Henri Lefebvre’s Urban Critical Theory: Rethinking the City against Capitalism

19 Pages·2020·1.492 MB·English

by  Francesco Biagi

International Critical Thought
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Henri Lefebvre’s Urban Critical Theory: Rethinking
the City against Capitalism
Francesco Biagi
To cite this article: Francesco Biagi (2020) Henri Lefebvre’s Urban Critical Theory:
Rethinking the City against Capitalism, International Critical Thought, 10:2, 214-231, DOI:
10.1080/21598282.2020.1783693
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INTERNATIONALCRITICALTHOUGHT
2020,VOL.10,NO.2,214–231
https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2020.1783693
Henri Lefebvre’s Urban Critical Theory: Rethinking the City
against Capitalism
Francesco Biagi
DepartmentofPoliticalSciences,UniversityofPisa,Pisa,Italy
ABSTRACT ARTICLEHISTORY
InthearticletheauthorhighlightsthemainwaysoftheLefebvrian Received14December2019
sociologicalanalysisconceivedstartingfromthetransformationsof Revised13March2020
thecityintheFordistera:Fromtheproductionofurbanmarginality, Accepted24March2020
through the proliferation of precarious living in the France of the
KEYWORDS
Sixties and Seventies, to recording the gradual disappearance of
HenriLefebvre;righttothe
the urban–rural dichotomy, that goes into an authentic spatial
city;productionofspace;
hegemony of urbanization processes. The goal is therefore to urbanoutcasts;ruralspace
highlight the “urban critical theory” of Henri Lefebvre, coming to
discuss the famous meaning of “right to the city,” strongly
interconnected with the concept of “city as an artwork,” that is
the idea of an urban space intended as horizontal and common
designbythosewholiveandinhabitinit.
Introduction
HenriLefebvre(1901–1991)wasaphilosopherandsociologistoftheurbanwhocrossed
intenselythewhole“shorttwentiethcentury”:heturnssixteenattheoutburstoftheRus-
sianRevolutionanddiesagedninety,twoyearsafterthefalloftheBerlinWallandafew
monthsbeforetheSovietUnion’simplosion.Hislonglifecoveredalmosttheentirespan
ofthenineteenhundredanditwasn’tbypurechancethathelivedthroughallofthecen-
tury moments and most decisive issues.
ItshouldbenoticedhowtheongoingLefebvrerenaissance,intheEuropeanandinter-
nationalscenehasputhimunderasortofdistortionthatisreducinghim,timeandagain,
toameresociologist,urbanplanner,andsoon.Conversely,Lefebvreinstatedanewkind
of philosophy, following the steps of Marx and Engels, able of unfolding itself simul-
taneously on the theoretical plan and on the practical one. The fundamental trait of his
philosophycanbeidentifiedintheinterpretationofbothofthoseGermanphilosophers,
and it’s featured by the unceasing call to unite the philosophical “theory” to the political
“praxis.” Such a perspective is above all one that allows the author to understand the
changes of the Fordist society, ranging from the topic of space onto everyday life until
it accomplishes a general theory of politics which can congregate the whole analysis of
the capitalist modernity. In the last decade his legacy has partially and sporadically re-
emerged mainly thanks to the recapture of some key-concepts (such as the “right to the
city,” the “everyday life” and the “production of space”) in the domain of urban and
CONTACT FrancescoBiagi [email protected]
©2020ChineseAcademyofSocialSciences
INTERNATIONALCRITICALTHOUGHT 215
cultural studies; but the research that surrounds his theoretical legacy is still extremely
shallow (and is often subject to a damaging compartmentalization by previously settled
academic spheres).
