Red Plan: The Image of the City in the Age of Late Capitalism
Pula group is an informal group of architects from Pula, Croatia. Currently 6 persons work inside the group – Vjekoslav Gašparović, Emil Jurcan, Jerolim Mladinov, Marko Perčić, Helena Sterpin and Edna Strenja. Group acts since 2006. when it organised student workshop in ex military zone Katarina in Pula. Workshop produced conflict in local political scene because the result of the workshop, published in a book „Katarina 06 – opening of Pula`s coast“, confronted official municipality and State plans. Since then the group has produced publications, organised demonstrations and exhibitions to agitate in public against official urbanism in Pula and in Croatia, especially on the current Adriatic coastline problems. Red plan of Pula is a synthesis-map of latest conflicts produced by official urbanism in Pula.
Red plan is a plan for the city that is in an alarming (red) state. As a first step in the creation of such a plan, we needed to locate its red or critical spots. In order to do that, we created a “crisis map” of Pula: an image of the city in the age of late capitalism.
The neoliberal transition diminished the influence of public institutions and, consequently, created the basis for a continuing crisis that is most visible in cities. The effects of this crisis appear in many separate events that point out the inefficacy of today’s city planning. These events are becoming more intense, frequent and more visible in the everyday life of the city. The city is disintegrating along the lines of infinite particular interests, torn apart by unrest and discontent. No one can predict where the next protest against some spatial intervention will take place — the revolt is out of control. However, these revolts do not simply cause damage to the city; they are examples of how to act in this city. Since that system is based on conflict as the main mode of communication, we can speak of an emerging understanding of the city as a restless field of conflicts.
The citizens of the contemporary city cannot influence the redistribution of the surplus value produced in it. The accumulation of surplus in some parts of the city creates even more poverty in other parts. The neoliberal city destroys communal values and public institutions and directly damages the wider city system that depends on public investments. The never-ending transition from socialist to neoliberal economy did not result only in the creation of a free market and private entrepreneurship, it also brought about an escalation of corruption in the public sector. Corruption, an illegal deviation of the public system, takes place when the public interest is marginalized and private profit becomes the system’s primary goal. Corruption is unavoidable in periods of transition, when old rules are no more valid and new ones have not yet been firmly implemented. It is then that corruption triumphs, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue in Multitude.
A corrupt system, that is otherwise supposed to guarantee the general interest, cannot in any way advance common values. As the center of those values, the city is left to its own devices in a process of autonomous development . It is in this context that we have to view various demonstrations, protests, petitions and other forms of revolt that are becoming more and more frequent in cities. They aim toward a critique of the unjust redistribution of value in public institutions, since it is uncertain whether these will reflect the general interest, or even remotely promote the public interest. The last protest that took place in Pula was directed against the modernization and enhancement of the city landfill Kaštijun. However, the protest was not aimed against new landfill technologies, but against the political power that makes decisions without actually representing the people who live in the landfill area, and whose quality of life will decline thanks to that intervention.
Since the beginning of modernity, urban planning has been the task of public institutions. Today, these institutions are going through an uncertain transition in which corruption is ever growing. Because of that, urbanism can no longer count on the support of the official authorities and their government apparatuses. The future urban planning must rely on new forms of transparent organizing that would be able to maintain a more sustained development of the city. Since these are social and political issues, contemporary urbanism can only observe and keep track of the present disturbances and develop a theoretical model for new city planning. This map of Pula is a step in that direction.
Experiences
The data used for the creation of this map was taken from the city section of the local daily newspaper Glas Istre in the year 2007. The events are categorized according to the type of activity (revolts, demonstrations, complaints, occupations, evictions, unauthorized construction, small communal actions, volunteer work. Apart from that, the map shows the points of potential future conflicts: abandoned buildings in the city, substandard settlements and dirt roads.
The most common cause of revolt is the opposition to urban planning proposals (Park of the city of Graz and other city parks, Sisplac, Štinjan Bay, Katarina, Valelunga, Bunarina, Kaštijun, the road along Vidikovac elementary school, resistance to the proposed construction at the site of the school playground in Kaštanjer), to the lack of city services (Štinjan, Veli Vrh, Gregovica, Japodska Street, Busoler), then conflicts spurred by the eviction of Fort Bourgignon and the “Pink buildings” in Šijana, or individual cases of opposition to the privatization of communal property, like the case of temporary residents of the Valovine camp site who have been waiting for appropriate accommodation for years, the protest for a parking lot in Monte Zaro, etc. The revolt usually takes the form of a petition, a street protest, demonstration, planting of trees and various kinds of volunteer work.
Complaints refer to those cases that the public is informed about, but that didn’t develop into open conflict. Citizens use local media as a tool for pressuring the authorities, hoping for a quick solution of their problems. Other reasons include: insufficient availability of roads, sewers, street-lights, playgrounds, public transport (Veruda Porat, Valdebek, the Kralj Tomislav Square, Valmade, Škatari, Šikići, Monte Šerpo, Labinska Street, Štinjan), occupations and evictions (Pevec supermarket, the huts near the mill, the Brioni Pula garages, the central market, the multimedia center Rojc) and the general decline and neglect of the city (the whole historic center, the jetty, Stoja bathing area). Special complaints refer to unauthorized construction in Monte Turco and Stoja’s Barake, the problem of the eastern city entrance, the Motorola party in Arena that was allowed by the city authorities or the inadequate location of the Agrokoka farm. All these are potential sites of new revolts.
Although most cases on the map represent a critique of the existing relations in the city, initiatives that would transform the existing conditions are very rare. These include cleaning of green areas and the sea bed, creation of walking paths, afforestation of city parks, graffiti writing and the painting of house fronts.
