Tearing Down The Streets - Adventures In Urban Anarchy - Jeff Ferrell

 TEARING DOWN THE STREETS -

ADVENTURES IN URBAN ANARCHY -

JEFF FERRELL

There is much that Americans get right and that they fully understand but there are also some things that Americans just have no understanding of at all and so get totally wrong. Irony is the classic example of course but also certain aspects of culture and politics - especially when it comes to British culture and politics. Jeff Ferrell, author of Tearing Down The Streets - Adventures In Urban Anarchy is American. In fact (at the time of writing this book at least) he's a Professor of Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. Hold your horses for a moment though and don't with a roll of your eyes instantly dismiss this because to be fair, Ferrell's heart is in the right place and his intentions are honourable. He's been doing some thinking and researching the subject, and has come to the conclusion that our cities and urban areas are being compromised, homogenized, sanitized and 'Disneyfied'. Or to put it another way: gentrified.

This is pretty self-evident and no great revelation of course, but the question that it begs is whether it's a good or a bad thing? The answer - as with most things in life, really - is all dependent upon what side of the fence you're sitting. If money is your god and you're fully invested in the capitalist system and the societies it creates, unable or unwilling to think outside the box, then gentrification is alright. For sure, you might like things to be a bit edgy and you like a bit of Banksy but no-one wants to live in a slum and run a gauntlet of muggers every time you go to a cashpoint.

If, however, you have no real investment in capitalist society and even such a thing as getting on the property ladder is a dream too far, then gentrification doesn't really have a lot to offer. In fact, gentrification is going to be set against you. It's going to exclude you and push you further to the sidelines because you have nothing to offer it and it has nothing to offer you. You are surplus to requirement.

Though probably enjoying some privileges that come with being a professor at Northern Arizona University (and there's nothing wrong with that, I might add), Jeff Ferrell is on the side of the surplus people. Not only this, he's also on the side of those who seek to challenge if not destroy the authoritarian, corporate, exclusionary model of community that gentrification enables. He's on the side, even, of the Mikhail Bakunin epithet that says the passion for destruction is a creative passion.

Tearing Down The Streets records a potted history of opposition to spatial control. A history of those who in the author's eyes have fought back against the regulation and closure of public space. It's a long, winding path that's very fractured and ultimately unfinished, with no clear starting date and no clear end point. For all that, however, Ferrell proffers a suggested starting point of 1871 and the Paris Commune, which is actually a pretty good call. From there he mostly focusses on America, going from The Wobblies, Emma Goldman, Jack Kerouac and so on, right up to his own activist lifestyle as a busking, bike-riding, graffiti artist.

The main portion of Ferrell's book is set around his own activities and activist scenes he's been directly involved with such as Critical Mass, pirate radio and graffiti art during the 1990s. Noticeable by its absence is any mention of Seattle 1999 and the mass protests that took place there against the World Trade Organization but that's because he says he didn't go. But also noticeable by its absence is any criticism of any of the things he's been involved with or even any post-mortem analysis of it all.

When writing about Reclaim The Streets, I'd hazard a guess he wasn't there in England either and he's picked-up all his information from the Internet because some of what he's written isn't quite true. It's an example also of (being American) failing to understand British culture and politics though this is exemplified each time he mentions the Sex Pistols as if they were some hardcore anarchist gang espousing hardcore anarchist ideology. The Clash as well to some extent.

It's always been a bit unclear as to how the Pistols were perceived in America because even though they famously did the tour there that ultimately led to their demise, the nuance and even the irony of the Pistols would have been somewhat twice-removed and lost in translation, buried under the hype and the shock horror headlines. For sure, the Pistols were one of the greatest rock'n'roll bands of all time but even more than this they were an idea trying to describe a feeling. They were a vibe. And as Johnny Rotten once said of Anarchy In The UK, anyone who doesn't understand that (song), doesn't understand anything. 

Tearing Down The Streets is good but it's not brilliant, but being just 'good' isn't quite good enough. The stuff of which Ferrell writes is of some importance, and it deserves and demands better. If anyone is going to write a book about it with full annotations and a comprehensive index like this one, then I'd like them to be bringing something to the table so as to try and add to it all. Rather than simply record (and wrongly in parts) a history, I'd like them to try and bring forward the ideas that things like punk and Reclaim The Streets were once exploring. I'd like them to show a bit more vitality. A bit more imagination. As the Bob Hoskins gangster character in The Long Good Friday says to the American Mafia representatives: I'd like them to contribute with 'something a little bit more than a hot dog. Know what I mean?'

John Serpico