Unveiling the Urban Reality from the Point of View of Peripheries
In 1961 Lefebvre transferred to the Strasbourg department of Sociology where rural
studies were developing towards urban studies due to the debate of everyday life under
the regime of a consumerist society such as was thatof France and Europe in the Sixties
(Lefebvre2001;Elden2004,127–168).Nevertheless,a similarregime isdelineatedinthe
advanced capitalist societies as portrayed in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange
CaseofDr.JekyllandMr.Hyde(2011);inotherwords,thewellbeingconveyedbyabun-
danceofmerchandizeandconsumablesissolelyoneoftwomasks,thesecondoneactually
thrivesonthestabilization—atanendemiclevel—ofacertaindegreeofsocialmisery,pov-
erty,exploitationandmarginality.Itisthefatedoomedtoweakergroups,totheimmigrat-
ingMaghrebisfromthecoloniesintheFrenchcapital.Thisscenariowouldstronglyaffect
Lefebvrewhenhewassummoned—intheyear1964—toteachattheNanterrecampusin
Paris.
ThecollegeedificehadbeenrecentlybuiltbasedonthemodelofLeCorbusier’sfunc-
tionalistarchitectureandinthoseyearsagreatpartofthequarterwasanenormousshan-
tytown, the lodging and living place assigned to the migrant workers. The settlement of
thisnewathenaeumshouldfirstlywelcomethenumerousFrenchstudents,henceclearing
the universities of the Parisian centre, and secondly would instate the requalification of
that urban fabric that was by then peripheral, and that gathered Maghreb’s immigrants,
on one hand stigmatized as “rebellious spectrum” (Bromberger 1958; Rigouste 2009;
Hervo 2001), on the otherhand regardedas cheap manpoweralways available for what-
ever sort of task.
Lefebvre perceives the changes of the urban as resulting from the post-war develop-
ment;thechosenpointofviewisthatofthebanlieue,inotherwords,theborderbetween
the latter and the architectonical functionalism of Nanterre, designed by white middle
class French students. One may deduct therefore that Lefebvre’s reflection evolves from
themargins,fromthethresholdthatsplitsandshatterstheurbanspacebetweentheweal-
thierandtheweakergroups.1Themarginbecomestheprivilegedviewingpointbecauseit
isthepointthatunfoldstherealitypertainingtothecity’snarrative.TorecaptureSteven-
son’smetaphor,Mr.HydeistherevealingpersonalityofDr.Jekyll’struth,andthesubal-
tern and invisible situation of the peripheries equally tears apart the “Maya veil” of the
dominant urban-planning ideology. According to Laurence Costes’ testimony (2009,
42), the Nanterre scholar exhorted his students to examine Paris from the standing
point of view of the production of urban marginality that had been settled by Fordism:
urbansociologybecomesthusthatdomainofcriticthatunmasksthefunctionalistideol-
ogy. The bidonville reality next to the La Folie railway stop, between the Saint-Lazaire
station and the college campus, tells us of another Paris excluded from the wellbeing of
consumption: a whole neighbourhood crowded and jam-packed of about ten thousand
destitute inhabitants.2
ThemorepreciseresearchesabouttheslumofNanterreintheSixtieswereconducted
byHervoandCharras(1971),SayadandDupuy(1995)andGastaut(2004),inwhichyou
216 F.BIAGI
cancomeacrossameticulousinquiryusefultoconfirmLefebvre’shypothesis.Infact,sev-
eraltestimonialsariseregardingthemarginalityregimeinwhichmigrantAlgerian,Mor-
occan,andTunisianand—inasmalleramount—Portugueseworkerslay.It’semblematic
howthelodgingissueisobsessivelyandrepeatedlyacknowledgedbythemandhowmost
ofthetimesitisstatedthatassoonaspossiblethemainwishoftheLaFolieinhabitantsis
to get away from those quarters that lack water, light and proper sewerage and sanitary
systems.WhateverthecolouroftheMunicipalityorParisianTownCouncilthesituation
formigrantworkersremains“swamped”(thetitleofHervoandCharras’volumeis:Bin-
dovilles,l’enlisement[TheSinkingBindovilles][1971]).Literallyenlisementmeansswamp-
ing or burying and this term also containsthe idea of sinking to the interior of a lodging
situationthatwastypicaltotheEnglishperipheriesattheendoftheeighteenhundredsas
narratedbyJackLondoninhisnovelThePeopleoftheAbyss.Inaddition,readingthefol-
lowingsociologicalresearches,Lefebvreoutlinesthatconditionofradicalexpatriationthat
the anthropologist Ernesto De Martino (2002) defined as “the crisis of the presence”:
which is the fact that a subject is neither capable of decrypting nor understanding by
