Politics of Occupation, Pervasive, and Transgressive Urbanization
Careful consideration of the quality and access of public space for all people are critical components of vibrant, diverse, equitable urbanization. The physical occupation of space, staking claim and proliferating collective voice has the power to elicit significant change by bringing issues into public consciousness.
Occupy Wall Street in New York City provides a context for understanding how the occupation of space as a political act can provide understanding and a platform for critiquing underlying forces of urbanization and the rights and regulation of public and private spaces. Protest has the power to democratize space, highlight issues of rights in the public realm and raise consciousness of problematic forces that historically influenced and continue to define urbanization.
Hannah Kemp 