30

provide the very sinews of "globaiization " And thev are a legacv indeed' 1
almost an embodiment of Enlightenment dreams of conquering nature,
delivering salvation from want, and sustaining endless "progress" and
modernization based on technoscientific discovery.
Ar the same time, how€ver, Luke stresses rhat an urban life withir these
Cities as Strategic Sites: Place
banal everyday tecbnostrucNres and "big systems" is an inherendv vulner- Annihilation and Urban Geopolitics
ableone. As the events of9/11 demons$ate, such embeddcd assets can verv
easily be tumed into weapons of mass destruction and agenls of chaos ln
some cases, even small shifts in the operation of th€se svstems can bring
annihilation and mass death As Umberto Eco has written"lhe true
cnemy, we havc seen, doesn't even need his own technologvi h€ uses Stephen Graham
rhose ofthe people he wants to destroy" (2003).

Introduction
Biologists hate prepaied "redbooks" ofextinct or cndangered speciesi ecolo-
gists have rheir "green books" of lhrcaicned habita6. perhaps wc need our
"black book" ofthe places dcstroyed o. nearly dcshoyed by human agencies.
Actually ir would takc many books and sreer maps packed w'!h remem-
brances to re.ord rhe settlemcD6, neighborhoods, and buildings in rhose
places desuoyed in recent wa6. (Hewiu, 1983: 2?5)