meansofone’sinterpretativecodeone’sownlifeexperience.Theradicallossofasymbolic
orderiswhatconfersareasontohumanexistence(Pezzella2009,239–271).Therefore,for
theimmigranttheFrenchsocietyrepresentsashocksimilartothatofthe“abyssofnoth-
ingness”thatfreezestheentireprocessoftranscendingone’sowneverydaylife(DeMar-
tino 2002, 203).3 Similarly Sayad (1999) talks about “double absence” as a structural
conditionofthesubalterncolonizedmigrant.4Inhishomeoforigin,themigrantendea-
vours a journey toreach the promised land of liberté—egalité—fraternité, only tofindin
Franceasocialmilieuthatdenieshisbeingandmakeshiminvisible,doublyinvisible:and
at the same time he’s “missing” from his native land, “uprooted” from his own world of
origin,arealstatelessandpariahinLaFolieofNanterre.Concerningthis,itmaybeuseful
torefertothefilmOutsidetheLaw(Hors-La-Loi)directedbyRachidBoucharebin2010,a
FrenchdirectorofAlgerianorigins,whostagesthedramaticsituationofextremepoverty
in which the Algerians in Nanterre live, and how such a condition of injustice feeds the
anti-colonialist rebellious actions of the Algerian National Liberation Front in the
urban space of Paris.5 In fact the Algerian migrant also struggles in the French capital
because he hits upon again—under other assumptions—the oppression gnaws already
endured back home. Thus, the democratic regime of equality and liberty is denied to
him evenif heisexpatriatingtothelandofMother-Francewhocanbut offerunderpaid
jobsandwretchedshacksfortheinhumanesurvivalofallmigrantworkers.Lefebvretakes
astepforwardandtracesthecharacterof“newinnercolonialism”(Lefebvre2000,143)fed
bythedivisionbetweenhyper-developedareasandotherareasthatareinsteadabandoned
tomiseryandunderdevelopment.What’smore,inforeseeingthebroadenedsociological
literatureonform-campandthedebateabouttheformsofcontainmentandofurbancon-
centration of specific social groups (Agamben 1998, 1999, 2005; Agier 2008, 2010, 2013,
2014;Agieretal.2018),Lefebvrehighlightsthewaythesocialstatusofthe“concentration
camp” adopted by the Nazis would be an extreme case of an institution that ended up
being declensioned in several contexts and in different ways, managing nevertheless to
keep a basilar common meaning on what refers to the capitalist way of governing:
Fascismrepresentsthemostextremeformofcapitalism,theconcentrationcampisthemost
extremeandparoxysmalformofamodernhousingestate,orofanindustrialtown.Thereare
INTERNATIONALCRITICALTHOUGHT 217
manyintermediarystagesbetweenourtownsandtheconcentrationcamps:miners’villages,
temporary housing on construction sites, villages for immigrant workers.. . .Nevertheless,
thelinkisclear.(Lefebvre1991a,245–246)
Inordertoavoidmisinterpretations,theauthordoesn’tstatethattheghettoizationpro-
ducedinaperipheryisequivalenttothatoftheNazilager,converselyheoutlinesthecom-
mon traces that materialize through means of different shades, in fact he talks about
“mediations” and about a “relation” between the form-camp and the city model that
started spreading since the 50s of the twentieth century. In other words we might say
that the concentration camp is like a primary colour used by a painter and that its
majororminordilutiondefinessomanymoreshadesintheurbancanvas.Inthisregard
we may well be convinced of thefact thatLefebvreadopted urban marginality as elected
perspective—for the sociologist—to unveil the true social reality, beyond and against the
dream image promoted by the spectacular and hedonistic devices of the city shaped by
Fordism.Theauthorcomesupwiththehypothesisofasociologicalepistemologyofmar-
ginality:itisthestayingputandwatchingfromthepointofviewofthethresholdthatwill
allowonetogainamoreaccuratelookoverthecomplexityofsocialsituationsthatoneis
facing.Itisthespecificpointofviewofthosewhoarevictimsofoppressionandwhoare
weaker,ofthosewholiveinthemarginsasiftheywerewastethatallowstheactualstateof
healthofurbanlifeinthecitytobecomeintellectuallyattainable.Inotherwords,itisthe
life of the “people in the abyss” from the urban peripheries that, more than in any other
circumstances, has a word to say about a sociological urban task. Thus, the topicality of
Lefebvre’sthinkingistestedwhenstandingbeforethesescenariosthatstillhaven’taban-
doned the cities—may these be big or small—of our planet, as, by the way of example,
Mike Davis (2017) duly explained in Planet of slums (see Seymour 2006).
