The Help-Yourself City

Download or read book The Help-Yourself City written by Gordon C.C. Douglas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When local governments neglect public services or community priorities, how do concerned citizens respond? In The Help-Yourself City, Gordon Douglas looks closely at people who take urban planning into their own hands with homemade signs and benches, guerrilla bike lanes and more. Douglas explores the frustration, creativity, and technical expertise behind these interventions, but also the position of privilege from which they often come. Presenting a needed analysis of this growing trend from vacant lots to city planning offices, The Help-Yourself City tells a street-level story of people's relationships to their urban surroundings and the individualization of democratic responsibility.