Arguably, humankjnd hss expended almost as much energy, elfort, and

thoughr on rhe atrempted annihilation and killing ofcjries as ir has on rleir
planning, construction, and gmwrh (Bcrman, l996). Such arrempts ar city
annihilarion require purposive work. They necessirate deraited anatvsis.
Ofien, rhey involve sciennfic planning and operaLionat u.r,.gy-rnriring
of a €omplexiry and sophisricarion rhar malches anything ever done to
sustain rhe more familiar acrs of "civil" urban planning (Bauman, 1989).
Ofcourse, these stories are never celebrated. Usudly, thcy are consciously
or unconsciously obscured. Bur dig a lirrle, and ;t is nor uncommon to find
rhc work ofcanographcrs, gcographers, and planners, ofarchitecrs, engin-
e€rs, sociologisrs, anrhrcpologists, psychologists, and staajsticians, running
through thc atrociries and place annihilarions of the twenrierh (and early
lwenty-6rst) centuries like rhe names ofs€asidc resorts that run through the
lamous British holiday candy, "rock."
Take the bombing-based annihilation of cerman and Japanese ciries
by the Allies in World lt(/ar II as an (admittedly extreme) cxamplc.
To "succced" - and the dearhs of over 900,000 Japanese and 600,000
German civilians were secn hcre as a "success', - vasr tcchnoscienrific and
bureaucratic systems were required (Hcwift, 1983, I98?). Thc bombjng
32
necessitated huae workforces and incrediblv complei divisions oflabor' It
relied on the dehumanization of the rcsidents of'targef' cities and the
scientific rationalizadon, and routinization, of the killing process And it
was built on the construction ofa euphemistic language io hide the lerrible
realiry on the ground - a realiiy still rarely exposed to concenlrate instead
on generating hetoic imagery and discourses about the war in the "air"
(Sebald, 2002; Friedrich, 2003; Gran 1997). People lvho were made
homeless in the incendiary and high explosive attacks' for example, werc
described as "dehoused" (Davis, 2002).
When analyzed likc this, th€ totat bombing ofurban Japan and Germanv
actually had many similarhies to the Holocaust, with its much more famil-
iar machinery of spadalized annihilation and industrialized, genocidal
killing (Cole, 2001). In a detailed comparison ofthe two strategies, histor-
ians Markusen and Kopf (1985) have argued that, while it mav be a deeplv
uncomfortable thing to realize (for many in Britain and the USA, at any
rate), rhese similarities a{e so strong that the mass annihilation of cities by
bombing in world V/ar lI must properly be labeled genocidal
'fhis example demonstrat€s powerfully that, in an urbanizing world,
ciries provide much morc than just rhe backdrop afid entitunment fot ',rat
and rerror. Rath€r, their buildings, assets, institutions, industries, and
infrastnctures; their cultural diversities and symbolic meanings; have
lons actuauy r/,,nselues been the cxplicit target for a wide range ofdeliber-
are, orchestrated attacks,
The starting point for this chaptcr at the beginning of the twenty-first
centurv, these attacks against cities together constitute what we actually
think of as "war" and "tenorism." And yet, curiouslv, the purposive and
planned destruction ofu$an places is scarcely mentioned in urban social
research (Bishop and Clancey, this volume). Purposive and planned citv
killing remains cloaked and veiled by powertul cultural' intellectual, and
prcfessional taboos.
In 1983 the geographer Ken Hewitt argued that, from the perspective of
urban social science, the "destruction of chies, as of much else, remains
rcna iacognia" (Hewitt, 1983: 258). While there has been som€ progress
since, the deliberate annihilarion of cities tends stlll to rcfiain tefta incog ita
in urban social science twenty years after Hewitt firsr made this point.
Ceftainty' rhe attempted annihilatior of Verdun, Ypres, Guernica,
Nanking, and Rotterdam; of Coventry, London, Leningrad, Stalingrad,
lvarsaw, Hamburg, and Dresden; of Tengchong, Tokyo' Hiroshima,
Nasasaki Seoui, Phnom Penh, My Lai, Algiers, Beirut, Sarajevo, Jenin,
or Groznly, are only very rarely discussed in urban course books
and textbooks designed for urban planne6, geographers' sociologistq or
architecrs. What Mike Davis (2002) calls rhe "radical contingencv of the
metropolis" is tius being actively and continuallv/r/gotrer.
Hewitt suggested such neglectwas made even more problematic because
Ihe shift to"total war" in the twentieth century meant rhar ciries and their
populations overwhelmingly became th€ dcr,/d1 rararts of war. He noted thar
\ orld \oar II, in panicular, was "warfare that strove towads, if ir did not
always achieve, an end ofthesettl€d historic placesthathavebeen at rhe hearr
ofcivilian life, and an eltermination ofentire communities" (1987: 446).
For this explicit concentration on the killing of chies in mod€m war,
Hewitt coincd the term "place annihiladon." "For a social sciemisr," hc
stresscd that "it is acrually imperative to ask just zrlo dies and zrnor, places
are destroyed by violence" within such wars ofplace annihilation (1987:
464; original emphasis). This is because such strategies are usually far from
indiscriminate. Commonly, they involve a $eat deal of planning, so that
theviolcncc and destruction achieve the desired polirical, social, economic,
ecological, and culNral effects on the 'lalgei' population and their placcs.
All of which means that the division between urban planning geared
towards urban growth and development, and that which focuscs on at-
Iempts at place annihilation or altack, is not always clear. It is certainly
much more fuzzy than urban planners - with their Enlightenment-ringed
self-images of devoting themselves to instilling urban "progr€ss" and
"ordcr" - might want to believe. In fact, it is necessary to assume that a
conljnuum exists connecting acts ofbuildjng and physical restructuring, on
the one hand, and acts ofallout organized war and place ann;hilation on
Such a continuum is complicated, of course, by rhe facr rhar much
planned urban change iturfinvolves warlike levels ofviolence, destabiliza-
tion, rupture, forced c{pulsion, and place annihilation (Berman, 1996).
Panicula.ly within the dizzyins peaks and troughs of capitalisr urbanism,
stateled planning often bo s dowlr to the legirimized clearance of vasr
tracts wirhin citics in thc namc of decay eradication, modemization, im-
provemenl, o.dcringr economic competition, or facilitating technological
change and capital accumulatioo and speculation. As David Harvey argues:
"The economically, politically and socially driven processes of crcative
destructjon tlroueh abandonment and redevelopment are ofren evcry bir
as destructive as arbitray acts of war. Much of contemporary Bahimore,
with its 40,000 abandoned houses, looks like a war zone to dval Sarajevo"
(Harvey,2003:26b).
Mypurpose in this chapteris to illustrate the inseparability ofwar, tenor,
place annihilation, and modern urbanism. I do this by rcvealing a range of
"hidden histories" of what I call the "dark side" of urban modcrnity
the propensity for urban life to be deliberately attacked, destroyed, or
annihilated, both in acrs of organized war and through the bureaucratic
machineries of urban planning and nation-statc regimes. To achieve this
I ofer a serics ofnine illustrative vigneltes or mini case studies.
 r
34
Architectures of Annihilation: The "War Ideology
of the Plan"
In our first vignette, as we have just noted, civilian urban planning, devel
opment, modernizadon, and restructuring often acrually involve levels of
dcvasrarion of cities, ruinarion, and forced resettlemeni that match that
which occurs in alFout war. Even in supposedly democratic societies,
planned urban restructuring often involves autocratic state violence, mas-
sive urban deshuction, the forc€d devastation of livelihoods, and even mass
dearh. These are justified through heroic and mlthologizing discourses
emphasizing modemizatior, hygiene, or progrcss. Invariably, the destruc-
rion that follows is directed against marginalized places and people that sre
discu$ively constructed as backward, unclean, antiquat€d, or thrcat€ning
to the dominanr older. In bolh authorirarian and democratic societies,
ideologies of urban planning have often actually deliberateb) inuoked meta-
phors of war and militadsm ro legirimize violent acts ofplanned transform-
ation (Sandercock, 1998). Anlhony Vidler (2001: 38) calls this "the war
ideology ofthe plan."
Thus, place annitilation can be thought of as a kind of hidden - and
sometimes not so hidden - planning history. The planned devastation and
killing ofciries js a darkside ofthe discipline ofurban planningthat is rarely
acknowledged, let alone analyzed. It is rarely r€alized, for example, that thc
analytical and statistical methods so ofien used in post-world war II
civilian planning have also been used - somciimes by rhe same d€mo-
gaphic, economic, and planning "€xpertJ' - to spatially organize the
apanheid regime in South Africa, maximize the "efiiciency" ofthe system-
atic fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities, orsanize the house-
by-house demolition of'l0arsaw in 1945, set up the giant urban-regional
process of the Holocaust, or stane many Easter European cities and
regions into submission in the mid-1940s. The latter work even involved
rhe founder of Central Place Tbeory, that seminal economic geographer
Walter Christaller star ofany traditional school human geography course.
Following the invasion eastward in 1941, he was employed by the Nazis to
rethink thc cconomic geography of an "Aryanized" Eastern Europe a
process directly linked to the planned starvat;on and forced migration of
millions ofpeople (see Aly and Heim, 2002; Rdssler, 1989; Cole, 2003).
Mcanwhile, mock German and Japanese housing units, completc with
authentic roofing malerials, fumiture, interior dccorations' and clorning,
\,\,erc ercctcd in Nevada to allow the design and chemical makcup of
incendiaries that would later bum Dresden and 'fokyo to be carefully
cusromized for their intcoded targets on a .irl, ,)' cli Dde: (Davis, 2002:
65-84). Thousands of operadon scientjsts and urban statisticians pored
l5
over every urban bomb blast in Japan and Gcrmany in an efforr to improve
Ihe "elficiency" of rhe city killing and urban "d€housing" (Vanderbilr,
2002). To prcdicr the etrects of inccndiary and "A"-bombs on Japanesc
ciries, a "Japanese village" was also constructed - asain in Nevada. This
was complete with all sorts of rcalistic Japanese-style buildings, comcnts,
and infrastructures (Vandcrbilt, 2002; Goodman, 2000).
Th's work goes on and on. Morc reccntly, the US and Isracli miliraries
have coopemted to construd and run a kind ofshadow zrbaz slven ofthc
complere u$an neigbourhood, repletc with "mosques, hanging laund$,
and even the odd donkey meandcring down dusry sree6" (Marsden,2003:
2). These have bcen uscd for ioint milirary exercises to rrain thc marines
and soldiers who invaded Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah, and ]enin (cmham,
rhis volume).
k is also scarccly rcalized that demographers, statisticians, geographe$,
architectq and planners have bccn central to Israel's efrorts to deepen its
control ovff the three dim€nsional spaces of the Occupied Tenirories
0J eizman, this volume). Their analyses and prescriptions have helpcd ro
shape th€ annexing of Palestinian land, rhe construction of walls and
"buffer zones," the mass bulldozing ofhouses and oljve groves, the demo-
dernization of Palestinian cities, thc cthnic cleansjng ofselected areas, the
construction of carefully located Jewish serrlements and access roads, and
the apprcpriation ofwater and airspace (Weizman, craham, rhis volume).
"Planning" and Occupation as War on
the Colonized City
One of the ichicvemcnts of the srcat w.ve of modcrnization ihrr began in rhc
lare eighteenlh ccniury was to incorporare urbi.ide inro the proces! ofurban
dcvelopmenr . . . fts victims, along with thei. neighboihoods and rowns,
vanish wiibour a tracc. (Bcman, 1996: l8l)
In our second illustration, many strat€gies ofoccupation and colonizadon
have also been bascd explicitly on the planned dcstmcrion and devastarion
of cjries. Of course, colonization is esscntialy abour rhc subordination,
annihilation, or cxploitation ofone people's culture, lile world, and placcs
by another. Urban "planning" in many coloniz-ed cities, rhus, often
amounts to littlc but thc planncd devastarion snd bulldozing olindigenous
cities to underpin the strategic and social conrrol ofrhc occupiers or scrtlers
(Said, 2003; Yeoh, 1996; Yifrachel, 1995). H€re thc "orderly" imp;nts
of li/esrern-stylc urban planning and properry larv have long been used as r
form of urban warfare (Blomley, 2001)- At first, rbis rvas done ro quell
local insurgcncies in non-Western, colonized ciries. Laren such mitirarized
36 31