A special form of activity that connects institutional action and community initiative is the Small Communal Actions project. The project functions as follows: through their neighborhood councils, residents give suggestions about the needs of the neighborhood to the city authorities. The authorities then provide the funds for the realization of these proposals. However, the implementation of solutions cannot keep up with the pace of emergence of new problems, making the need for significant improvements of this project obvious. Apart from that, the structure of neighborhood councils has changed in the last decade: from self-management groups they transformed into political bodies composed of members of political parties. This change has resulted in the loss of autonomy for the local community. The councils now represent the tightest capillary of the corrupt political sphere. Neighborhood councils are today a source of conflict, rather than a site of consensus.
As Ognjen Čaldarović writes, “in order for it to function, the decision-making about the everyday life has to come from small territorialized social units. Obviously, any decision-making without financial autonomy is only nominal. Hence all decisions made at the level of small territorial units have to be accompanied by adequate legal and financial autonomy that would secure their implementation.” This observation equally applies to Small Communal Actions.
For orientation purposes, the map includes important roads that are being planned in the future – the expansion of the existing ring road and the construction of a new one. If the city ring road marks the limits of the city, then the new one will bring many substandard, even illegal settlements within the city’s organism: Monte Šerpo, Monte Turco, Šikići, Škatari, even the Kaštijun landfill. The integration of those areas in the city organism is the greatest challenge to come. The neighborhoods along the existing ring road are still not completely integrated in the city, although they are considered to be the city’s integral part (Šijana, Monvidal, Kaštanjer, Gregovica, Veruda Porat). Various revolts in those areas result from a lack of infrastructure which is not built although 40 years have passed . Complaints are common in the neighborhoods along the future ring road too, but the discontent still hasn’t taken an organized, protest form.
Strategy
All the activities shown on the map should serve as a starting point for the development of clear and functional forms of urban intervention. So far, these have been limited to discrete and temporary tactics aimed at changing the living conditions in the city. The goal of this map is to structure these actions and develop a strategy that would also change the living relations in the city. Here is a first draft of possible strategies based on the “crisis map”:
* The case of the residents of Sisplac, who organized a tree-planting action in order to stop the construction in a green area, should be developed as a strategy for designing all green areas.
* The occupation of the Rojc former military barracks by cultural initiatives should become the strategy for the re-use of military buildings.
* The case of Monumenti, where music festivals have started to take place, should become the strategy for the development of cultural activities in the city.
* The collective action of expansion of apartments in Barake should become the strategy for the improvement of substandard living conditions.
* The Krupp association’s initiative for the regulation of walking paths should become the strategy for the creation of a larger pedestrian network.
* The refashioning of the Kandler Street as an open market during the tourist season should become the strategy for the development of commercial activities in the city center.
* The Small Communal Actions project, that relies on the communication between the city authorities and the neighborhood councils, should become the strategy for the promotion of local communal values, with an added emphasis on local financial autonomy.
* The painting of substations and house fronts that is being carried out by the “Gradska Radionica” (city workshop) should become the strategy for displaying the city identity.
* Graffiti writing and the hanging of anti-NATO banners on the western city entrance should become the strategy for independent expression of alternative politics.
* The case of a dozen of families from Japodska Street, who signed a collective refusal to pay for the communal services until the road in their neighborhood is asphalted, should become the citizens’ strategy for pressuring the city authorities that treat them unfairly.
By developing these strategies it is possible to create new tools for urban development. However, apart from a development strategy for the “red plan”, a specific organizational form able to implement all the activities is required.
Elaboration proposal
The “crisis map” clearly points out the inequality of living conditions in different parts of town. In a situation where the living conditions differ, a consensus about the city priorities is impossible, and in a situation of a long transition based on corruption, it is impossible to build trust in the structures responsible for the creation and implementation of the plan. And it is precisely the consensus and the trust that form the foundations for the plan’s implementation.
These can be achieved in two ways: by reforming the neoliberal, corrupt model of state administration, or by forming new organizations able to implement the plan. The first way is more ambitious, expansive and requires action on a global level; but it keeps urbanism within legal norms. The other way requires local-level activity on the part of groups of citizens who want to improve the quality of life in their neighborhood and city through collective action. Various theorists call such forms of activity cooperations, self-management groups or urban social movements. Manuel Castells describes urban social movements as “locally based and teritorrially defined movements mobilized around three basic goals: collective spending funded through surplus value (communal values, schools, hospitals, culture), cultural identity and political self-management. The described second way of implementation removes urbanism from the state and the law and makes it illegal.
Perhaps such a plan seems utopian, since it requires either a reform of the neoliberal state or its total avoidance. Nevertheless, this map points out all the injustices that are produced by the existing form of city administration and its inability to implement its own laws. In other words, the city appears to be a concrete jungle, and might makes right. Various cases of occupation clearly support this thesis (the Pevec supermarket, Brioni Pula garages, SM Mediteran marina, municipality owned office spaces). If that is the conclusion – that we live in a system that is unable to protect its own rules of operation while simultaneously creating injustice – then we live in a short-term and unnecessary system. If we persist in supporting it, the conflicts will only multiply: and when they reach a critical point, it is better to have a structured action plan with defined goals that can challenge the existing order.
“Of course, to accuse the order is not enough; it is imperative to prove that it is not omnipotent, it is necessary to find the spring beneath the concrete surface again, the voice beneath the silence, the debate beneath the ideology. That is the stake. If we lose it, we should renounce the faith in social movements, even in what we call society itself, and accept the fact that there are no more citizens, only subjects; that there is no more class struggle, only victims.” — Alen Turen
