About the Book
Urban activism can manifest in many guises, from community gardening to mass naked bike rides. But how might we theorize the evidence of the collisions between social forces that take place in our streets and public commons? Cities are formed through these collective collisions in time.
This book draws on the author’s own vast experience as an activist to make links between a theory of practice with rich discussion of the histories of conflicts over public space. Each chapter examines activist responses to a range of issues that have confronted New Yorkers, from the struggle for green space and non-polluting transportation, to housing and the fight for sexual civil liberties. The cases are shaped through interplay between multiple data sources, including the author’s own voice as an observing participant, as well as interviews with other participant activists, historic accounts and theoretical discussion. Taken together, these highlight a story of urban public space movements and the ways they shape cities and are shaped by history.
Table of Contents:
1. Cities as DIY Spaces: On Dialectical Activism and the Future of Cities
2. Eco-Activism Increase / Reduce, Growth / Degrowth: From Seed Bombs to Community Gardens and Bike Lanes to Sustainable Urbanism
3. Public Spaces and Urban Vistas: From Gardens to Urban Libraries and a Struggle Against the Negative
4. Community Gardens, Creative Community Organizing, and Environmental Activism
5. Dialectical Times: On the Movement for Non-polluting Transportation and Sustainable Urbanism in New York City
6. Gardens Are Homes, Gardens Rising
7. Primitive Accumulation and a Movement for a Home in a Neoliberal City
8. Contested Urban Space, Union Square, and Dispatches on Voluntary and Involuntary Arrests in New York City
9. From Emma Goldman to Riot Grrrl, Sex Work, Autonomy and the Transformation of Streets: Reproductive Autonomy, Public Space and Social Movements
10. Between ADHD and the Desert of the Real: Confessions of a Teenage Ritalin Junkie
11. Bridging the Divide between Queer Theory and Anarchism
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About the Author :
Benjamin Heim Shepard is Professor of Human Services at New York City College of Technology. For the last two decades, he has worked on campaigns for public space, including community gardens, bike lanes, and public welfare issues ranging from education to AIDS services. To this end, he has done organizing work with the Professional Staff Congress, ACT UP, SexPanic!, Reclaim the Streets, Times UP, CitiWide Harm Reduction, Housing Works, and More Gardens!. He is currently the president of the Mid Atlantic Consortium of Human Services. He is also the author of the books: Illuminations on Market Street, bel Friendships,Community Projects as Social Activism: From Direct Action to Direct Services, White Nights and Ascending Shadows: An Oral History of the San Francisco AIDS Epidemic and Queer Political Performance and Protest. Part two of this study is Play, Creativity, and Social Movements. Along with Greg Smithsimon, he is co-author of The Beach Beneath the Streets: Contesting New York’s Public Spaces. He is the co-editor of the book From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization which was a non-fiction finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards in 2002.
Review :
In our current moment, filled with peril and possibility, Sustainable Urbanism and Direct Action is a welcome and timely intervention that casts a needed spotlight on effective ways to be actively engaged in forging a collective future that is more just, meaningful, and sustainable.
Benjamin Heim Shepard is an exuberant and indispensable chronicler of contemporary urban life and grassroots organizing. With this volume, he brings together the energy of the street and the nuances of theory to produce a fascinating account of how activists are contesting and redefining urbanism for our time.
This volume is an epic and essential activist primer exploring the many current Social Movements with a serious personal investment as well as a sense of humor. Ben is not only a dedicated activist but also a scholar, historian and a very gifted writer. He tackles a huge range of issues but is able to give them a coherence and context which ultimately makes the whole greater than the parts. A celebration of the activism of everyday life!
How can we build and sustain community in urban neighborhoods? Ben Shepard deftly melds centuries of theory and decades of insights from seasoned activists to produce compelling answers. Shepard playfully paints vibrant portraits of potent campaigns to reclaim and remake public spaces for the common good. From mobilizations to protect affordable housing, community gardens, bike lanes, and public health, to innovative efforts to create economic and social justice for all, Shepard forges viable pathways towards a desirable 21st century. A must read for engaged scholars and activists seeking to make a sustainable urbanism.
In this well-written account, Benjamin Shepard shows how publics, places, and propitious moments combine to reveal the dialectical interplay between urban order and resistance. Shepard skillfully invokes the work of revolutionary thinkers and activists, such as Marx, Lukacs and Goldman to elucidate his case studies. He delivers a host of concise, colorful narratives about practicable public spaces, while relating a bigger story about the city, where contest is the requisite buy-in for personal and collective freedom.
A great read, full of hope and progress from an activist who dives deep into the struggle in the city that never sleeps. While sharing both theory and action, Shepard's book is serious fun, powerfully framed by mutual aid, the feeling of immediacy and his awareness of the effectiveness of protest.
Participate in any action in New York, and you’ll have a strong chance of coming across Benjamin Heim Shepard. For thirty years, this big, rugged, brown-haired guy with the look of a leading man has been in all the battles. He’s protested for bike lanes, community gardens, with drug users, against the pharmaceutical industry… Some people practice sports every day. Benjamin protests every day. “Every day,” he says, as if he’s delivering the secret of youth.
Benjamin Heim Shepard is an organizer, ecologist, provocateur, theorist, and community historian -- a true trickster poly-math -- and he brings all these gifts and lenses to his latest work, Sustainable Urbanism: Case Studies in Dialectical Activism, guiding us beyond gentrification to a livable, post-carbon city.