plannins strategies were olten imponed backto the "homeland" to reshape

the grcat imperial capitals for similar purposes (Misselwitz and Wdzman,
2003).
Tellinglyr the first special manual on "urban warfare" was produced in
1847 by the French army to show how troops could ruthlessly put down
insunections in Algiers that were then erupting, lcd by Abdel Kager' This
book, La Guene dcs rues er d"r was authored by the leader of the
'"d$o'rr,
French Forces, Bugeaud (199?). Aftcr a bloody seven-ycar struggle in a
classic "asymmetric" urban war - with 100,000 French trooPs pitched
against 10,0000 local resistance fighrers - Bugeaud simply destroyed entirc
neighborhoods in the dcnse Algiers Casbah. In the process, he €ommitted
many arrociries against civilians and fighters alike and imprinted massive
avenues rhrouah thc city to susiain the suffeillance, movement, and killins
power of the occupying forces. 'fhis broke the resistanc€ (for a time, at
least) (Misselwitz and Weizman, 2003).
In a process that would be paralleled many limes later, these lechniques
wcie then us€d to inform urban planning strategies designed to quell
civil and social unrest in the "homcland," imperial cEnters ofthe colonizing
powe$. Bugeaud's doctrines, for examplc, had a maior influence on
Barcn Haussmann in the 1870s, as he v;olently imprinted a strategy of
massive boulevards and canon-firing arcs on Paris, partly for the sake
of imprcving the stare's strategic comrol ofthe volatile capital (Misselwitz
and Wejzman, 2003). In the process "Haussmann draped a facade of
theatres, cafas, and shops ov€r boulevards laid our for the benefit of the
troops who miaht be called upon ro quell civil disturbance" (Muschamp,
ls95:105).
Thus, the anti-urban rhetoric ofrulins elites tended to seeboth colonized
and "home" cities as morally toxic hotbeds of unrest that needed to be
"regularized" and disciplined through similar, violent, urban restructuring
effofts:

Ifstrategic urban design previously focuscd on stenBthening thc ciry\

peripher.l walls and fortifications to keep oui lhc cnemy, here, since the
enemy was already de?e the city, the city had ro be cotrlrolled from wirhin.
The ciry fabric itself, irs slrects and houses, had to be adapled accordinsly..
Mililary control was exercisedon the drrwing board' accordingto the rules of
design, fashion, and speculative inierests. (Misselwnz aDd vciman, 2001:
272; emphasis added)

There are sometimes st;king continuities berween the control strategies
adopted in colonial and supposedly "postcolonial" ciiies. In an episode Ihat
sadly would be repeated in the same city some 56 years later by the Israclis
(see Graham, this volume), in 1936 the British took 4,200 kilos of €xplo-
sives ro the retugee campinJenin and complctcly leveled a whole quaner
rlr ,ir,,DrD:,,,,rrriui: re tttttt..)votl)t,st rt tt rtt ttt,t)urs
rtrl I,. -,\t 0r':.J t r o r.,r)ti trrr nt6r, fr,. ir:r )r.r t|, !r.' jtj)t1.]
r,t , aaaar,'i .t N, J, ytr tn,ir!r) Dyrr,aj,rD {rt ,.t, }/ lrrir! it 1
of Plate l.l Opcration Anchor: the usc of cxplosives by Brirish lorces
ro cane boulevards through the Palostinian Casbah in Jafa in 1936, ro
improve their strategic control of th€ settlem€nl Source: Misscwitz and
3a 39

rhe town. This was an act of collective punishment for the continuing
resisrance to the British occupation ofPalestine (Corera, 2002)
As plate 1.1 shows, the old Palesdnian Casbah in Jafra was similarlv
heavily remodeled by explosives in the same year during what the British
called Operation Anchor.r This was an attempt by the British occupiers to
reduce rheir vulnerability to snipers in the closely built streets of the old
settlement by forcing an anchor_shaped set of broad boulevards through
the Casbah (Missewitz and Weizman, 2003) Military discourses which
construct cides and buih-up areas as threats to order and conrrol rcmain
ar rhe hean ofsrrategic discoune about cities in our post_Cold War world
(craham, Manin, Weizman, Hills, this volume)
a /4k ,
A
Modehism and Utban War I: Aerial Living as Response
to Aerial War u
The airplane indicts the cnyl Ge Corbusier, 19351 100)
w. t athl*
Our third illustration centen on rhe first of two deep connections that run t1
( ';.,,.9:ul
beMeen modemist urbanism and a€rial bombing. For Ir Corbusier's
famous obsession with looseiy spaced modcm towers set in parkland - hd\
most famously elaborated in his Vi e Radieuse or "Radiant Ciry" was
nor jusr a celebration of lisht, air, and the modern house as a "machine for
living." It was also a reaction to a widespread obsession in 1930s Europe
wirh the need to completely replan cities so rhat they present€d the smallesl
possiblc taryets to the massed ranks ofheaq'bombers then beinglielded bv
thc major powers. Corbusier's row€rs - variants of uhich had hardcned
7AYttY '"a-
"anti-aircraft" bombproofroofs were also designed to lift resid€nts above
expected gas aftacks (Ma*ou, 2002) (sec plate l 2). Plate 1.2 k Corbusier's 1933 Vi c Radieuse dcsigns for apartmenr blocks
l-e Corbusier celebrated the modernism of the aircrsft machine and its lnd ciries, whichminimized the risks ofaerial bombing andgas artack. These
are contrasted with the supposcd vulnerabilities oftradirionat, dense, urban
vertical destructive powcr. "WhaI a gifr to be able lo sow death $ilh('sidstet
bombs
streetscapes (see plate 5.1). Source: Lc Corbusier (1933: 60-t).
upon sleeping towns," he wrore (1935: 8-9). His response to the
apotheosis" of death and desruction herald€d by aerial warfare was the
toml demolition of the old city, and its r€placement by a modern utopia
specifically designed to be "capable of emerging victorious from the air The thcat of attlck lrom rhe an dcmands urban changes. crcar cities
war" (1935: 60 l). sp.awling opcn to rhc sky, rheir congcsred areas ai rhc mcrcy of bombs
I'ost-g/l1 - an event which seemed io und€rline thc exneme ?rrlr€rabilr4r h'rnlins down our ofspacc, are iDvitadons ro destruction. They are practicallv
of skyscrapers - it seems painfully ironic that fie dreams of thar arch indcfcnsible as now corsrirulcd, and ir is now becoming ctcar ftrr fic besr
celcbrator of skyscrapers were, in fact, paftly intended to rel .e the city's means of dcfcnding rhem is by rbe construcdon, on rhc one hand, of ercar
exposure to a€rial annihilatjon. 'I'he famous modernist architectural th€or- vertic.l conccntradons $hich ofe.a minimum surfacc ro rhe bombermd, on
isr Sicgfried Gideon - who was strongly infiuenced by Le Corbusier\ views thc other hrnd, by $e uyins our of cxrensive, Iiee, opcn spi.cs. (cideon,
areued in 1941 that: l94l:541)
 41
40

THI ./.-, SO THr'.T WL CAN REBUILD

.{i$ ifJ \ t, oesrcHeo
THEM WITH A NEW PLAN
ls-' HA1 itt FoR THE swrFr
f
'lS l.-) NL FLow oF MODERN TRAFFTC
.'s FOR THF PLAY OF A L IGHT& IR
"rdy r'r*l5itrS-5t,l?*l
.*'5tl- #+:
--t
-"--T/drrasd-.
a At-( n.kL ) a.
\,^,$!
'*t
Pl^te 1.2 (Co td.)

