Jorge Dioni López (Benavente 1974) became known with his first book, La España de las Piscinas (Arpa, 2021), in which he discussed the production processes of urbanized lands in our country and the lifestyles they create. He now returns in this second article to his critical analysis of contemporary urbanism dominated by the neoliberal paradigm; as the author puts it: “It turned cities into a product accessible to those who could pay for it.”
The title of this book refers to Sigmund Freud’s essay Unrest in Culture, published in 1930; In this article, the father of psychoanalysis argues that “it is very difficult for man to be happy” because of the three traditional sources of human suffering: nature and human nature. The depletion of the lifespan of the human body and “the inadequacy of our methods for regulating human relations in family, state, and society” are the latter that we understand least, and Freud goes on to say, “We wonder why creatures that are supposed to represent the protection and well-being of all do not do this.”
Jorge Dioni begins his book by asking himself a question about the unhappiness of the contemporary urban dweller: “Why do people leave cities?” and gives his first short and meaningful answer: “Because they were expelled from the city.” And the reasons why so many citizens had to abandon it are the same roots that Freud pointed out earlier: institutions that do not provide protection and well-being to all citizens. Throughout the pages of this article, Jorge Dioni showcases the causes and consequences produced in the contemporary city, from economics to urban planning to the social and environmental influences that create this discomfort in citizens.
The broad content of the book, due to the topics it covers, and the richness of the suggestions it conveys, have led the author of this article to approach the book as a synthesis of his two main contributions: First, the neoliberal city model and, Second, the tourist city, that model’s favorite daughter. We start with the first one.
1The neoliberal city is the inheritor of the different economic and political crises that capitalism has experienced since the 1970s and is generally interpreted as a result of the collapse of the “welfare state”, which was implemented after the last world war, based on the consensus between liberalism and liberalism. and socialism is between capital and labor. This agreement allowed for a redistribution that was now replaced by an ideology that promised citizens’ well-being based on private property and free trade: “Everything should be valued, monitored and commercialized.” The author argues that for the rulers of the neoliberal city, “inequality is not a problem but a goal because it encourages creativity and risk.”
2 The neoliberal city has its own characteristics that distinguish it from the capitalist city of the 20th century; among others, there is the market function as well as the State and the Administration. While liberalism seeks to minimize the role of these institutions, neoliberalism, on the contrary, requires their cooperation to structure property and guarantee the functioning of the market. In the neoliberal city where there is no market, everything from water to garbage must be created through the “Value-Monetize-Privatize” process through gardens and other urban services. The author explains in detail how neoliberalism has penetrated the economic, urban, social and cultural structure in different European and American cities.
3 The neoliberal city is an economic space associated with movement, the capture of flows, people or investments, as we read in the pages of the book: «The city transforms from being a source of wealth into a product capable of creating value: the city no longer produces, but is produced (…) In the neoliberal city, the aim is not to control growth but to stimulate and intensify it; This is achieved through movement, by embedding itself in global or regional currents, by capturing flows of growth. people or goods. Management’s role is to facilitate the process by creating new markets, reducing risk or preserving profits.
4 The neoliberal urban model promotes “urban deregulation” (the sad memory of the Valencian Community during the bubble and the Valencian Land Code). Confronted with publicly controlled urbanism, which aims at the planning and management of a harmonious city, deregulated urbanism seeks to disrupt the harmony between urban area and region because the city is best sold by cutting it off. The book reveals in detail the effects of deregulating urban policies initiated by Margaret Thatcher in the early eighties of the last century, when she dissolved the Greater London Council, an institution dedicated to controlling the growth of Greater London, and encouraged the development of privatization of London. London’s old harbor (Docklands).
5One of the most disturbing texts in Jorge Dioni’s article is the one in which he states: «(In the neoliberal city) We cease to be society and become individuals whose relationship with reality is commercial, in other words, we are products that they must buy. they compete (…) People are important according to their exchange value”, therefore, for those who defend this city model, “freedom must be separated from fraternity and become a product, individual private property (…) Solidarity is a thing. past. This prevents you from achieving your dreams.” As reflected in the movie Billy Elliot, the protagonist’s father turns into a strikebreaker in order to pay for his son’s dance lessons.
Touristic city
The tourism industry exemplifies the identity characteristics of the neoliberal city: in the tourist city there is a shift in the productive function of the industrial city towards adopting a “rent extraction” model. The author of The Unrest of Cities analyzes how tourism affects merged cities: “It’s one thing to create a tourist center from nothing, it’s another to fit it into a unified urban space with history and life.” The example of Benidorm, which Mario Gaviria described in the 70s of the last century as the “New City” in a now classic book on Spanish tourist urban planning. Jorge Dioni’s article provides answers to different questions: How does tourism affect the citizenship status and the relationship of city residents with the City Council? What are the housing, employment, social impacts of the economic model that supports the tourist city? How can tourists’ demands, what they want to see and experience, shape, among others, the way the tourist city is conceived and designed? Among the answers and ideas we found in Jorge Dioni’s article, we highlight the following:
1The priority policies for the City Council of the tourist city are not policies aimed at improving the welfare of citizens, but rather policies aimed at attracting tourist flows and tourism business.
2 «The touristic city is not a place to live. “It is a space that requires constant movement of oneself and others.”
3The key to the tourist economy is movement: “The important people in the tourist city are passers-by, not city dwellers whose work capacities can be easily changed.”
4Tourism worsens the status of citizenship by putting citizens in the background compared to tourists and the tourism industry. While the resident creates value for the City Council and does not cause any problems, the tourists do not cause any problems and leave their money behind.
5The city of the “cruiser”, a tourist who spends an average of four hours visiting the city where his ship stops, needs an offer of entertainment, gastronomy, culture, even some kind of city and public space in line with these expectations. times. . Therefore, we must design a city with fast consumption to satisfy the “traveler”.
6 «The tourist city develops a commercial identity based on what the visitor expects to find. They are created if there are no traditions or typical dishes to sell.
7 “Tourism sells what does not belong to it”, turns the landscape, the sea, the streets and public space, heritage and memory into commodities, and dispossesses the citizens of the city.
8 In the tourist city, as a paradigm of the neoliberal city, the public space as a use value is replaced by the public space as an exchange value, as predicted by Henri Lefevbre in The Right to the City (1968): The public space becomes a space of consumption and the consumption of space .
9Tourism is not rooted in the urban region and the location of the city. The sentiments propagated by advocates of tourist apartments may be true that they can provide a remedial enhancement to the urban landscape, but at the cost of abandonment of the resident population and emptying of urban centers of life. Transformation of commercial fabric into leisure uses. Moreover, tourism-related business and commercial interests, many of them foreign, will leave the city when the tourism model changes (which is not eternal) or other more profitable destinations begin to be exploited.
10Tourism does not reduce social inequality, it even increases it. The Balearic Islands have risen from being Spain’s richest community to seventh place. As in Tenerife and Marbella, there is a correlation between the percentage of employment in tourism services and the situation in the lowest income areas. According to Generalitat Valenciana, Alicante Marina Alta (Denia, Xabia, Calp, Teulada-Moraira and Benisa) is among the cities with the highest risk of poverty or social exclusion, lower family income and higher rates of severe material deprivation. Marina Baja, Benidorm, La Vila or Altea follow a short distance away.