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Ryan Randall :OpenAccess: :hc:

@zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny

It's been more than a decade since I've relevant stuff by folks like Mike Davis, Edward Soja, or Samuel Delany, but there's almost certainly multiple people who've written about the material & planning histories of this part of the built environment.

You definitely might look to things on Robert Moses's changes to NYC transportation as a start: npr.org/2020/07/05/887386869/h

Folks like Nick Mitchell and others have also done a lot to connect how campuses & suburbs & prisons work as "warehousing" of people treated as surplus.

Here's a conference panel I desperately tried to type notes on: ryanpatrickrandall.com/our-con

I've also heard good arguments—again, can't remember exactly from where—that whiteness was reinforced/encouraged by the production of suburbs. Making people isolated & structurally encouraging housing to be treated as an investment reduces social ties and makes it harder to organize unions or other working political groups.

16 May at 16:15 | Wall-to-wall | Open on hcommons.social
5 comments
FoolishOwl

@ryanrandall @zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny It's struck me how most workplaces I've been in are designed as fortresses, with walls and controlled points of entry with guards. And somewhere I read an article about how the "corporate campus" was designed to isolate workers, so they don't leave the work site even for meals.

16 May at 17:26 | Open on social.coop
Ryan Randall :OpenAccess: :hc:

@foolishowl @zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny Many workplaces are totally designed as fortresses, self-contained little citadels! Higher education campuses often are, too!

Mike Davis's book _City of Quartz_ talks about the idea of "Fortress LA", which is sort of that same logic but expanded to neighborhood and city-wide scales.

theconversation.com/the-unfulf

I remember him (or maybe Frederic Jameson?) talking about how common it is for business architecture to have basically 1 or 2 stories of effectively ramparts at ground level in cities, with few or no windows. That might be in Davis's book _Ecology of Fear_?

Davis's writing really sticks with me, so if you like reading, he's a great author to consider. I think he also did a bunch of interviews and podcasts in the last 10 years or so, before he recently passed away.

@foolishowl @zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny Many workplaces are totally designed as fortresses, self-contained little citadels! Higher education campuses often are, too!

Mike Davis's book _City of Quartz_ talks about the idea of "Fortress LA", which is sort of that same logic but expanded to neighborhood and city-wide scales.

16 May at 17:47 | Open on hcommons.social
sidereal

@foolishowl @ryanrandall @zagone @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny This is one reason why workplace mapping is an important part of union organizing

16 May at 18:26 | Open on kolektiva.social
FoolishOwl

@sidereal @ryanrandall @zagone @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny I've usually kept an eye out for where people could reach workers with leaflets and such outside the gaze of corporate security. The trick to organizing workers inside is to have a means of communication outside.

16 May at 18:39 | Open on social.coop
CedarTea

@foolishowl
I've had managers mention the work of Bentham on their management techniques to me. They seemed genuinely shocked when I objected to using prison design in the workplace.

@ryanrandall @zagone @sidereal @PedestrianError @Theblueone @jonny

16 May at 18:35 | Open on social.coop
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