Modernism and Urban War II: Aerial Bombing as a

"New Chance"
FollowingWorld War Il, as the scale and scope ofplace annjhilation became
clear, preseraationists achiev€d some limited succ€ss in rebuilding parrs
ofsome cities alons old lines. Many ruined buildinss churches especially
were also preser,,,ed as warmemorials. Thc Britishwaranist Kenneth Clark
even argucd "bomb damage irselfis picturesque" Cwoodward, 2001: 212).
Our fourth illustration, however, centers on the way in which dcvout
modcrnists saw the unimaginable devastation as an unparalleled opportun-
ity ro reconstruct entire cities according to the principles of Ir Corbusier
and other modernist architccts. As pan of ihe "brave ncw world" of
postwar reconstruciion, modernist planners and architects seemed in
many {rases to bc almost grateful that the deadly work of the bombers had
laid waste to urban landscapes of traditional, closely built streets and
buildings (Tiratsoo cr a\.' 2o02t Di€fendorf, 1993). For example, onc
pamphlet, published in thc UK by John Mansbridgc during rx/orld War
ll, exprcssed gratirude to rhat modemist icon, the aeroplane (plate 1.3).
Not only had ii "givcn us a new vision," bul the bombing also ofrercd
Britain "a new chance by blasting away tbe centen of ciries." Thus, ir
cominuedJ modernist rcconstruction would now b€ delivered to sustain
"rhe swift flow of modem traffic for lhe play of light and air" (Tiratsoo
et al.,2002).
Meanwhile, in Germany, the closing stages of V/orld \var II saw Third
Reich planncrs preparing to totallydispcrse the city ofHamburg- which had
Plate 1.3 Illusirations lrom John Mansbridgc\ Brnish \gorld War U
I pamphler l]ff' airrer ft',orou, ce]ebrarins both thc modcrnism of aircraft
and rhe "new chance" their bombins oFercd British cities to rebuild atong
modemist lines. Sourc€: Tiratsoo er al. (2002: 5?)
been so devasrated by the fircstorm raids of 19.13 as a test case in the
completc "deurbanization" of Gcrman sociery. When the founder of
rhc Bauhaus, Walter Gropius' rerurned from exile to Germany in 1947,
to advjsc on postwar reconstruction' he argued that the urban dcvastarion
in Germany meant that it was "thc bcst placc Io start breaking up cilies
into homc rowns and to cslablish smali-scalc communities, in \l'hich the
csscmiel importance ofthc individual could be realized" (cited in Kosrof,
1992:261).
'lhus, in a way, the total bombing of Loral war - an enormous acr of
p1o,rr.r/urban dcvasration in jts own right s€rved as a mnssive ac€elerator
ofmodemjst urban planning, architecture, and urbanism. 'Ihe rdltlll /drd
iharevery devoted nodcmist craved suddenlybecame the norm ratherthan
thc cxccprion, particularly in postwar Europe andJapan. As a result,lo use
rhewords of Kcn H€witt (1983: 278), "the ghosls ofthe architects ofurban
bombins - (Guilo) Douhet, (Billy) Mitchcll, (Sir Huch) 'l'renchard, (Fred-
crick) Lindemann and thc praxis ofairmen like ("Bomber") Harris and
(Curris) LcMry, slill stalk thc strccts ofour cities."
42
Cold War Urban Geopolitics
In our fifth illustration, Cold War cities were often deliberately remodeled as
a funcrion ofthe perception that thcy r€sted at thc center ofthe nuclearcross
hairs. As Matthelv Farish (2003, this volume) shows' rhe familiar story of
deconcentration and sprawl in postwar US cities was not just fueled by
federal subsidies, the Interstate highway program, and "white night." It
was also acrively encouraSed by milirary stntegists in ordcr to reduce the
United Srates' srrategic vulnerabiliry ro a massive firsr nuclcar strike by the
Soviet Union.
As well as bunowing underground (Mccamley, 1998; Vandcrbilt,
2002), massive efrons werc made to make cities sprawl. ln the United
States, espccially, vast new suburban tracts werc proiected as domesticared
citadels, populared by p€rfect "nuclear" families ljving thc "Amcrican
dream," yet also shaped ro be resilient in the face of atomic Armagcddon
(Zadengo, 1999j McEnrney,2000). Core citics, msnwhile, were widely
ponrayed by popular mcdia and planners as inherently risky and unsafe -
a politics offear that mixed tagically with rhc wider racialization ofurban
ccnrraliry in postwar America and tunher tueled centml cny dccline
(Galison, 2001i Fa.ish, rhis volume).
At thc same time, huge research and development cities - "gunbelt"
urban complexes such as Cambridge (Ma.), Palo Alto, and Novosibirsk -
were established to furnish rhe technoscience of Armascddon ro rhc mili-
tary in ever increasing doscs (Casrells, lqSg; Markusen et al., l99lj Hook-
way, l99s). In addition, city-sized complexes and bases were established
around the world to sustain the global reach ofthc superpowers'naval, air,
and land forces. Some, such as Guantenamo bay, in Cuba, would larer
become nororious as cxtra-teritorial camps uscd in the prosecution of
posr-Cold War srrarcgy (in thi$ case with thc incarceration of alleged
'tcrrorists" beyond thc reach of domcstic and international human rights
law) (see An Architektur, 2003).
Planning as "Urbicide"r Postwar Urban "Renewal" and
the Military-Industrial Complex in the USA
Buildins, by irs vcrv naMe, n an asFessive, even waFlike .ct. (r,Jvoods,
1995: 50)
A sixrh illustration is the critical influence of such quasi-mihary urban
planning on the hugc ctron ar urban "rcncwal" in thc postwst United
States. One of it's arch proponents, Robert Moses - who was mayo. of
New York City for much of this pcriod belicv€d thal, in modernizing New
41
York, "when you operatc in an overbuilt metropolis you havc to hack your
way rhrough with a meat ax" (quoBd in Berman, 1982: 307)
Following the forccd displacemcnt of 50J000 people bcforc a hjghway
was caFcd through $e Bronx, for cxample, Moseshelped sct in uain a war-
likc proccss of disintegration. By the 1970s this "had becomc spectacular'
devouring housc after housc and block aftcr block, driving hundrcds of
thousands of people from their homes" (Berman, 1996: 172). Marshal
Bcrman argucs thc scalc of devastation in such programs - if not the
human iivcs krst - means that Ihc llronx nceds to be sccn in thc same
light as the all-out or gucrrilla wars of Berlin, Belfast, and Bcirut. Along
wiih scveral othcl authots - as we shall see in Part Il ofthis book he even
invokes $e word "u$icidc" - or'1hc murder ofthe city" - to describc all
rhcse, and many othcr cascs (1996: 175).
Robert Goodman, in his book Aficr the Pla,t,':,ts (1972>, argued that a
Us-widc drivc for such "urban rencwal" actually amountcd to littlc morc
rhcn an exercisc in racist (anti-black) statc violcnce on . par with lhe
gcnocidal attacks on the indigenous Nonh Amcricans that drove thcm to
thc cdge ofexdnction (scc lrortcous and Smith,200l: ch.4).
Importandy, major military rcscarch and development bodics like
RAND, STC, and MITRE had major inputs into the staristical annlvses,
opcrarions rescarch stratcgies, and "rational" planning doctrines that
fuclcd the hugc scale of Cold \X/ar "urban rcncwal" and comprchcnsive
rcdevelopment in r}le US (Light, 2002) Thus, in many cases, thc "sci
cnccs" of urban and military stratcgy became exrremelv bluncd and intcr-
wovcn during rhis period. on thc one hand, city governments pledged
"war" against thc "urban crisis" (scc Farish, this volumc) On the other,
rhc military-industrial complex sought to sain finance and power bv re-
shaping civil strategic spaces in citics (Beaurcgard, 2003). fhe rcsuh was
!har, "by 1970, the military industrial complcx had successfullv donc what
ir had set out to do ar thc stan of thc decade - expand its markct to citv
planning and managcmenf' (Ljghr, 2002).
Alrhousl it is rarely discusscd, such plannins based urbicidc is still
cxtremely widcsprcad around the world. For cxample, €ountlcss informal
scttlcmcnts continue to be bulldozed around the planct in thc namc
of modernization, lrceway consuuction, economic devclopment' "hy-
gicne," and the improvcm€nt of ! cily's imrgc (scc, lor cxamplc, I'atel,
D'Cruz, and Burra, 2002). In addhion, in these dmcs of neolibcral
finance-led catitalism, statc_sponsorcd urban 'rrcgeneration" is incrcasingly
orchesrrating the annihilation ofwholc disfficts of lhe poorer pans ofcitics
'l his is bcing done to engineerrast edificesofconstruction in order to sustain
rhc hlper-profits for Iinancial industries that come rhrough rcal_cstatc
spcculaiion;ro allo!vurban "mega projects" t(r bc constructcdiand tocnable
spaccs to be clcared for scntrificd up-markct housing. London Docklands

