I think you're right that it's not inherently reactionary . You're not inherently turned into a reactionary by not being in a big city , but it depends on what even the built environment of a small place is like .
I mean , if you are in like a totally car dependent place , that is immediately , like , I think , massively lowering the I don't know , lowering the character of your , of your like , sociality . You have to spend all this time like in a pod , like by yourself , going to places that require parking , and so they're going to have to be really low density too .
Yeah , they're going to be really low density , I mean , unless you're listening to what's left of philosophy in the car , then we're like we , like you .
You're cool yeah .
See , this is sociality . Now you're in a car by yourself , listening to your not friends on a podcast .
You didn't have to do like that .
I'm your friend . You don't know me , I'm your friend , you don't .
But like even the cities themselves , though . Are you know , like even the ones that do have transit like by , by national standards , like Boston , for example , has , I think you'd say like pretty good mass transit , but like all other American cities really , I mean even New York . But there's some parts of New York that interconnect a little more .
They're just these lines that carry you in from exerbs or outer suburbs like into the center and carry you back out . There's no connection between look at any American like transit map . There's no connection between any of the neighborhoods , like between one of the .
They're only meant to just bring workers in , like they fulfill the needs of capital , not the needs of people , right ? So there are jobs to like bring workers into the city to work , service , industrial or office jobs and to then bring them back out . And yeah , that also doesn't Like .
Yeah , there's so much in the built character , even the more dense cities , that prevents a more cohesive body politic .
Yeah , like Houston and LA Right , yeah , exactly , houston has one . What do they have ?
Like one . I love it when you look at a city like Houston with like a metro region how many people ? Six or seven million or whatever and there's one like light rail line that like runs through the city . And then you look at like the city of Rennes in France , which has like 200,000 people and multiple subway lines . It's like half the size of Madison .
Wisconsin has got multiple subway lines .
This is what I'm saying . Yeah , I'm going .
This is the one nice thing I'm about to say about Britain , and please don't cancel me over this . I was there recently the trains so many trains and they were threatening to go on strike right before I left and all of that . And I was just like this how did this happen ? All of these trains ?
And I know there's a rich history of the railways being nationalized and all of that , but I was just like you know what ? Y'all should have exported ? This Focus on building more trains . This is , this is .
I hate to burst their bubble , though it is sadly in decline . It's being privatized , like everything else . Bro , you don't guys help me . I become exorbitantly expensive and Look .
I was riding those trains and yeah that they are insanely expensive . But you know , I see the utopian idea . No , for sure , for sure .
I don't say really quick intentionally . I love that they like privatized these rail networks and then the state rails of France and Germany like bought up a bunch of like stock in them and they just make money . Like when you get on a train in Britain you're paying the French state rail service . Great , that's true , yeah , that's true . The SNCF .
My friend works for the SNCF .
I'm so happy to have .
They're the engineer for the SNCF in France . Yeah , and he's like yeah , we just get , we just get paid by British train riders Because they fucking privatize it Because they privatize it .
Idiots Fucking idiots . Well , I think so . Okay , so , coming back , I think you're right , lillian , like there's not an automatic direct connection either from , like urbanization , living in a city , to progressive class politics or community per se , nor is there an automatic or direct line from suburbs and exorbs to , like you know , being a reactionary .
I think you're absolutely right about that no .
suburbs , I agree . Suburbs , I agree .
Suburbs yes .
Media . Fuck .
I meant like 200 , like , listen , you should be able to live my point was you should be able to live in a town with 50,000 people or 100,000 people and like your quality of life should like be good enough , and you should be able to have a fucking bowling club and so on . Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah yeah , agreed , no , I agree .
I think what's helpful , then , about Harvey's intervention is , yeah , to demand the right to the city is to recognize the potentiality for , you know , new kinds of social life and political enculturation that is represented by what happens when you bring so many people together into a close proximity with one another .
Because clearly , capital recognizes the danger here .
Right , like this is like there's like a double-edged he likes using phrases like a there's like a knife edge that it needs , that capital needs to walk , or like you know that there's like a two-sided , double-edged sword character to phenomena like urbanization , where , you know , starting in the 1800s , you get these cities that start arising basically because of factory
systems , and like industrialization , and this is the ferment right out of which revolutionary working class politics grows for the first time . So thereupon follows these projects of disaggregation , dissipating it , right , and then the moral reform of the suburbs .
