Review

Author(s): Jack Burgers

Review by: Jack Burgers
Source: Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2002), pp. 423-425
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41107105
Accessed: 01-06-2016 14:29 UTC

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Hg Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 17: 423-425, 2002.

Book review

Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological

Mobilities and the Urban Condition, Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin,
Routledge, London and New York, 2001, ISBN 0-415-18965-9

In J.G. Ballard's novel "Concrete Island", the main character, architect

Robert Maitland, falls victim to a car crash, flies over the parapet alongside
the road, and lands with his Jaguar beneath a junction of highways. On
that "concrete island", although close to the normal infrastructure of roads
and highways, Maitland is cut off from the reality he took for granted and
has to find new ways to survive. For one thing, it turns out that it is almost
impossible to escape from his new habitat. The juxtaposition of different
realities and life-chances, caused by having either access to or being blocked
from infrastructural networks, is the topic of "Splintering Urbanism". The
authors stress that we have been witnessing a break in what different types
of urban infrastructure are supposed to do. Not long ago, infrastructure, by
interconnecting different groups and places, was seen as basically unifying
cities. Now, as Graham and Marvin argue, infrastructural devices are more
and more being used to separate places and people. Thus, different urban
landscapes are created, sometimes isolated to such a degree that they are
worlds apart, just as in Ballard's ominous story. Graham and Marvin's
analysis is based upon the point of view that cities have become networks,
more flows than places. And infrastructural devices have become the
paramount means of creating urban form. The authors say it is a mistake to
see modern cities as a unified "whole"; cities are fragmented and splintered.
And this splintering urbanism has consequences for the life-chances of
different groups of people. Therefore, it is also related to marginalization,
perhaps even causing or reinforcing that process.
The book is divided into three parts. The first one, "Understanding splin-
tering urbanism", gives a historical account of urban life from the point of
view of infrastructural developments. The authors argue that, in the field of
urban studies, infrastructure has been relatively neglected, partly because so
much of it is "hidden", literally, underground. For a long time, infrastructure
was simply taken for granted, 'banalized'. But now that it is increasingly

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 424 BOOK REVIEW

used not only to interconnect but also to separate, it is becoming "reprob-

lematized". Separation by infrastructure is visible in such diverse things
as high-toll fast lanes on highways, gated communities, privatized parking
facilities, smart-card protected bypass connections (e.g., business-class trav-
elers who can check in easily and fast at airports), internet connections and
so on. Infrastructural devices have been increasingly "unbundled", thereby
contributing to urban "splintering". Several developments are important here.
Central governments have given up some of their monopolies on energy, rail-
roads, highways and the like, making it possible to unravel the infrastructure.
New technologies have made it possible to individualize, commodify and
customize infrastructural amenities.

Part Two, "Exploring the splintering metropolis", goes deeper into the
consequences of urban splintering. In a long chapter on the "social land-
scapes" that emerge as a consequence of urban splintering by unbundling
infrastructure, the authors point out that there are winners and losers in the
game of urban fragmentation. The winners take part in "premium networked
spaces", which seem to offer endless possibilities for living, travel, leisure
and work. The losers - like Robert Maitland on his concrete island - are

excluded and virtually confined to their urban quarters. In a chapter on the

effects of globalization, the authors show that while cities are unbundled
locally, some parts of them are more and more interconnected globally. These
are the privileged parts of cities - not the concrete but the golden islands, one
might say. Here the well-to-do try to connect to the rest of the world, or at
least to the parts that cater to their lifestyle in the broadest sense, and at the
same time try to shield themselves from the people they fear or simply want
to ignore.
In Part Three, "Placing splintering urbanism", the authors recap the main
conclusions of the book and add a postscript, a "manifesto for a progressive
networked urbanism". In the conclusions, much of what was argued in the
preceding chapters is looked upon with a degree of relativism and sometimes
even skepticism: the concrete and golden islands are not always worlds apart
after all. The manifesto sums up a list of questions that have to be addressed
by planners, urban scholars and politicians.
The book by Graham and Marvin is both interesting and important. It
addresses the notion of the network city in a profound way, using much
recent literature from different disciplines. The emphasis on infrastructure
is convincing and opens up new ways of looking at what is happening in
urban areas. Accepting the fragmentation of cities as a point of departure
and analyzing this process, instead of trying to discover - as so many urban
scholars unconvincingly have attempted - the hidden unifying factor behind
cities, turns out to be a promising and fruitful approach. The book might have

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 BOOK REVIEW 425

benefited from some extra editing, though. In a way, it resembles its subject
too much: it has a rather fragmented character because of an overdose of
citations and quotations. At some points, the book comes close to being a
collage of abstracts of recent work on the city, making it hard to keep track
of where the authors are heading for. A more focused and less redundant text
would have been not only more readable but also more convincing.

Jack Burgers
Faculty of Social Sciences
Erasmus University
Rotterdam
The Netherlands

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