Frontier urbanism: the periphery at the centre of contested cities

摘要

At the contested margins of Jerusalem, it is not particularly surprising to find radical urban frontiers, these having been created by segregationist planning policies that have dominated the city since 1967. The presence of even more contentious frontiers in the centre of historic Jerusalem is less expected and more complex; here appears to be a conflation of urban centre and periphery that structures communal tensions and violence in the Old City. Such phenomena, both at periphery and in the centre, form a type of urbanism oriented by the radical frontier. This leads me to the term 'frontier urbanism', which can be characterised by two primary conditions: the settling of civilians as frontier populations, and the use of urban spaces and structures to promote a particular power and to foster confrontation.