By Phil McManus
The '90s are already a fascinating decade for anybody interested in Australian cities. It seems our cities have been rediscovered, resuscitated, resurrected even, from the so-called "excesses" and "aberrations" of the 1980s.
How can we explain the lord mayor of Perth (a Liberal senator in the Fraser era) and the progressive independent MLA for Perth, Dr Ian Alexander, agreeing on many urban issues? How do we explain the 180 degree turn by many city administrations on issues such as central city housing? Why are some businesses and environmentalists both saying "no more car parks"? What are the implications for progressive urban activists?
Capitalism profits from "place". Location is crucial for capitalist profit generation, whether it be for transport considerations, market access or, increasingly, image.
In the past this has often meant being seen in the big cities or in rapidly growing cities. A central city address (on the right street) meant prestige, profile and profits for those capitalists clever enough to maximise their locational advantage.
This tendency is still strong today, despite the development of communications technology and private transport. If business offices have relocated from the central areas of cities to reduce their rent, it has often been to "desirable" suburbs close to the executive residential areas, such as Sydney's north shore, Melbourne's eastern suburbs and the western suburbs of Perth.
Increasingly, there is a demand for government money (remember who is and isn't paying their share of tax) to be spent on improving the central areas of cities. Many businesses have realised that car parks are often "dead spaces" on the street, that a car has yet to purchase anything from a shop, that visitors to the cities tend to focus on central area locations, that tourism is a growth industry and that our cities are, in many ways, unattractive for international investment.
The city is a backdrop, like a stage for a play, but it is also a source of profit generation. In the changing conditions of contemporary capitalism, new sources of profit must be found. These include lower wages, untapped markets in Asia, South Africa, Eastern Europe etc and the commodification of all possible aspects of life.
The city is often both the site and source for growth. Governments are expected to provide unprofitable infrastructure to assist in creating the conditions for accumulation.
Image and business
These conditions are changing as a result of the successes of the environmental movement and the growth in tourism. The city is now expected to be clean, "livable", dynamic, diverse. Businesses want to see art, culture and people in our cities. This was highlighted at the recent City Challenge Conference in Perth, where Janet Holmes a Court said, "it was a challenge to business to make a human city — to give businesses a good reason to base themselves in Perth". (West Australian, September 11)
The impact of this "economics of amenity" is not confined to Australia. Japanese business people are becoming increasingly concerned about Bangkok's image as an environmental disaster. The lesson is clear: clean up your image or we won't invest.
The image of the city (and hence of its businesses) is crucial. Cities increasingly compete against each other to attract growth. This is nothing new. What is significantly different from 18th century England and 19th century USA and Australia is the highly mobile nature of global capital and the growth of cultural industries that promote city images. The winning Broncos (Brisbane is a winner) and the high-flying Eagles (a bit too late to save the image of some business people in Perth) are examples of projecting sporting team images onto the cities the teams represent.
In the USA this image and profile industry is more advanced, with cities luring teams from other cities by building sporting stadiums. In Australia, the spectacles of car racing on the Gold Coast, and in Adelaide and Perth, and the competition between Melbourne and Sydney to bid for the Olympic Games are two examples of attracting tourists and investment and projecting city profile.
Promoting capitalism?
What does this mean for urban activists? The concept of urban planning supporting the growth of capitalism by providing security for investment has been highlighted by Leonie Sandercock and others. In the past, urban activists have been able to criticise the institutional planners on these grounds while simultaneously advocating marginalised concepts such as light rail, permaculture, cycling and walking, healthy cities, sustainable cities.
Many of these previously marginalised ideas are now being incorporated into mainstream planning because of the unconcealable failure of earlier growth policies and because of the potential for capitalists to generate profit from them.
For some activists without a developed critique of contemporary capitalism (including the role of the state and voluntary sector), this is a dream come true. For other activists it presents a real dilemma.
It is difficult sometimes to comprehend the "economics of amenity" or "the human face of capitalism". It is easier to protest against a nuclear power plant, a smelly factory or a subdivision on wetlands than to separate the elements of a revitalisation plan for a city centre, particularly if the plan includes components such as light rail and public housing.
Sometimes the capital accumulation function is very obvious, as in the case of the proposed Central Perth Foreshore Redevelopment, but even there it appears that benefits may be provided for ordinary people so as to broaden the appeal of the project. Capitalism is inoculating itself against danger by including a small proportion of the threat, usually the technical elements, into its body, but rejecting the socioeconomic and political bases (and hence appearing to negate the need for their adoption) for these design proposals.
Urban activists are at a conjuncture where some of the ideas they have been advocating for years are becoming acceptable to capitalists, but not for the reasons they were originally proposed. The choices for activists include whether to encourage all these ideas wherever possible and by whoever possible, or to be selective about projects (which may find activists arguing against some of their own proposals, for environmental and social reasons, in a particular context), to reject them as capitalist tools and allow the cities to decline so the people may rise in revolution, or to advance progressive thought so the margins are continually being extended.
Some of these options are not mutually exclusive. I personally favour the critical approach which perceives opportunities for housing cooperatives, public transport, permaculture, community art in the ruins of earlier growth strategies, while simultaneously developing progressive thought in our society.
However, while the conjuncture of seemingly disparate forces presents opportunities, structural analysis of contemporary political economy should never be overlooked. If we do forget the structure of contemporary capitalism, our ideas will be leached of radical content and constructed as a memorial to what might have been.
We have an ability to act, not in circumstances entirely of our own choosing, which may increase with further crises in capitalism, or may pass if other scenarios emerge. Our actions in the cities can influence the immediate development of our urban environments and also change the context for future progressive actions on many fronts.
Before we act, it is important we develop some understanding of what we are trying to change. If we act wisely and effectively, this decade can be one for which our children's children will be grateful.