The concept of “periphery” is not related to a shift in space, a measure of distance or
nearness to a spot defined as “centre,” but it is, above all, a point of view that redefines
radically the glance over the remaining urban space. In the preface of “The Right to the
City,” Lefebvre (1996) states that the urban problems aren’t fully acknowledged with an
autonomousstatusoftheirown,sincetheystillhaven’tattainedtheadequatephilosophi-
cal and political importance, and this means that the examination of the city from the
point of view of the marginality it creates is an enlightening sociological reflection of
therealpositioninwhichthe“urban”is.Facingamodelofacitythatisobviouslyincrisis
Lefebvre’s intentionis thatofdelineating newpossibleemancipating opportunitiesstart-
ing with the tangible sub-alternity of spatial discrimination. Lefebvre’s sociology conse-
quently is always an intellectual action of critic, a premise for the attempt to subvert
the present of (spatial) inequalities of class.
The hypertrophic synoecism of the urban fabric, in other words, the fact that the ter-
ritory doesn’t delineate itself anymore and not only as “city” and neither exclusively as
“countryside,”butinfactas“urbanfabric”moreorlessorganized,moreorlessdesigned
withtheminimumofdignifiedhabitablestandards,triggersanincreaseinthecongestion
of the particular situation of the outcasts. One who lives in the shantytown, one who
“crams oneself” on the threshold around the city centre, acquires a fundamental status
in the author’s reflections and thinking: he is simultaneously the privileged point of
view and the object itself of reflection aiming at overturning such a state of things. As
we shall see, re-reading the concept of the right to the city from this perspective will be
218 F.BIAGI
aninnovativegesture,wayoutofstereotypesandabuses,sheddinglightoverasocio-pol-
iticalformulawhichisnotsoeasytounderstand.Itwouldbeuseful—becauseofthis—to
drawtheconnectionthatcorrelatestheanalysisoftheFordistperipheryofthe60stothe
contemporary one as studied by Wacquant in Urban Outcasts (2007). Even in different
contexts—infactthecurrentneoliberalcitycannotoverlapthemodelofcityofthenine-
teen hundreds, based on the Keynesian pact—there are common features that progress-
ively aggravate, that is, that urban regime of “advanced marginality” that Wacquant
identifies as the future scenario of current space production processes in the twenty-
first century. Afurther proof is Petrillo’s thesis(2018) in which, to the precise denounce
of the failure of the current urban project he associates, by means of a reading of the
“Lefebvre of the peripheries,” novel overturning and healing concealed possibilities of
the state of health of the city that can be detected in the actions of the right to the city
as practiced in the crevices of the urban marginality and confinement.
