholars is cited (e.g. Jacobs, Harvey), the book does
not contain an academic account or review of tactical urbanism as a phenomenon. Nor does it make
explicit the links to similar theories and practices. The authors acknowledge that the kinds of activities
described as “tactical urbanism” have always existed in cities, but they do not connect the practice
of unsanctioned, grassroots, experimental interventions in public space by local residents seeking to
address urban problems and injustices with radical and insurgent planning work, or work on the Just
City. Issues of difference, and the way difference shapes experiences of the city and may motivate tactical
interventions are hinted at, but again, not directly addressed. Critical geographers and theorists may
also be left wondering about the impact of some of the kinds of intervention depicted in this book
on processes of gentrification and exclusion. Pop-up cafes and food trucks enlivening disused lots
and car parks can indeed be delightful, and in some contexts radical, subversive, even transformative.
In other contexts, such activities may contribute to displacement, may render urban spaces inaccessible
for poorer, disadvantaged, already marginalised inner-city residents, and may represent the early stages
of hipster-style gentrification. Further, when the spaces are referred to as having been “reclaimed”
through tactical urbanism, we might ask for whom? – particularly in settler-colonial cities and nations.
This is, however, not a critique of the book itself or of the authors, who did not set out or purport
to critically analyse tactical urbanism, or position it within broader considerations of processes and
structures of urban change. As a handbook and instructive guide, Tactical Urbanism is a refreshing,
exciting and an often inspiring read. In describing techniques used elsewhere, and recounting stories
(primarily from a U.S. context – worth keeping in mind when regulatory and legal frameworks are
mentioned), the book is of considerable value to activists, students and educators, and those think-
ing about their own tactical interventions. Indeed, it has already been of great use to me personally
in my own activist praxis. Rather, in outlining the issues that were, admittedly, outside the scope of
 Urban Policy and Research   407

this book’s intended purpose, I am only recommending that our academic engagement with tactical
urbanism as a concept considers these questions and critiques, and for those of us who find ourselves
using this book to plan and participate in local interventions of our own, we do so in a way that is
reflexive, and that maintains and develops a critical orientation towards the production and (re)
imagining of urban spaces.

Natalie Osborne
School of Environment, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia
n.osborne@griffith.edu.au  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9430-822X
© 2016 Natalie Osborne
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08111146.2016.1212972