44
is an extreme and famous examPler but thcre are countless others (Harvey,
2003b).
Urban Ruination and the Polilics of "Unbuilding"
It is crucial to stress in our seventh illustration that, afier decades of
u$an crises of various sorts, and an entrenchment of global, neoliberal
restructuring, the discipline of urban planning is now confronting '.the
mdical contingcncy of the metropolis" in many guises and many places
The capitalist and posFsocialist worlds are littered wifi shrinking citics,
rotting, utopian urban landscapes, and failing infrastructures Many of
these now rcsemble dystopian sites ofethnic connict, economic and social
collapse, financial mcltdown, and physical decav (Ohlquiaga, 1995;
Buck-Morss, 2OO0; Humphrey, 2003).
In that paradigmatically modern city, I)etroil, for example, much urban
planning docirine and €ffort now centcrs on "unbuilding" ratherthan build-
ing (Daskalakis, Waldheim, and Tound, 2001) As in manv olher US core
cities, oid industrial European cities, and Asian and Latin American mega-
ciries confronting recent financial collapse, the challenge here is not to
"plan" for growrh, prospcrity, and modernization (see, for example, \filson'
2OO3). Rather, it is to try to ovcrcome obsolescent suuctureq abandoned
neigbborhoods, half-built orhalf-ruined cityscapes, decaved infrastructures,
and warlike levels of gans, cthnic, and drug-relared violence and arson
(Vergara, 1997, 1999; Roldin,2003; Mullings,2003) Suchl
enclavcs of disinvestment revcsc normal codcs of convolled delelopmcnlj
they are pockets offree-fall urban implosion, panakins of a fren2ied violen
ce . . . murched only by lhe balf-machine cvborgs of the Rorocop science ficI n
movies. Here rbe police plcad for their own auromatic weapons' plcading to
bc outgu.ncd by Ieenage gangs (Shanc, 1995: 65)
A Geopolitics ofUtban Decay and Cybernetic
Ptay: Urban Annihilation, Entertainment' and
Military Strategv
\ghich brings us, penultimately, to the argument that thc ncglecr of place
,nnihilation in urban social scicnce has also left the connections between
roday's cities and the obsession with ruined, post apocalvptic urban land
scapes in contemporary popular cDhure larselv unexplored
'fhis is imporF
ant because cities are unmad€ and annihitaled d!s.r^rl'eb aswell as through
bombs, planes, mjssiles, bulldozers, plans' and terro st acts.
45
As suites of electronic media become evermorc dominant in mediating
rhe tenor ofurban culturc, so fie d€pictions ofciries offered thrcugh thcm
crucially affcct collective notions of what cities and urban lifc actullv are,
or whar rhey might actually become. lncreasingly, in tlese times of elec-
rroni€, postmodern cullure, cities arewidely depicted in films, novels, video
games, and Internet sites as places of ruination, fear, and decay, rathcr than
development, order, and "progess " Crucially' this m€ans that the millen-
nia-old "link between civilization and barbarism is reversed: citv life rurns
into a stare of nature characlerized by the rule of terror, accompanied by
omniprescnt fear" (Diken and Laustsen, 2002: 291)
Aslongagoasthemid-t960s,SusanSontagobservedthatmostsci-fi fiims,
for example, emphasized an "aesthetic ofdcstruction' the pcculiar beautics to
be lound in wreaking havoc, making a mess" (1966: 213). More recentlv, in
ananalysis of cybcrpunk scicnce fiction, Claire Sponster diagtosed what she
called a prevailing "geopolitics ofurban decay and cvbemetic ptav" (1992:
253). She as particularlystruckby rhe prevailing landscapcs in thatgenre of
"blightcd, rubble-strervn, brcken'down cilyspaces" withtheir "vasiterrains
ofdecay, bleakness, and the d€tritus ofcivilization."
Even popular urban simulation games like SimCitv'"' - which are often
used to train urban planncrs in universitics offer introductions and guidcs
which emphasize the godlike propensities of plavers to first indulge in
orgies of (virtual) ciry killing. on€ readsi "kt's start ofr bv destroving
'lokyo! Srudies sho\t thar ninc out often [virtual cilv] 'mavors' begin
lheir careers with a frenzy ofdestruction . Simply point aI the disasler of
you choice and push B to activate it" (see Blcecker, 1994).
Added to this, a swathc of recent post-apocalyptic films has so shaped the
collective culture of urbanism tha. the stock response to the 9/ll catas_
trophe is "it was iusr like a scene in a moviel" \X4rile thc output of such
fi]ms paused alter 9/l l, thcy w€ft soon back in tull flow (Maher, 2002)
Mike Davis has argled the q/l1 atlacksl
w{c ors.Dizcd as epic ho..or cinema sirh meticulous aitcntbd to thc ,'4.
dr{.irc. The hiiacked plaDes wcrc aimcd preckclv ar the vuln$ablc bode.
beNeen fant.sy and reality .-lhousands of pcople lvho rurned on thei.
relevisions on 9/l I were convinced that thc camclvsm was iust a broadcast,
hour. I hcy thoughi they were watching tushes from the latest Brucc \(/illis
a
film...The "Attack on Americi," and its \eq!eh, "Amcrica FiShts Back"
and "Amedca Freaks Out," have conlinucd to unspool as a succession of
ceuuloid hauucinnrions, each ofsbich can be renred ftom thevidco shop: ft,
Si.pc, htdcpdldd@ Du!, Lt&tti!. Aelion, o bteak' The Stri ol All Fcan t*i
'
so on. (Davis, 2002: 5)
Indccd, Ihe links between virtual, lilmic' and televisua' rcpresenrations of
ciry killing and aclual urban war arc bccoming so bluncd that thev ar€

