Don Mitchell on TENT CITY: Lesson on the Right to the City from the Urban Interstice

In the wake of the economic crisis, Don Mitchell’s intervention focuses on ‘Tent City’ as a central site for housing the social. Tent Cities have a long and important political history in United States.  A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tent. Informal tent cities may be set up without authorization by homeless people or protesters. As well, state governments or military organizations set up tent cities to house refugees, evacuees, or soldiers. In the military, the term "tent city" usually refers to temporary living quarters erected on deployed military bases

The talk examines the political history and the more recent evolution of Tent City.  

Don Mitchell proposes a reconsideration of the political potential of Tent City as a possible model of 'transition' toward an alternative forms of living which exceeds the Neoliberal model.  

A scene from Day 19 of the continuing Occupy Wall Street protest.