Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy / Edition 1

by J. Ferrell

Overview

From New York to San Francisco, Times Square to the Tenderloin, graffiti artists, young people, radical environmentalists, and the homeless clash with police on city streets in an attempt to take back urban spaces from the developers and 'disneyfiers'. Drawing on more than a decade of first-hand research, this lively account goes inside the worlds of street musicians, homeless punks, militant bicycle activists, high-risk 'BASE jump' parachutists, skateboarders, outlaw radio operators, and hip hop graffiti artists, to explore the day-to-day skirmishes in the struggle over public life and public space.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312233358
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	10/01/2002
Edition description:	2002
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

JEFF FERRELL is Professor of Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. He is the foremost practitioner of ethnographic criminology, a field he pioneered. Ferrell has received awards from the American Criminological Association for his research. His acclaimed and widely-reviewed books include Crimes of Style, Cultural Criminology, and Ethnography at the Edge.

Table of Contents

A Jagged Line Down the Middle of the Street Wild in the Streets Taking Back the Streets We Want the Airwaves, Baby The Towering Inferno

Editorial Reviews

'Provides an energetic and highly informed look at environmental and political movements to nonviolently 'reclaim the streets' - Publishers Weekly

'Strongly recommended for anyone interested in cities and city life.' - Choice

'...provides and energetic and highly informed look at environmental and political movements to nonviolently 'reclaim the streets.' - Publishers Weekly

'...those who have felt themselves being smothered for the sake of an artificial community will find it difficult not to share his sympathies...' - Booklist

'His firsthand field experience and passion add insight to his discussion of the daily lives of these groups and give his personal accounts excitement and interest.' - Mindy S. Wilson, Contemporary Sociology

From the Publisher

"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution," anarchist Emma Goldman is said to have declared, bringing together the ideals of freedom and pleasure, and her sentiments are echoed by a new wave of grassroots political activism aimed at making streets safe, cities more livable and the environment healthier. This in-depth, wittily written analysis of take-back-the-city activists ranges from graffiti artists who target the "Disnification" of New York City with images of a decapitated Mickey Mouse and the words "Just Say No" to the radical anti-automotive bike group Critical Mass (whose motto is "We Don't Block Traffic. We Are Traffic"), to San Francisco Liberation Radio, which struggles to "free" the air waves. Interweaving political analysis, social history and a semi-gonzo-pop journalism, Ferrell, professor of criminal justice at Northern Arizona University, writes of his own adventures as a graffiti artist, street entertainer and political bicyclist, but places his political commitments in a broad historical and cultural framework that includes discussions of the direct action strategies of the Wobblies, the cultural importance of the 1871 Paris Commune and the political impact of the Sex Pistols, British punk culture and homeless activism. Balancing theory with descriptions and evaluations of actual events New York mayor Giuliani's battle against the nonprofit Housing Works; city campaigns against political Native American graffiti in Denver he provides an energetic and highly informed look at environmental and political movements to nonviolently "reclaim the streets." (Dec.) Forecast: While the movements trying to influence the shape of globalization have been overshadowed by recentevents, Ferrell's account of nonviolent activism reveals a humanist core that can be respected regardless of ideology. Readers looking for evidence of what civil liberty means should look no further. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Ferrell (criminal justice, Northern Arizona U.) offers a book that is a combination of anarchist political manifesto, urban sociology, radical history, and autobiography. He describes the resistance of anarchists and other urban activists to the closing off of a truly "public" space. He details the activities of Critical Mass bicycle activists, pirate radio operators, hip-hop graffiti artists, Reclaim the Streets, and others resisting the commodification of urban space, linking them to their radical forbears in the Industrial Workers of the World, the Paris Commune of 1871, the hobos riding the American rails, Alexander Bakunin, and the punk rockers of the 1970s. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Apparently disgruntled by the lack of appreciation for his efforts to improve the landscape through street singing, spraying graffiti, and putting a smelly couch in an intersection as "an act of political resistance," the author concludes that a race and class war is being waged against "outsiders and outlaws" over control of public space. Ferrell (Criminal Justice/Northern Arizona Univ.) opposes the "broken windows" thesis that smashed panes and graffiti promote other forms of criminality; he considers planned communities to be "Bergen-Belsens with flowerbeds." Here, the author participates in and researches the roles of street musicians, graffiti artists, bicycle activists, and outlaw radio operators within this "war." Playing his guitar, Ferrell jams with a fiddler on a street corner, inventing songs, playing requests, appreciating the passersby. The good vibes are instantly erased, however, when a band shows up to play "loud, bad pop music." This particular evening, the band wins the battle for "sonic space." Also a bicycle activist, the author urges others to walk, take public transportation, anything to help "take back the streets from cars and corporations." In addition to busking and biking, Ferrell promotes the transformation of cultural space through outlaw radio micro-stations. Hacking and jamming the airwaves he considers to be as acts of sonic resistance and community-building. Likewise, he sees graffiti as an alternative mode of communication. Indeed, graffiti offers "countless kids creative options outside the usual degradations of gang, school, or work." Completely absent from the author's argument is an understanding of the difference between temporary andpermanent: It's one thing to spend an evening on a street corner making music, which fades away as soon as the musicians stop playing; it's another to spray a subway car with graffiti, which will remain until there's money and manpower to erase it. Ferrell seems a bit of a fraud, given that he's writing about marginalized social groups from the vantage point of a privileged academic position. Simplistic at best.

Kirkus Reviews