The New Fordist “Urban Society”
Nowweshouldnecessarilydigdeeper.Inviewofrebuilding,stepbystep,theLefebvrian
perspective it is necessary to keep discussing his sociological lexicon, in order to under-
stand what the author means by “city,” “urban,” “new urban society,” that is to say the
constitutive jump that the metropolis would make after the changes that resulted from
the Fordist capitalism. So, what is the “city” to Lefebvre? And in what way does it differ
from the concept of “urban space”? But above all: what kind of city is before him when
he addresses these concepts? It would be useful to recall how the so called “progressive-
regressivemethod”(EldenandMorton2016),evenifitisnotalwaysreferredtoorexpli-
cit, remains as the framework of analysis that Lefebvre used in his sociological studies
aiming at capturing the “Specificity of the city” (Lefebvre 1996, 100). The “progress-
ive-regressive method” is in this way multiplied for every social fact, including the
urban, as it emerges, for example, more clearly in the first section of the book about
the Paris Commune under the Style et métode [Style and Method] (Lefebvre 1965, 31)
but also—although not so obvious—in the historical-sociological reconstruction of the
“city” thatis proposed in his various writingsabout the“urban”: “Without theprogress-
ive and regressive operations (in time and space) of the analysis, it is impossible to con-
ceive the urban phenomenon science” (Lefebvre 2001, 269; translated from French;
emphasis added). Another example can be located in the second chapter of The
Urban Revolution in which the author maintains that—introducing a hypothesis of his-
torical-sociological reconstruction about the development of the city—the forms shaped
bypreviousurbansocietiescanonlybeunderstoodonwhatpertainstotheirbirthandto
de development of their explosion (Lefebvre 2003, 14).
Most of all, the French author considers the city as a metaphor, or should I say, as
almost a synecdoche of the concept of “society,” in fact it is defined as a projection of
the society over the territory:
thecityisawhole;...thecitycastsonthesoilasocietyinitsfullness,asocialtotalityora
societyretainedastotality,includingitsculture,itsinstitutions,itsethics,itsvalues,soonits
superstructures, including its economical basis and the social relations that form its actual
structure.(Lefebvre2001,159;translatedfromFrench)
INTERNATIONALCRITICALTHOUGHT 219
The city is the society in its spatial declension it is the “projection of the city over the
territory”(Lefebvre1996,107–112),howeverthiselementisanalysedthroughouttime,on
one hand as“crystallized past” onthe otherhand as“mutationof thepresent” (Lefebvre
2001,160).Asaconsequencethecityis“aspace-time”andbymeansofsuchadimension
we can—with Lefebvre—shape an “ideal type” as sociological tool of analysis of the real
(Lefebvre 2001, 160). The totality which is outlined by the author should not though
strayawayfromtheurbaninquest;itisspecifiedthatthisanalysisisproportionallydivided
into sections, and that each section should keep its own autonomy even in the reticular
correlation that, for example, a neighbourhood has with the remaining metropolitan
space (Lefebvre 2001, 160–161). The method used to understand the totality, even in all
ofitsparts,isthedialecticalperspectiveofHegelandMarx(Lefebvre2001,161).Tosum-
marize:thesociologist’staskisonethattakesholdofthistheoreticalarchetype,merging—
simultaneously in his studies—the general dimension with its parts, with the temporal
span of the city’s evolution.
Itisintheshapeofthecitythatthesocietyconstitutesitselfassuch,andbycreatingthe
urbanspaceallowsitselfafullyachievedorganization.Theauthorsetsashispurposethe
enquiry of the organization of the space and of the government of men, tracking in the
spatialdimensiontheplacewheremorethaneverthecapitalisteconomyshapesthesocial.
Lefebvrechoosestoinquireaboutthespatialplacementofman,and—therefore—thecity
andtheorganizationoftheurban.Inconsequence,anactualincarnationofthesocietyin
the spatial dimensionoccurs; it’s isn’t only a mere “taking shape” inspace, but an actual
andrealaccomplished“becomingtruthful”inthehuman“works,”inthemonumentsand
buildings. It’s a symbolic materialization of the social organization itself, thus also of its
asymmetric class relationships. Lefebvre’s original contribution is the following: the fact
thathesawinthecityandinthecreationoftheurbanspaceahumanworkthatre-projects
the social in the dimension of space. The city and the urban are hence a coherent pho-
tography of a precise typology of society. In other words, we may say that Lefebvre
assumes the spatial perspective with the awareness of how crucial a point of view it is
to understand the human universe of his time. In this regard he identifies two levels of
mediationthatthecityiscomprisedof:“thenearorder”ofrelationsbetweenindividuals
