10.07.2019

Anti-urban utopias. The City in the Discourse of the Right

The second Working Paper of the BMBF project PODESTA (Populism and Democracy in the City) is online! It can be downloaded at http://podesta-projekt.de/wp2

The Working Paper examines ideas and images of the city in present right-wing discourses. At the review of more than 2.000 documents between 2015 and 2018, we were able to reconstruct recurring patterns in the description of (large) cities and urban life forms. On the one hand, the city is rejected by the right-wing authors, since it is interpreted as place of cultural decline, loss of control and unmanageability. On the other hand, it is appropriated whenever the 'real', orderly, safe and productive city remains visible behind the impositions of urban life. The city is seen as a stage of self-promotion and as a battlefield that the right will not surrender to their opponents.

Authors: Bescherer, Peter; Burkhardt, Anne; Feustel, Robert; Mackenroth, Gisela; Sievi, Luzia