almost indistinsuishable. On thc one hand, ai least among US forccs' the
military targeiing ofcities is, aI least in pan, being r€modeled as a "ioy stick
war." This operales through "vifiual" simularions, computerizcd killing
systems, and a growing distanciation of the operator from the sites of the
killing and the killed. In the process, the realities ofurban war - at leasl for
some start to blur seamless)y with the wider culturcs ofsci-fi, film, video
games, and popular entenainment (Thussu and Freedman, 2003).
Take, for cxnmple, the unmanned low-altitude "Predator" aircraft that
are already bcing used for extra-iudicial assassinarions of alleged lerrorists
(and whoever harlpens to be close by) in the Yemen, Afghanistan, and Iraq,
"piloted" from a vinual reality "cave" in a Florida airbasc 8-10,000 milcs
away. For the US military pcrsonnel doing the piloting, dis "vi ual" work
is almost indisringuishable from a "shootrem-up" video game (eJ{cept that
the p€ople who die are real)- "AI rhe end of the work dav"' one Predator
operator rec€ntly boasred during Gulf\0ar lI, "vou walk back into the rest
of life in Amcrica" (quotcd in Newman, 2001)
On thc other hand, as war js incrcasingly consumed by a vovcuristic
public, so digital teclmologies, in tum, bring the vicarious thrills of urban
war direct to the homes ofthrill-hungry consumers ln thc 2003Iraq warr
lbr example' US newspaper and media wcbsites ofrercd a wide mnge of
verticalJ saieltite image-based maps ofrhe city as little morc than an array of
targels, to be deslroycd from lhe air' As Derek Grcgory describcs:
'Ihe N.@ YdrA lrr.r
protidcd a daily sateUiie map of llaghdad as a ciiv of
targcts. On thc rvcb, ?ddr,'s inreractive map of"Downrown Blghdad"
U.Sl,4
invired its uscB: "Gel a sateuirc-cye view oi Baghdad Staregic sites and
bombing ta.geb are marked, but you can click on .nv quadmnt for . close
up."Thc sitc aho includcd images of targets "before" and "afteC'airstrikcs
'fhe Wali slo Part\ interactives invitcd the !iew$ to 'toll ov$
numbcG to sce wbat talgets were hit on ilhich davi click to rcad more
.bour the tarscrs. (Gregory, 2004b: 29)
In a perverse twisl, corlorate media and entertainmenr industries
increasingly providc both computcr games and films which virtuallv simu-
latc recent urban wars to mass participantsi drd the virtual and physical
simulations of cities fiat US forces use to hon€ their wafare skills for
fighting in Kabul, Baghdad, or Freetown. The actual prosecution of lvars
is merging more and more with electroni€ entenainment industries "The
US military is preparing for wars that will be fought in thc same manncr as
they are clectronically represented, on rcal time neiworks and by live fced
videos, on the PC and the'IV acNally and virtuallv" (Der Derian' 2002:
6l). The "mihary now mobilizes sciencc ficdon writeis and other futur-
olosisrs to plan for the lvars of tomonow iust as thev consciously recruit
47
video same playing adolescents to fight the same conflict" (Gray, 199?:
190). As Henry JenkiN (2003) argues, "in a world bcing tom apart bv
intcrnational conflict, onc thing is on everyone\ mind as they finish watch-
ins the nighrly news: "Man, this would make a great gamel"'
To exploit this markel, thc world's media conglomerales now concen_
rraLe vast rcsources on repeating virlualiTed urban kiliing for consumers'
On rhe verv night that US bombers and missiles lirst raincd their destruc-
iion on Baghdad, Sony tradcmarked thc phrase '\hock and awc" wilh the
idea ofusing it as title for a sincc-abandoned computer game.
Nor ro be out done. the US Armv, now the \i'orld\ largest vid€o game
developer, spcnt $8 million in 2002 on producing Anerha's Annv - a
deliberatc aid to recruitmcnt 'fhis is a "Net bascd soldier-simulalion
girmc rhat was, by 2003, amongst the 5 most popular online videogames
in thc world with 2 million registered users ('hrsc' 2003). Mcanwhile, the
AImy has also had a majot ro]l in r"u Spccttu'., V/at&/e - an urban combat
training gamc produced in 2004 for Microsoft's X-Box svstem in partncr-
ship with Paramount Pictures and Hollwoodt Instilutc for Creativc'fech-
nolosies (lCT). Launched as a commercial urban warfare game' this offcrt
sranlingly realistic virturl reality rcndilions complete with demoric "rogue
states," "terrorisl lcaders," mythical Middl€ Eastcrn urban battle spaccs
("Zekistan"), and stressful urban warfare simulations where those volun-
teering 1() "fighl for fre€dom" face dcvious, undcrhand barbarians who
js rc
exploit thc cily for their own ends (Turse, 2003). "'lhe mission
drughter evifdoers, with something aboul 'libcnv' . going on in the back-
eround ...Zekisran conforms to trailcr-park porccpdons in bcing some
Afghanistan/lran/lraq composite" (O'Hagan, 2004r I 2)
T,r c]<xc tlrc cvcle cvcn more disturbinglv, actual weapons svstems - for
cxample, thc Dragon Runner remote-control trban warlare vehicle - are
dre bejng designcd to mimic the conrrols of Sony Plavstations so thai new
recruirs can quickly makc ihe transition from simulated to real combat'
The result ofall this is a "media cuhurc thoroughlv capable ofprcparing
children for armed combat" (Turs€, 2003). Jancs Der Derian (2001)
coined rhc term "military industial mcdia entcrtainment netlvork" to
capture thc decpenins and incrcasinglv insidious lonnecdons bctwcen the
lirary, delcnsc industrics, popular cuhurc' and electronic entertainmcnt
llerc, huge sofiwarc simulations arc cons[ucted to recreatc any possiblc
urban warfarc scenado, complete with vasr forccs, casuaities, thc gaze of
rhe media, and three .timensional, real-tilnc participation bv thousands'
Hollwood spccialists ofconputer gcncr:rled films provide extra "rcalism"
in Lhcse simulationsi thcir themc park designers, meanwhilc, help in the
consrruction of thc "real" urban warfarc training citics that are dotted
across L\e world. Maior "invasions" such as the Urban Warrior exercise
inMarch 1999 are cv€n undertakcn on majorUS ciries from air,land, and
48

