A central public space – the archetypal agora, a place of honor – was the essence of a traditional City, but even if public spaces still exist in our cities, and even when creating new plazas, arcades and urban parks, their meaning is closely linked to commercialism or the health and welfare of residents. Public spaces in our cities today have no political, but merely commercial-entertainment significance. There was indeed – as I wrote in the previous chapter – an important international shift in political and economic climates, and Catherine Needham rightly speaks of the ‘Citizen-Consumer’ (with a decisive emphasis on ‘Consumer’). That is the key problem of modern cities – the disappearance of the political community. The collapse of public spaces and their replacement with commercial spaces, the disintegration of the urban structure and privatisation of its spaces are results, not causes. There was a complete dehiscence of the City space along with the political idea of the City.
Why is the disappearance of the political community crucial in understanding the crisis of the City? Because the lack of a political community is the lack of any community. As Jadwiga Staniszkis writes, “too big a withdrawal of the state may not only lead to ‘denationalisation’, but also ‘desocialisation’ (because people are beginning to see their ‘citizenship’ as irrelevant to their own fate).”16 What connects the City’s inhabitants? Shopping together in a suburban mall? The fact that we were all in a multiplex once? So what? The potential in this cinema or that shop to meet others? That’s clearly absurd
Rebuilding the local community, the community at district level, seemed to offer some hope for the disappearance of the political community from the City as a whole – however, even at this level the community disappears. Nothing unites people living side-by-side. Therefore, the subjective cities are first a political and social problem, only then a spatial one. The reintegration of urban space cannot be carried out with urban tools. Urbanism, as such, or land use planning are increasingly irrelevant, precisely because their role has become purely regulatory, instrumental and expert. One cannot save the cities through interventions and social programs either – it is still too little; these are only half measures. The only effective remedy would be to reclaim the City as a political idea, as a self-governing organism. Not planning, not social programs, but politics is the path of salvation for cities.
Strangers in the City
Immigrants as Attraction, Immigrants as Menace
The issues concerning immigration and multiethnicity are extremely broad. In addition to these is the problem of ‘other Others’ in the City. The different groups in the City, though they have a great joint role, also have a lot of overlap. ‘Strangers’ in the city are not necessarily immigrants – for instance, strangers in the city of a conservative society can be homosexuals, who after all come from within that same society, while immigrants under certain conditions (for example, in the cities where immigrants make up the majority) are not necessarily ‘strangers’. For an even better rendering of the complexity of this problem, there should be a distinction between the several types of immigrant presence in the world. Probably the simplest classification is a division into those who, with their own will or against it, stay in a ‘foreign’ city permanently, and those who are in such a city ‘temporarily’, where that period of time, though it may last for several years, is in fact – at least in the declarations of immigrants – a minor interruption in their ‘proper’ life. This ‘temporary’ migration has one primary goal – economic. Its purpose is to allow the immigrant to earn enough money to start a ‘real’ life upon returning to their country.
These kinds of immigrants are very strongly associated with the country of their origin and very weakly with the country in which they are temporarily staying. Most do not know (or know very little of) the language of their host country, do not want or do not have too much capacity to integrate with a culturally alien environment, and perform the simplest and worst paid work (although, of course, we have here a unique group of highly specialised workers who are often a cosmopolitan community, familiar with the language of their host country and who feel just as ‘at home’ or just as ‘foreign’ as anywhere else in the world). Their importance to the host country is basically economic; because these people are doing work which the ‘locals’ do not wish to pursue, there is a kind of symbiosis. To their apparent mutual satisfaction, the immigrants work and the ‘locals’ use them. Poles were such immigrants for many years (and still some of my countrymen remain so), as were Turks in Germany, Hispanics in the U.S. or Vietnamese in Poland.
This category of immigrants rather smoothly intertwines with another: the category of immigrants who were forced to leave their homes without being in any way prepared. I am talking about all kinds of political and economic refugees who, like those of the first category, are usually poorly educated, do the worst work, but do not have the possibility of returning to their home country. These two categories of people are, either actually or mentally, very strongly connected with their home countries and very poorly with their current country of residence. It is obvious that the image of the country held by its guest is different on the ‘outside’ – when dealing with family and friends – than on the ‘inside’. For family and friends that remained in the homeland, the country in which an immigrant is staying is almost a paradise, whereas the reality of the ‘inside’ is the complete opposite – it is mostly hell. On the other hand there are immigrants who confidently choose their ‘second homeland’ and often find relationships (marriage, partnerships or friendships) with the ‘locals’, who then in turn smoothly merge with a group of refugees who for various reasons do not want to have anything to do with their country of origin at all.
Since all these categories of immigrants and ‘foreigners’ are mixed together, I would like to distinguish my area of interest in this chapter very clearly. A key problem here is – as throughout the whole book – the roots: the relationship between the human being, the society and space. Therefore, I will treat all other distinctions as secondary, focusing primarily on the relationship between the person with their place of residence and the place (or places) that is ‘external’. With this perspective, City residents appear to us as beings with no race, no gender or other such parameters, situated instead on the excluded – included axis. But before we can answer the question: “Why are some city residents more excluded than others?” – and we can be sure that we would have to give a specific answer in any case – we must notice that such an action takes place at all. At this point, however, some doubt must appear – if I have mentioned immigrants who are in fact ‘rooted’ in their places of origin, must this exclusion be in any case destructive and tragic? Maybe instead of thinking about the exclusion of one particular space we should actually generalise it even more in this case? And simply ask about the exclusion proliferating in the world? But let us leave that question for now – though it is fundamental to this book.
Meanwhile, back to those excluded from the (physical and social) City space. The fact is that those born in the town are usually in a better position, are more ‘rooted’ in this space. They know the area; they are familiar with the paths, roads, squares and shops. They know the people. They have the enemy-friend system adjusted accordingly. However, the family into which they were born and the area in which they grew up is even more important. Perhaps a native to London’s Kensington area will not feel too confident in the East End and Southwark, but because they come from a particular part of the city, have certain parents and friends, they will be firmly and permanently rooted in the city (as a whole, or in its ‘better’ and ‘major’ part). Today, it is social position, wealth, influence and