orgroupsmoreorlessbroadenedandorganized;“thefarorder”thatisthesociety’sorga-
nizing dimension by means of political institutions and cultural coordinates (Lefebvre
1996, 113). The city is thus the frame inside which mediation between mediations, pro-
duction and ownership relations and reproduction of the rule of the dominant speech
are carved. In order to describe the role of the social, political and cultural mediator of
the city, Lefebvre suggests the comparison to language or to a book (Lefebvre 1996,
115). The essence of the city as “object” produced by human action is understood in
theroleofthemediatorbetweensuchlevels.Thecity,hence,undertakesaspecific“objec-
tivity”: it is predetermined (in the far order) but also liable to being re-codified on other
basis(in factthefarorderdoesn’tcompletelylimitthenearorder).On thesphereofthe
nearorderthepracticaldeclensionofthestatusquoissimultaneouslycarvedbutalsothe
possibilitythattheinhabitantshaveofoverturningitandrebuildingit,withintheunpre-
dictabilityofanemancipatingpoliticalaction.Itisthe“dialecticalprocess”ofthe“conti-
nuityanddiscontinuity”betweendifferentformsthatramifyinthespace.Lefebvrereadsa
usefulexampleintheplanningoftheshoppingmallbycontemporaryFrenchurbanplan-
ners,theattempttodispossessandillegitimatethemedievalcityofitsintrinsicriches.The
220 F.BIAGI
medievalcity,evenifitistraversedbyawillofprofit,stillremainsmoreoftenthannota
valuablespacetobeusedbyitsinhabitants.Oncethisfunctionisexpelledandtheentire
spacebecomesexclusivelyexchangevalue,theplacesofmedievalsociallifedieleavingthe
space solely to the amplification of the economical exchange structure: the shopping
centre. Therefore, every urban age reuses waste and fragments of previous epochs with
its new own purposes (Lefebvre 1996, 107).
Lefebvre realizes that there is a new ongoing process—in the Fifties and Sixties of the
twentieth century: industrialization is no longer creating urbanization and no longer
determines the city development as in the 800s Marx and Engels acknowledged; conver-
selyitistheproductionoftheurbanspaceitselfthatdeterminestheindustrialproduction,
whatistobeconsumedandtheeconomicflowsoftheemergenceofcapitalismasthetypi-
caleconomicshape ofwesternsociety(Lefebvre2001,258–259). Withthesettlingofthe
capitalisteconomy and of industrialization processes, the city itself becomesan objectof
profitandofexchange,itstructuresitselfintotheimageofabilitytoattractmoney,tourists
and investors;lifestyles tend to homogenize by means of standardized consumerism and
the human being everyday life is totally capitalized. In order to clarify these matters,
Lefebvre inverts the relation between industrialization and urbanization maintaining
that it is not correct to define the advanced capitalism of the second half of the twenti-
eth-century as “industrial society,” instead he proposes to define it as “urban society on
ongoing formation” since “the inductive process” is industrialization and “the induced
effect” is instead the progressive urbanization of the entire world society (Lefebvre
1996, 17; 2003, 5). Nevertheless, he specifies that the industrialization and urbanization
process of society should be accurately compartmentalized through the dialectic method
that is able to photograph simultaneously “the unity of both aspects” and “the conflict
between them” (Lefebvre 1996, 68). Implicitly we can already deduce that Lefebvre sur-
passestheanalysismethodsoftheChicagoSchoolandabandonstheclassicaldimension,
“density” and “homogeneity” as proposed by Luis Wirth (1964) that was solely useful to
photographtheurbanuptothemomentinwhichheremainedwithinthecity’sprecinct
(on Chicago School, see Caves 2005, 80–81).
Thearisingofurbanizationaccordingtotheauthoristhusepochaltothepointitcanbe
comparedtothedisorientationofthosewhostartedtostudythehorse-poweredindustry
between the 600s and the 800s. Still lacking some adequate interpretative tools of the
industrial phenomenon, the great Londoner factories appeared as a monstrous and
unfathomable phenomenon:
Andaren’twe,facedwiththeurbanphenomenon,inasituationcomparabletotheonefaced
acenturyagobythosewhohadtoaccommodatethegrowthofindustrialphenomena?Those
whohadn’treadMarx-whichistosay,nearlyeveryone-sawonlychaos,unrelatedfacts...
society was being atomized, dissociating into individuals and fragments. (Lefebvre 2003,
184–185)
The process of uprooting and destruction of the city by urbanization is strongly out-
linedbytheauthor.Urbanizationbecamethenovelsocializationmatrixforthetwentieth
andtwentieth-firstcenturies(Lefebvre1996,130–131).Bystudyingtheurbanproblematic
the Lefebvre also polemizes against the dogmatic Marxism that has always seen the city
and the urban as “superstructure,” as mere consequence of the economical connections
set by capitalism (Lefebvre 2003, 139, 162–164).
