Seeking shelter in Pandora’s box

Abstract

‘Progress’ has reached a point at which it engenders mounting fear and insecurity. As a response, Zygmunt Bauman argues, we seek substitute forms of satisfaction that appear to guard us against danger. One such substitute is the Sports Utility Vehicle (considered at greater length in Eduardo Mendieta’s contribution to this issue). These fears and the attempt to escape them are increasingly played out in cities. In the massive urban agglomerations of ‘the developing world’ such progress takes the form of an increasingly gross and exploitative imbalance between town and country which creates severe problems that were once, though not once and for all, addressed with extreme difficulty, in the cities of ‘the developed world’ Cities, in a sad reversal of progress, have now reached the point where they are characterized, instead of by the one‐time external wall that protected residents against external enemies, by a multiplicity of internal walls protecting some residents against others within the city. What is needed, though, is not more privatized spaces but more public spaces in which the city and civilization can be rebuilt.