and consumption habits in rhe weatthy citjcs ofthe global North impact on
to firnher improve training both for foreign incursions and the control
security, tcrror, and urbanizing war elsewhere (k Billon, 2001) A powcr-
sea
of major domestic urban unrest. Civilians are employed in these exercises
firL example of these important but poorly researched connections is lhe
to play varjous pans (Willjs, 2003) Such mock invasions have even bcen
growins fashion for large four-wheel drivc Sports Utilitv Vehicles (Stlvs) in
proposed as local economic d€velopment initiatives for decliningcily cores
Westem - panicularly US - cides
Finally, we must also remember that the US militarv are deepenins their
Givcn the vcry high degrec ofinfluence ofmaiorUS oil companies on the
connections with corpomte neivs media, so that the "information warfare"
tsush regime, thcre is growing evidence ofdircct conncctions between the
side of their operations (i.e., propaganda) can be more successtul Just as
incrcasingly profligate use of oil in sprawling US cityscapes, thc geopolitical
Al-Qaeda timed the second plane's impact on 9/l I so that the world's news
remodeling of US dcfense forces, and the so-called war on terror through
media could beam it livc to billions ofastonished onlookers, so the "Shock
which the US governmeni is achieving a high level ofgeopolitical conuol of
and Awe" strategy at the stan of the US bombing of Baghdad was a
thc world\ largest untapped oil reseffes in and around the Caspian Basin
carefully orchestrated media spectacle. (The world's TV iournalists were (Kleveman, 2003; see plar€ 1 .4). 9/ l l has thus b€en ruthlesslv exploited ln
lined up in a maior hotel, a short but safe distance away from the carcfully
psnicular, the altacks provided the "catastrophic and catalyzing evenC'that
selecred - and largely empty buildings thar were pinpoirted for GPS-
was identified by the influential 2000 report Ptoject Jot a Nelr Aneica'|
based destruction-) As a psychologist comments, both €vents were "meant
Ce,rixD' who's authors included Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfolvitz
ro be right before our eyes" (ciled in Konstantin and Homig, 2001: 126)
as necessary to allow the US to jusriir thc invasion of lraq with anv hope
Thus, both forma) and infomal attacks sgainst cides emerge as "rhizo-
oflegitimacy (Ha ey,2003a: l5).
maric," intemationally networked op€rations orchestrated hcavily with
Vhji€ thc US stratesy is not necessarilv about directlv controllins
elobal, media reprcsentalion in mind (see Delcuze and Guatarri, 1S87) Caspian Basin and Iraqi oil resourccs 2€r sr, thcre is litde doubt that "it is
Both Al-Qaeda and the US military are transnational organizations con-
about cnsuring that whoever controls it buvs and sells it in US doilars
cemed both with symbolic effecls and fie rcal devastation of local sites
through the New York commodities markcf'that lies a fewhundred mclers
(Zizek,2003). "This war takcs place in the invisible space of the tenor
fiom "ground zcro" in downtown Manhattan (Halcvi and Varoufakis,
imasinary of the US (attacks on buildings and govemmentr g€rm infection,
2003: 66). There is also littl€ doubt that a kcv obiective of rhe US attack
erc.) and in the visibly impoverish€d landscape ofAfghanistan" (Aretxaga'
on lraq was to install a Us-fiiendly oil producing regime therc thal would
2OO3:144).
eventually displace lhe Saudis as the main "swing producer," so allowing
James Lukaszewiski, a US public relations counselor who advises the US
the United States to regulate the intcrnational price ofoil in place ofOPEC
military, admhs that the linksbetween terrorist organizations and the global
(Gresory, 20o4bj Harvex 2003ai Vidal, 2002: l9).
media can be equally insidious:
Threc key points arc crucial here First, SUVS were carefullv fashioned
and marketed afrer the first Gulf War as quasi-mililarized "urban assault
Media coverage and terorism are soul mates - lirtuallv inseparable Thev
lecd off each other. They together create a dance of death the one for luxury vehicles" (Rampion and Stauber, 2003). Cloraire Rapaille, a psv-
polnicll or ideological rnoti'es, the orher for commercial success. Terorist chological consuftant to major US SUV manufacturcrs, revcals that his
activiries are high proiile, ratings-buildin8 evcnls. The news media nced ro research suggcsts *rat Amcricans want "aggressive card' that can be
prolong these stories because they build vieweship and readersbip. (Cned in rhousht ofas "weapons" or "armored cars for rhe battlefield " To achieve
Rampton and Staubcr, 2001: 134) market share and profitabilitv he argues that the dcsign and marketing of
such vehicles with thcir names like "Stealth"' "Defender"' and "\yar-
dor"- needs to tap into, and address, consumers'fcars about thc risks and
Horneland/Globe: war' "Security," and the Global
dangers inhcrent in contemporary urban lile (cited in Rampton and Stau-
Geopolitics of Production and Consumption ber, 2003: 138). Dcpicdons of such vehicles in adverts thus tum the
discourses of postmodern war into discussions about urban everyday lifc
Every gcneration has a iaboo and ours is ihis: Ihti the resou.ces upon which
our lives have been buiLr are running out. (Monbiot, 2003) "lust trv blending jnl" yells the UK ad for the Jecp Grand Chcrokee
"siealrh Umited Ediiion," released in 2003.
A finalvienette on the ins€parability of conremporary war, terror, and Posi-g/Il, then, it is now clear that advertisers have been dcliberatelv
urbanism centers on the ways in which the reconstruction of landscapes exploiring widcspread fears of catastrophic terrorism to turth$ increase
50
sales of hishly profitable SUVS- Rapaille himself has recently been urging
the main auto manufacturers to address the fact lhat 'the Homeland is at
war" by appealing to buycrs' most primitive emoiions (Rampton and
Stauber, 2003: 139).
Plate 1.4 Satirical World War ll-sryl€ posrer by Micah Ian \gighr srress
ing the links between SUVS, the Uniled Stales' profligate ojl consumprion,
and the auacks by US forces in rhe Middle East after 2002 as part of the
war on rerror. Source; \Yr'.ight (2003: 96).
5l
Second, the SUV is being enrolled into urban everyday life as a dcfcnsive
capsuleor "portable civilization" a signifier of safery rhar, likc rhe sared
communities into which they so oftcn d.ive, is ponrayed in advertisemenrs
as bcing immune to thc risky and unpredicrable urban lifc "ourside"
(Garncr, 2000). Such vehicics secm to assuage rhe lear 1hst the urban
middlc classcs feel when moving - or queuing in trafiic in theb "home-
land" city.
Subliminal proccsses of urban and cultural militarization arc soins
on here. This was most powerfully illustrated by the transformarion of
the US Army's "Humvcc" assault vehicle into the civilian "Hummer"
SUV iust afrer the first Iraq war an idea that came from rbe 7;miraror
film star (and now Califomia govemor) Amold Schwarzenegser
(who promptly rcccived tlc first one off rhe producrion line). During
thc 2003 Iraq invasion, organizations of US Hummcr drivers mobilizcd
publicity campaigns to proiect their vehiclcs as parriotic symbols. "\vlen
I turn on the TV," gush€d one owner, Sam Berstein, "I see wall-ro-wall
Humvees, and I'm proud. -lhe IUS soldiers are] not out thcre in Audi
4x4J' (cited in Clark, 2004: l2). Andrew Garner writes ihat:
For ihc middlc cldsses, the SUV; intcrpr.red cuhurally rs srrons and invin-
ciblc, yci civilizcd. In lhc case oI thc middle-class alieDarion from rhe inner
city, the SLry is an urban assauh vehicle. The drivcr is rronsformed inro a
tooperJ combating an inc.casingly dangeroDs world. -fhis scnsc of securiry
felt when driving rhe SUV coniinucs when it is nor bcing drjven. The SUV'S
synboh of srength, power, command, l]nd sccuriry become an imporlant
part ofrhc self*ign... With the jdenrification ofenemies within our borders,
thisvchiclchas bccomc a way of protccting members ofthc middle cla$ from
ant d:r.!r to rhci.lifcsiylc. (Crrncr,2000: 6)
Third, the fact that SUVS account for over 25 percent ofUS car sales has
vcry rcal impacrs on the global geopolitics of oil. Wjrh thcir consumption
ratcs of doublc or triplc that of normal cars, rhis highly tucrarive sccror
clcariy adds dirccdy to thc powcr ofthe neoconservativc and cx-oil e)tecu-
tive "hawks" in thc Bush regime- This is especially so as they have oper
aiionalized thcir pcrpctual war on terror in ways rhar arc hclping rhe USA
io sccure access to the huge, iow-priccd oil reserves rhar it nceds ro fuel irs
ever-gro{'ing level ofconsumprion. (In 2003 this stood at 25.5 pcrcent of
global o;l consumptjon to slrstain a country wjrh less than 5 pcrcenr ofrhe
world's population.)
Clearly, then, the prolligatc oil consumprion and milirarized drsign of
SuVs '1akes on additional signifi€ance in the light ofrhe role rhat depcnd-
ency on forcisn oil has played jn shaping US r€larions wirh countries in rire
Middle Easr" (Rampton and Stauber, 2003: t39).
52

