Enclosing a city’s vacant spaces drives cultural conservatism directly, not incidentally
Evidence
If you want a simple explanation for the growth in cultural conservatism, for London’s seizure by the forces of Restoration, you need look no further than this. As Jon Savage points out in England’s Dreaming, the London of punk was still a bombed-out city, full of chasms, caverns, spaces that could be temporarily occupied and squatted. Once those spaces are enclosed, practically all of the city’s energy is put into paying the mortgage or the rent. There’s no time to experiment, to journey without already knowing where you will end up. Your aims and objectives have to be stated up front. ‘Free time’ becomes convalescence. You turn to what reassures you, what will most refresh you for the working day: the old familiar tunes (or what sound like them). London becomes a city of pinched-face drones plugged into iPods. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 471
Categorization
- XREF: Speaks directly to the ADDENDUM-framework interests in infrastructure/housing as cultural drivers; also connects to the reader’s urban-space interests from Lofland’s ‘World of Strangers’ and how enclosure alters street life. — connects to: Enclosure of cheap urban space drove cultural conservatism by eliminating room for experimentation — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 471; Cultural conservatism tracks the cost of rent and social withdrawal. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 49
- SEED: Article angle: how the sell-off of public/liminal space correlates with nostalgia cycles in music and fashion — ‘hauntology as the cultural sound of mortgage servitude’.
Broader Connections
- Enclosure of cheap urban space drove cultural conservatism by eliminating room for experimentation
#corroborates(0.95) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 471 - Cultural conservatism tracks the cost of rent and social withdrawal.
#corroborates(0.80) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 49