The movement towards a total free market cloaked under a
banner of mythic individual choice has created a divided state, and has greatly
diminished public assets. National industries, council houses, health care and
almost all traditionally state-run sectors have been sold off, one by one, to
large private corporations; in contradiction to the so-called ‘share owning
democracy’ which only serves, in fact, to encourage very undemocratic greed. What
we are witnessing is the end of true collective consumption. The new urban
underclass may have the vote (though this has itself been semi-privatised, as
popular fears over poll tax non-payment still deter people from registering as
electors) unlike their historical counterparts, but they have little else. And,
most importantly, they have less and less truly public space in which to
congregate – and agitate. Privatising property in all its forms is perhaps the
most invidious trick of current policies.
Housing has become almost fully the domain of financial
institutions and petty private landlords, re-classing decent accommodation not
as a right, but as a market dominated privilege. The ability to pay directly
dictates our access to housing stock. Alternative forms of home have all been
attached, with the attack legitimised through sinister tools such as the poll
tax – a direct charge upon the individual. Any so-called deviant living spaces
become framed as the habitat of scroungers and shirkers. In this way, police
harassment of travellers, communes and squatters is sanctioned. Further, recent
changes in waterways law are designed to limit living rights on canals,
clearing them for leisure use.
The state approved ideal of for housing is the insular, anonymous
housing estate, where Neighbourhood Watch schemes encourage private crime
prevention and where housing design, street layout and estate location all act
against true community feeling, instead encouraging nosiness, avarice and
introversion. The ultimate landscape expression of this housing ideal is the
private estate, with an enclosing wall, a guarded gate and home owner control
through residents’ associations – yet another excuse to encourage busy-bodying
and social apartheid. The old neighbourhood covenants of the USA, which allowed
residents to block estates access for black families, have become a clear
reality in the private estates of the new bourgeoisie. Truly, these are the
present day equivalent of the landlord controlled ‘closed villages’ of the
nineteenth century.
A second echo of history is found in increasing corporate
ownership of space. Retails, office and business park developments which often
stimulate the influx of middle class workers who ‘yuppify’ nearby housing,
driving local tenants out, are the patrician landscapes of late capitalism.
Good workers are rewarded, undesirables are hounded out. The corporation has
total control over the design and use of space, with private security firms
enforcing the rule of law. Panoptical surveillance of grudgingly permitted
visitors constantly observes, and instantly acts against, any perceived threat
to order. The scale and opulence of these developments dwarfs any
anthropometric elements around them, while token heritage-ised gestures at
contextual fit, unfulfilled job-creation promises for locals and vacuous public
art projects merely patronise, alienate and insult the pushed aside local
community. The creation of new sizeable urban structures pays no regards to the
permeability of the city fabric, cutting across pedestrian thoroughfares, and
the design of new buildings, with reflecting skins of mirror-glazing or bland
outer walls (the valued community – those who work/shop/do business there –
only see the palatial insides and the welcoming entrances) yield nothing,
project nothing, offer nothing back. As Britain follows the American path of
increased mall-ing, so we witness the sea change in leisure activity. Shopping
in the number one state sanctioned pastime; advertisers and retail mega-chains
push commodity fetishism to its logical extreme. In parts of the US, the answer
to diminished recreational facilities (often casually linked to rising crime)
has been to open malls for 24 hours. ‘Shut up and shop’ should now be rewritten
as ‘Shut off and shop’: commodity zombies will only revolt when shops are
empty. When urban street violence does occur, looting is a major activity;
instead of attacking commodity culture the rioters show clearly their earnest
desire to join in. Multinational insurance companies make sure no-one loses
out, just as ‘stock shrinkage’ is written into company accounts to allow for
shoplifting. Calls to revoke the Sunday trading ban in Britain show the extent
to which consumerism has become the opium of the people. The private mall is
today’s cathedral. The Disneyfied ‘supermalls’ currently crossing the Atlantic
show how cynical this new religion has become. Like Pray TV, all modern gods
must offer up a modern spectacle in return for souls – and money.
The flipside of modern consumerism is individualised leisure
activity. The personal stereo represents private playtime; covering our ears to
cries for mass rebellion, we prefer to listen to Bryan Adams romanticising a
mythical rabble rouser. At home, we watch videos of a dark future of privatised
law-enforcement and complete corporate domination, while outside it develops as
a present day actuality. The end result of individualised playtime is virtual
reality arcade game based upon the urban riots. Enclosed in a simulation of
petrol bombs and mob rule, players can act out revolution and go home happy.
Meanwhile, popular forms of mass leisure are under attack; increasing media and
corporate control of football (through sponsorship) means ever more executive
stands, ever fewer terraces. The ID card scheme and the introduction of
all-seater stadia, legitimised by media exaggerated focus on hooliganism,
together with the proposed ‘super league’, furthers the move towards privatised
football. Instead, we are funnelled into private leisure complexes to watch
movies or play ten-pin bowling.
It is not only urban space which is being increasingly
corporatised. A recent disclosure
revealed a government scheme to sell off vast tracts of forest, and most of the
small islands surrounding Britain are in private hands, each one a miniature
kingdom – and a sound investment. Here, once more we hark back to past times,
when land became a rime symbol of wealth. Aged rock stars, TV presenters and
corporate bosses are today’s ‘arriviste’ landowners. The theft of Britain’s
countryside continues unabated, and even supposedly public bodies, such as the
National Trust, slip quietly towards privatisation, blocking access to their
lands, and ‘forgetting’ to reveal them to mapmakers. The continued annual mass
trespasses of the Ramblers Association are testament to the longevity of this
struggle and of its continued relevance today.
Bus services have been removed from state ownership, with
the rail network soon to follow. Inevitable rationalisation of these transport
services places complete emphasis on private car ownership. After forcing this
move upon us, we become faced with a new twist: privatised toll roads. The
whole road network pays only token regard to pedestrians, to cyclists, to the
land through which is cuts, and to the environment which is destroys. Less than
a tenth of car tax is spent on roads. With this huge amount of revenue being
pulled in from a population seduced and forced into using cars, to be used by
the government at whim, is it any wonder that nothing gets done to earnestly
reduce traffic? Meanwhile, private car parks eat up vast tracts or urban land,
and roads cut swathes through communities.
Perhaps the most sinister conclusion to reach from surveying
the sum of privatised space in Britain is the loss of the right of freedom of
assembly by the simple fact that there is no longer exist places where people
can freely assemble. All acts of rebellion have become ritualised, and are
carefully marshalled, channelled and media covered. The fact that they do
happen – that they are allowed to happen – testifies to their lack of real
threat. Further, by minimising public space and thereby dictating our use of
places, spontaneous and creative acts between inhabitants are curtailed.
Wherever we come together, we are watched and controlled. Freedom itself has
been privatised. From sterile new towns to money hungry toll roads, from video
arcades to shopping arcades, and from unyielding office blocks to unwelcoming
city nights, space is no longer communal public property. It is in elite hands,
and those hands have a vice-like grip on all aspects of our lives, especially
those which might subvert or overthrow them, if ever given the chance.
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