Concurrent Urbanities

Through practical examples and 17 illustrated case studies, Concurrent Urbanities showcases how design has been used as an agent of social and political change and as catalyst for spatial and urban transformations in cities across the world. The international urban practitioners featured engage in designing infrastructures of inclusion in different geo-political contexts and push forward the need to design in the conceptualization, production, and representation of democratic and participatory urban space. The blend of first-hand experiences of the urban practitioners featured have created a unique cross-disciplinary compendium that employs design to negotiate social inclusion and participation in the production of everyday urbanism. It offers important new insights to students of urban design, architecture, urbanism, and urban and spatial planning and professional urban practitioners. From employing design to negotiate new social contracts in the work of Stalker and Stealth, to Teddy Cruz's design of new political and economic processes, to designing new protocols for citizens' interaction with public institutions by DESIS and Cohabitation Strategies, Concurrent Urbanities brings together design activists, urbanists, architects, anthropologists, leaders of non-profit and non-governmental organizations, and civic and community activists committed to exploring designing as a critical socio-spatial praxis concerned with fundamental reorganization of urban socio-economic systems and relations of power.