Right , like you know , if you're really giving a fuck about , like your lawn mowing and you're not thinking too much about , like the people you work with , right , or if you spend all of your time in a pod , like Owen described , it's much harder to get class consciousness off the ground , and that's intentional , right .
I think this is clear , that this is an intentional thing .
The other side , so this is just all that is to say , that , like the shape of our , of our built environment is a locus of class struggle , like I believe that I think Harvey's completely right about this and , as with most things , I think we have to say whoops , we've been losing that battle in the class war for quite a while .
What are you talking about , Gil ? Whenever I see a photo of LA and all that traffic from 8am to 8pm . I think , no , we've won . They're sociality . They're all there together . He's not going anywhere .
There was a really funny line in , I think , the rate to the city piece , where he quotes Haussmann in like 1840s or 1850s maybe who's like been given a design for one of the boulevards by one of his lieutenants and he's just like wrong , you've given me a boulevard that's 40 meters wide .
I'm talking 120 , right like this is like the scale of the drawing board . And yeah , try again . Go back to the drawing board . And then Robert Moses does the same thing in .
New .
York in the 40s and 50s right where , like again , the scale , the size of the surplus capital investment in fixed capital . Because the surplus is so much larger , the scale of urbanization needs to be larger to absorb the surplus .
By the way , this , like I just wanted to say , like this helped make sense for me of like these fucking projects that you see in China where they're like building cities where nobody lives , yet they're just building cities that could house like 30 million people , but like it's just like a farm land where nobody lives yet .
They built a Paris , they built a Replicant they built a . Paris , yeah , in China they built a replica of Paris with an Eiffel Tower and everything , and buildings that looked like they could be yeah , dude , and it's like there's some people living there now , but it's basically been a ghost town since they built it .
Look up . When did they build this ? Hold on back up Like 10 years ago .
Yeah , like they've been going on for 10 years , dude , I can't wait for you to look at a picture of this .
It is like staggering , like it's Okay , I'm going to look this up . Paris , china yeah , look that up .
Paris China , not Paris Texas . Fake Paris this also helps me make sense though .
Tian Du Cheng Like the fucking Burj Kud . I don't have the fuck . Do I pronounce anything ?
I was just going to say . This also helps make sense of like these , like massive building projects in like in like the Middle East , like in the . Arab Emirates right Like Dubai and like the Burj Khalifa . Like yeah for a long time I was like why the fuck are they doing that ? What ?
are they doing ? There's no use value .
There's no utility to it .
But , I think Harvey's right People don't live in them .
There's just because you need to absorb the surplus somehow . Yeah , and this is like one way to do it , by the way .
Just what Robert Moses ? He's the guy you have to thank for all the cities that you come from having just gigantic freeways running through the middle of them , and all the neighborhoods that got totally decimated . Thanks Bob .
Are you seeing it ? Lilian looks terrified right now .
There's something really . I'm like really I'm like kind of I'm getting , I'm getting the Staring to the uncanny .
I'm staring to the uncanny . Why is ?
this happening ? Why are they doing this ?
Dude , absorbing mass , mass amounts of capital .
But like what .
You didn't believe you didn't believe me , did you I , when I meant it ? I mean , I thought you meant just like they built like a little .
Eiffel Tower situation , but , like you're , it's a whole .
No , it's the entirety of Paris . They built a Versailles . They built a new Versailles in Paris .
I'm freaking out Out .
Just look , look what capital does to an MF .
Just look , look , you find yourself doing .
You leave people alone and they just start building replicas of Paris under capitalism .
They just built iron parishes . And a Jackson Hole Wyoming .
Wait why ?
is this happening ?
What the fuck would they build a Jackson Hole Wyoming Jackson Hole ? Wait , isn't that where a bunch of billionaires love to go . But but the Jesus , there's a German . They don't wait . There's a replica of the German Village and inside .
look at China's fake Paris , London and Jackson Hole Wyoming . Honestly , this is , this is nuts . This can't be real , this can't , this cannot .
Okay , honestly , we have . Where is the ? Where is ?
Baudrillard when we need him . Yo , he's just rising from the grave , did you say ?
Simulacra For the meantime , on this , for the Boji art coming out of there . Right , we should stop fuck . Now we might have to do an app on Boji art just because of this development , just because of Jackson .
Hole China .
Just because of the Champs-Élysées , in the middle of China .
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