The new urban enclosures

Abstract

The ongoing crisis of global capitalism has served only to intensify the past four decades of neoliberal restructuring of cities across the world. In this paper I critically reflect on a literary aspect of the neoliberalising city academic discourse that is too often left untheorised or underplayed—the prevalence of contemporary urban enclosure. My aim is twofold: to synthesise theories of old and new enclosure with more familiar understandings of neoliberal urban processes; and to then apply this framework to the British housing experience of the past four decades. In doing so, I argue that enclosure is not only a metaphor for contemporary urban policy and processes but also provides an explanation for what is taking place. The paper concludes with some brief thoughts on how today's ‘urban commoners’ might contest the new urban enclosures by finding common cause around visions and practices of a ‘new urban commons’.