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Against the Commons

Against the Commons: A Radical History of Urban Planning offers a people’s history of capitalist urbanization, showing how deprived and working-class communities use space as a source of power and revealing the central role of urban planning and design in processes of destruction of the commons and decollectivization of society.

The book challenges long-held assumptions in the fields of planning and urban theory, combining detailed archival research with provocative critical theory to develop a panoramic exploration of spatial politics and planning history over three centuries.

Against the Commons frames planning as a product of past and ongoing struggles over land, shared resources, public space, neighborhoods and spatial imaginaries, examining the impact of urban policy on subaltern communities and how the commons can become a platform for an alternative urbanization.

It was was published by University of Minnesota Press in September 2022. You can read part of the introduction here. The Spanish translation, published by Alianza Editorial (introduction here), won a publication award from the 17th Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism.

Against the Commons has been featured in several podcasts:

It has also received positive reviews in the following academic journals and websites:

Some newspaper, magazine and radio interviews/reviews: