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In this commentary on Beveridge and Koch's 'Seeing Democracy Like a City', I draw their stimulating ideas into dialogue with Sydney's green ban movement – a remarkable enactment of urban democracy from 50 years ago whose legacy remains enshrined in the built fabric and in the political imaginary of my city. This dialogue is used to offer some reflections on elements of their argument concerning the role of institutions in urban democratic theory and practice, the historicity of the association between the urban and democracy, and the place of equality in democratic forms of organisation and self-governance.

AbstractIn many cities around the world we are presently witnessing the growth of, and interest in, a range of micro‐spatial urban practices that are reshaping urban spaces. These practices include actions such as: guerrilla and community gardening; housing and retail cooperatives; flash mobbing and other shock tactics; social economies and bartering schemes; 'empty spaces' movements to occupy abandoned buildings for a range of purposes; subcultural practices like graffiti/street art, skateboarding and parkour; and more. This article asks: to what extent do such practices constitute a new form of urban politics that might give birth to a more just and democratic city? In answering this question, the article considers these so‐called 'do‐it‐yourself urbanisms' from the perspective of the 'right to the city'. After critically assessing that concept, the article argues that in order for do‐it‐yourself urbanist practices to generate a wider politics of the city through the appropriation of urban space, they also need to assert new forms of authority in the city based on the equality of urban inhabitants. This claim is illustrated through an analysis of the do‐it‐yourself practices of Sydney‐based activist collective BUGA UP and the New York and Madrid Street Advertising Takeovers.

AbstractFrequently, efforts to establish the city's significance for the public sphere frame the city in opposition to the media. The city is imagined as a space of unmediated and co‐present publicness, while the media is imagined as a space of mediated and distantiated publicness. This essay argues against such an opposition. In place of it, the essay outlines an approach to the urban dimensions of public address which emphasizes the interaction of urban and media spaces and the mobility of public address. This approach is illustrated through a brief consideration of contestation over the governance of urban space in Sydney during the 2007 APEC Meeting.Résumé Les tentatives visant à déterminer l'importance de la ville dans la sphère publique conçoivent souvent la ville en opposition aux médias. La ville est imaginée comme un espace dont la nature publique est proche et non médiatisée, tandis que les médias sont imaginés en tant qu'espace dont la nature publique est distante et médiatisée. L'argument de l'auteur combat cette opposition. Il présente une approche des dimensions urbaines de la communication publique qui met en évidence l'interaction des espaces urbains et médiatisés ainsi que la mobilité de la communication publique. Cette approche est illustrée par une courte étude de la contestation soulevée par la gouvernance de l'espace urbain à Sydney lors du Sommet de l'APEC en 2007.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- Diversity and the 'communicative turn' in planning -- Just diversity and the 'right to the city': redistribution, recognition and encounter as three social logics of urban planning -- Conceptualizing the state -- The rest of the book -- 2. Conceptualizing redistribution in planning -- Redistributive planning -- Important concepts: locational (dis)advantage and accessibility -- Decision rules and discourses: ways of crafting a just diversity through redistribution -- Conclusion -- 3. Planning for redistribution in practice -- Redistribution: urban renewal -- Redistribution and recognition: local child care planning for working women -- Redistribution and encounter: deinstitutionalization of people with a mental illness -- Conclusion -- 4. Conceptualizing recognition in planning -- Planning and the politics of difference -- Important concepts: affirmative and relational models of recognition -- Decision rules and discourses: ways of crafting a just diversity through recognition -- Conclusion -- 5. Planning for recognition in practice -- Recognition: planning for child friendly cities -- Recognition and redistribution: planning for immigrants -- Recognition and encounter: contesting hetero-normativity through planning -- Conclusion -- 6. Conceptualizing encounter in planning -- Planning for disorder? -- Important concepts: the stranger and conviviality -- Decision rules and discourses: ways of crafting a just diversity through encounter -- Conclusion -- 7. Planning for encounter in practice -- Encounter: street festivals -- Encounter and redistribution: public libraries -- Encounter and recognition: drop-in centres and community centres -- Conclusion -- 8. Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.

Contests over 'public space' have come to assume increasing centrality in deliberations over urban policy in post-industrial nations such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This innovative, single-authored book addresses the relationship between publicness and the city, considering how the production, management and regulation of 'public spaces' have emerged as a problem for urban politics and urban theory. Drawing on original, empirical research, this book presents a series of detailed case studies that explores the struggle for space in different forms of publicness, from political protesters seeking to use the grounds around Parliament House in Canberra, to young people hanging out on the streets of inner city Perth and writing graffiti in Sydney. "Publics and the City" is a timely and critical examination of the relationship between urbanism, publicness, and democracy

AbstractThis article contributes to ongoing discussions about the practice of prefigurative politics by urban social movements, and the relationship between prefiguration and other political practices. We argue that urban social movements can deploy prefigurative power in combination with other political strategies with which it is often contrasted and opposed. To demonstrate, we explore Cape Town's Reclaim the City movement that occupied several inner‐city buildings to create affordable housing for low‐wage Black communities—prefiguring the kind of affordable housing that they were demanding. They developed this strategy iteratively after having tried to play by the rules through litigation and mobilize through protest. When those approaches failed to shift decision makers, they tried to prefigure their goal for housing through occupation. Prefiguration offered distinctive strategic advantages: it helped demonstrate that affordable housing was possible and provided direct relief for people facing housing stress. These advantages not only engaged new participants but contributed to new affordable housing commitments from the City of Cape Town and the courts. We show how movement participants understood their prefigurative occupation as part of a constellation of people power strategies and suggest that this points towards the potential for prefiguration to be deployed pragmatically as well as ideologically by urban social movements.