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Utopias and Dystopias: Urban Imaginations in Palestine+100
Abstract
​​From the utopian imaginations of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacres and Le Corbusier’s Radiant City, planning imaginations of space hinge upon specific conceptions of social, political, and economic organization. However, as Karl Mannheim astutely acknowledged in Ideology and Utopia, there is ease in tipping from utopia to dystopia. This paper puts the questions of and frames behind utopian imagination from the mid-twentieth century into conversation with municipal imaginations of Palestinian cities, as seen in urban renewal schematics, and science fiction urban imaginations, most frequently their dystopian constructions, of Palestine from Saqi Books’ 2019 anthology, Palestine+100. Both the twentieth century utopian imaginations and many urban renewal schemes come out of a critical juncture around the loss of faith in the city’s trajectory, a visceral belief that something has gone wrong, and from this position burst imaginations and projects seeking to “right” society. Using the critical juncture of the Nakba, the authors of Palestine+100 have an open page from which to construct new urban spaces. While untethered to a specific construction of reality, author decisions to root themselves to moments of familiarity, such as Ahmed Masoud’s poignant use of restrictions of Palestinian movement, lend weight to their urban imaginations. Using the logics behind utopian constructions, this paper explores the threads between state-designed urban renewal projects in Palestine with the dystopian imaginations in Palestine+100, bringing to the fore large questions for urban planning as it continues to conceptualize “good” city. One such topic that brings together utopias, dystopias, urban renewal, and current debates in planning is the role of technology. Just as the modernist ideals of technological advancement and capabilities played into how Howard, Wright, and Le Corbusier constructed their utopias, the authors of Palestine+100 each incorporate technology differently with every conceptualization of technology’s role in the urban experience. Technologies that were tools of efficiency harnessed within the Radiant City and Broadacres become objects of domination, restriction, and surveillance in the various stories of Palestine’s imagined future. As Leonie Sandercock explains in “City Songlines,” urban planning must see an expansion of our imagination in the field’s work towards creating a liberatory city. Bridging the conversation between the ideal and unideal urban imaginations opens the practice of broadening the imaginations of what the liberatory city can be.
Discipline
Architecture & Urban Planning
Geographic Area
Palestine
Sub Area
Urban Studies