Another Anxious Urbanism: Simulating Defense and Disaster in Cold War America

Farish, Matthew

doi:10.1002/9780470753033.ch5

Cited by 19 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Whilst the central government sought to encourage citizens to support its efforts to confront dangerous “others”, this strategy was increasingly being called into question by the end of the decade. This is no doubt partly due to advances in nuclear weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, which made most survival guides look increasingly futile (Farish 2004:109). Beyond this, however, many municipal governments, including Seattle, also became involved in “sister city” projects that in some cases sought to engage so‐called enemies through diplomacy and cultural understanding (Bush 1998).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Postcards from Heaven: Critical Geographies of the Cold War Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

2010

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This article examines a little‐known project funded by the US Air Force and CIA, and carried out by communications scientists at the University of Washington during the early 1950s. Project Revere sought to investigate how the seemingly humble information leaflet could be deployed, via air drops, as a “flexible weapon” to spark “interpersonal communications” and spread rumours throughout particular target populations. While the testing ground for these aerial experiments was the northwest United States (Washington State, Utah, Idaho), Revere scientists were aware that their work would find particular application in supporting America's Cold War activities overseas, not least in the Korean peninsula. At the same time, however, the Revere tests were implicated in the intensification of domestic anxieties as leaflets dropped over rural Washington State and Utah mobilised issues of civil defence, emergency procedures and warnings about “enemy bombers”. In this way, we suggest that Revere corresponded with, and heightened, efforts by national and local governments to mobilise citizens into a Cold War “call to arms”.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Postcards from Heaven: Critical Geographies of the Cold War Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

2010

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“…The particular arguments of the defensive dispersal movement and its place within the history of both the policy sciences in general and city planning discourse in particular have been explored elsewhere both by the present author and others 10 . What is of interest here is not a comparative analysis between the claims, principles and strategies of defensive dispersal writers and their post 9/11 counterparts, but rather an examination of the ideological contexts in which both discourses are set.…”

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confidence: 94%

Revisiting Cold War Ideology in the Secure City: Towards a Political Economy of Urbicide

Dudley¹

2007

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“…War, political violence, and politicized planning have shaped modern cities in the 20th century and throughout the Cold War (Farish 2004; DeWalque 2005). Since the nation state became the main protector of citizens within its borders, and defensive city walls metaphorically and physically fell, cities have been removed from the rhetoric of political violence.…”

Section: Introduction: the Dark Side Of Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Geopolitics 8 Years on. Hybrid Sovereignties, the Everyday, and Geographies of Peace

Fregonese¹

2012

Geography Compass

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Urban events like 9‐11 and the Arab Spring have deeply marked the first two decades of a century in which the majority of the world population will live in cities. This essay reviews present and potential future debates about the relation between cities and geopolitics, particularly the work of urban geopolitics. I trace three debates centred on three relationships: that between city and sovereignty; between official and everyday urban practices; between violent and peaceful geographies. I point towards three avenues of potential engagement of geographers with the theme of geopolitics and the city. The first avenue leads to appreciating the complex relationships between the state and the non‐state that are nowadays increasingly relevant and visible. The second concerns geographies of the everyday, the unofficial, and the unplanned. The third concerns the possibility for an urban geopolitics of peace and its inclusion, rather than focussing exclusively on war and its avoidance.

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Another Anxious Urbanism: Simulating Defense and Disaster in Cold War America

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Postcards from Heaven: Critical Geographies of the Cold War Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

Postcards from Heaven: Critical Geographies of the Cold War Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

Revisiting Cold War Ideology in the Secure City: Towards a Political Economy of Urbicide

Urban Geopolitics 8 Years on. Hybrid Sovereignties, the Everyday, and Geographies of Peace

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