Securing Precarious Urban Futures

Abstract

September 11, 2001 and the financial crisis of 2008 mark two transformative moments in the politics of security in the United States. On one hand, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 ushered in a stunning expansion of state security. We saw this in the passage of the USA Patriot Act; the creation of the Department of Homeland Security; the pursuit of the global War on Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond; and the diversion of trillions of public dollars into the war industry and projects of domestic surveillance and policing. On the other hand, ongoing instabilities in global capitalism and continued fallout from the 2008 economic crisis have made visible a stark erosion of social and material security in contemporary life. While Wall Street and the corporate sector have resumed minting new billionaires and posting record profits (the top 1% now has a higher net worth than the bottom 90%), millions have been left with foreclosed homes, debilitating debt, vanishing jobs, and stagnating wages. Concurrently, a regressive politics of disinvestment and austerity continues to hollow-out commitments to public infrastructure, health care, child development, education, and labor and environmental protections further eroding the basis for securing human well-being and the future.