modern urbanism must be undermincd Second, the "hidden"' militarized

"The cconomic, cultural and military infras.ructure that undergrids US
hisrodes ofmodern urban planning and u$an state tcrror nust be excav-
Middle East policy will not be so easily undone," writes Tim Watson. "And
ared and rclentlessly exposed. Third, the characteristics ofcily spaces that
wiihout its wholesale rcform or dismantling, Islamic terrorists v''ill not so
easily disappear" (2003: I l0) . As with the cosmopolian narionalities of the
make rhem the choices p errce e ce of those seekins to commh terorist
acrs require dctailed analysis. Fourth, the transnational connections be_
dead, th€n, so the events of 9/l I, in their own way, reflect and svmbolize
iween the gcopolitics of war and thc political economics of producrion'
the deep connections between urban everyday life and cirv form and the
consumptionJ technology, and rhe media requirc rigorous theorization and
violencc spawned by geopolitical conflict and neo-imperial aggression
analysis. Finally, the usually hidden worlds of "shadow" urban rcsearch,
watson \rrites thar he has been haunted since 9/ll by images of r}le
rhrough which thc world's military perceive, reconstuct, 3nd target urban
hundreds of vehicles abandoned, nev€r to be recovered, at rail stations by
spacesj musl be actively uncovcrcd. As a starting point, readers will
commulels to the twin towers in the states of New York, Connecticut, and
find that each of tlese five challenges is taken up exlensivelv in the rest of
N€w Jersey. For him, "these symbols ofmobilitv" became instead "images
rhis book.
of immobility and death. But these forlom, expensive cars and SUVS also
represent a nodal point betwecn the Us-domestic economy and a global oil
market in which Saudi, Kuwaiti, and haqi production is still so important" Note
(Watson, 2003: 110-l l).
I As ir has been absorbed into the Is.leli mcffopolis of Tel Aviv sincc 1948, thc
old ciry ofJatra has, in turn, bce. tuftlesly cmptied, ruscttled, rcshaped, and
Conclusion: Looking at Ruins sltippcd of irs original I'alestinian cuhural meaning as part of Israeli slarc-
building Gee Rotbard, 2003b).
'fhe ruins arcpaintul to look at, but w')i hun more in the long run ifwc trv nol
ro see. (Beman, 1996r 185)

To conclude, it is strikingly cl€ar that ignoring attempts to deny, des[oy, or

annihilate ciries' or the "dark" side of u$an modemitv which links cities
intimately to organized, political violence, is no longertenablc forurbanists
orurban research€rs.In this posFg/ll and post-war on terror world, urban
researchers and social scientists like everyone else - are forced to besin to
confronl rheir taboos abour attempted city killing, place annihilation, and
urbicide. Intemational rclations theorists, similarlyJ are forced fo. the first
time to consider u$an and subnational spaces as crucial geopolitical sites.
As a rcsult, research€rs in both traditions are now starting to colonize,
and focus on, the spaces and praclices tlai emerge at rhe intenections of
urbanism, terrorism, and warfare. As the rest of fiis book demonstrates,
there is a growing acknowledgment that violent catastrophe, craftcd by
humans, is pan and parcel of modem urban life. A much needed, specific-
ally r/rd, seopolitics is thus slowly emerging.
As an exploratory synthesiq ihis chapter has developed a panicularly
broad pe$pective on thc ways in which the purposive destnrction
and annihilation of citics in war, planning, and vinual play is utterly
inter'woven with urban modemity. As the gaze ofurban social science starts
to fall once again on the purposive ruination and annihilation ofplace, so
this synthesis undedines five related challenees First, the rescarch and
professional taboos that cloak the geopolidcal and stratcFc aspects of