INTERNATIONALCRITICALTHOUGHT 221
Inordertoshedsomelightoverthishypothesisitiscrucialthatthedifferencesbetween
the sociological categories of “city” and “urban space” are subject to a closer look. Both
concepts are not synonyms. Lefebvre, to make us understand the differences but also
the bonds between both concepts uses a metaphor taken from Physics: de dark hole. If
the urban space “embraces a cosmic sense” (Lefebvre 2003, 123), the city ends up being
thatjunctionpointwhereallflowsofmatterscatteredover theuniversecongregate.Fol-
lowing the same metaphor, the urban space therefore delineates itself as universe for the
matter,andincertainspotsitagglomerates,inotherspotsitshattersanddispersesitself.
Consequentlythecityisaspace–timecentrethatagglomeratesinitselfconsistentportions
oftheurban,butdoesnotcoincidewithit.Itisamoreorlessorganizedagglutinationofit.
Furthermore,thecityprojectsthetime,meaning,thehistoricalarcofthelifeofaprecise
place;suchatemporalprojectiondevelopsinthatspaceaco-presenceofheterogeneityof
ages, of cultural symbols. It is the space, in fact, thatdetermines its performative declen-
sion,givinglife—duringthecourseoftime—totheurbansociety.Theindustrializationof
society,andthereforeofspace,giveslifetourbanization,aconceptthatcanbeconceived
only in its future materialization, as the implosion and explosion horizon of all urban
forms of thecity (Lefebvre2003, 14). Lefebvreis a theorist of thecity’s “crisis,” meaning
with this concept the connotation adopted by MassimilianoTomba that helps us under-
stand the ambivalence of the concept of city that the author proposes:
Thecrisisisnotadiseasethatshouldbedistinguishedfromasupposednormalcourse.Itis
instead,accordingtothemedicalhabitoftheXIVcentury,therapidmutationoftheconditions
ofanillness.Thekrisisdemandsseparation,choiceandjudgment....Thecrisisisthemoment
ofdanger,itisnottoputthetrainbackintothetrails,buttointerruptthatparticularcourseand
takeadifferentroad.(Tomba2011,9;translatedfromFrench;emphasisadded)
Thus, Lefebvre sees a strain in the city: on one side the “death” of the city, its actual
decaybyhandofthecapitalistindustrialization;ontheotherhandinstead,newopportu-
nitiesofchangingthedirectionoftheurbancourseofthewholesociety.Lefebvre’surban
spatiality always takes on such a dialectic tension: collapse versus chance of salvation.
TheFrenchauthor,inordertobringtolighttheurbananditscontradictions,borrowsa
metaphorfromnuclearphysics:“theimplosion”ofthecityhastodowiththeenormous
concentrationofpeople,activitiesandhousingintheurbanfabric,and—atthesametime
—its “explosion” comprises the multiplication and dissemination, over all of the sur-
roundingterritory,ofadisperseurbanshape,madeofperipheries,suburbs,satellitecities,
hinterland,precarioushousingthatcorrodetheentirespacethatuptothatmomentwasn’t
city,butruralandnaturalspacemoreorlessunfarmed.Inthisregard,NeilBrenner(2014)
recapturedtheimageofaconcatenationofmatterthatimplodesandexplodesintheframe
of a world almost completely urbanized in the curatorship of one of his last volumes
entitled Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization.
The productive capitalist processes that transform the work into serial product and
meremerchandisemovetotheurbanspaceofthecity,andeventhecitybecomesobject
of exchange and profit (Lefebvre 1996, 67–68). The urban space is in this way subject to
merchandizing processes based on the action as described by Henri Lefebvre as “urban-
planning of developers” (Lefebvre 1996, 84), as “sales promoters,” in which prevail—
thus—theeconomiclogicsofmarket,turningthecityintoanattractiveanddesirablepro-
ductforcapitalandbigfinancialgroups.Atthecoreofthisprocesstheexchangevalueof
222 F.BIAGI
space imposes itself authoritatively over the citizenship use value, which is radically
excludedfromeverydecisionalprocess.Nowadays,forinstance,thespeculativecapitalist
valuationofmanyforsakenandclosedspacesduetotheeconomiccrisistakesonprecisely
this matrix: not the needs of citizens, lacking a shared urban-planning design, but the
imposition of places that allow economic profit with no regard to their usefulness and
goodjudgment.It’sanambiguousreinvention:ononehandthere’sthecapitalistreinven-
tionthatreorganizesspaceaccordingtomarketdemands,ontheotherhand,asanantag-
onisticmovement,there’shopeandthepotentialpossibilityofreversingfateandturning
the urban revolution towards a fairer situation for the less favoured inhabitants and the
natural environment. Within this critical knot of the urbanization, the city is crushed
between the “Scylla” of the implosion and the “Charybdis” of its explosion of the urban
fabric, and Lefebvre foresees the emergence of a necessary conflict situation.
However, the city’s implosion/explosion metaphor used again in 1970 in The Urban
Revolution (Lefebvre 2003, 14) had been anticipated in 1968 with the drafting of “The
RighttotheCity”(Lefebvre1996,71).Theauthornoticesatendency,thatoftheprogress-
ive urbanization of the entire world. In this regard, parallel to the concept of “urban
society,”themeaningof“urbanfabric”opensway,meantasanendlessspacecontaining
some thickerknots, entangled over each other, and spacesthatare instead more rarefied
(Lefebvre1996,71–72).Toclarifythisfurther:Lefebvreplacesatthecoreofhisreflections
thegreatissueofthecity’sdisappearance,andthereforeofthedichotomybetweencoun-
trysideandcity.Theurbanfabricisthateconomic-culturalprocessofsubmissionofboth
countryside and rural world that simultaneously erodes the peasants’ lifestyles, turning
them into folklore, and the natural environment itself, turning it into a space that is no
longer rural and that heads towards the course of development of the urbanizing action:
“Thiswasaccompaniedbythelossofruralareas,primarilythroughtheindustrialization
ofagriculturalproductionandthedisappearanceofthepeasantry(andtherefore,thevil-
lage),andthedevastationofthelandandthedestructionofnature”(Lefebvre2016,121).
The urbanfabric is the spatial projection ofthe “Trojanhorse” introducedby theindus-
trializationthatcreatesurbanization,andtheotherwayround.ToLefebvreitindicatesnot
justthespatialerosionbutalsotheeconomic-culturalsurrenderofthecountrysideandof
villageeconomy.Itistheprocessof“depeasantization”ofhamletsspreadoverthecoun-
trysidethatlosetheirsurvivaleconomytoa“touristification”orsub-alternitydirectedto
more attractive metropolitan areas, becoming, in consequence, quieter dormitories for
those who nevertheless wish to live in there, even if they carry out their own lives in
the urban surroundings.
Such extinction triggers the centralization of spaces that implode and the peripherali-
zationofotherspacesthatarecreatedassatellitesoftheexplosion—thathasoccurredso
far—of the city. Urbanization is not just producer of centres that become increasingly
packedandentangledoverthemselves,butisalsoasystemandprocessthatfeedsthesub-
missiveness of some spaces to others, consequently, being the city—as we have seen—a
projection of the social dimension over space, we are again before a “specific division of
work”inthemidstoftheurbancentres,betweencityandcity,betweencityandsurround-
ingruralspace;followingthislineofinterpretation,theStatecanbeunderstoodasapar-
ticularcentralizedtypeofpowerofacitythatprevailsoverothercities(Lefebvre1996,67).
The urbanization produces centralization and peripheralization, within a simultaneous
and dialectic game between the two resulting poles. The urbanization is a hierarchical