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SASKIA SASSEN
Jun, 4 2020
1
Retrieved from: https://www.iberdrola.com/shapes-en/saskia-sassen-crisis-coronavirus
And yet! Cities are key to changing how we handle this new era
that has already started even if we are not always aware of this.
It is not easy to detect a major transformation has happened when
dealing with complex systems over which the average citizen has only
little access and knowledge. Cities are one of the most direct places
for growing food -avoiding shipping and trucks bringing in the food
from far away regions. In our current era time has become of the
essence. We have to move much faster than we are doing now if
we are to change some of the fundamental features of our current
period.
2
Retrieved from: https://www.iberdrola.com/shapes-en/saskia-sassen-crisis-coronavirus
But the fact that a majority of us survived matters. It matters not only
because it tells us we can survive it. It also matters because its
presence and its failure to kill most of us is significant. And it tells us
that we can have a chance to survive it, but that chance needs to be
made and developed. It does not fall from the sky ready made to
defend us. We need to protect ourselves, and whenever it is an
option we need to alert or help those who are at risk and do not
know it. We cannot be silly or mindless.
3
Retrieved from: https://www.iberdrola.com/shapes-en/saskia-sassen-crisis-coronavirus
We need to build many new cities that are reasonable in size and
enable the lives of residents rather than forcing them into very long
commutes. We need what European cities have: small gardens where
you can grow some basics (greens) easily. And we need to prioritize
the wellbeing of all rather than privileging the making of wealth in the
form of money rackets that we are increasingly confronting. We
cannot reduce cities to the status of moneymakers -which today is
happening with more and more of our great cities- .
1 In a new book with Mary Kaldor, we examine eight cities that are at war in today's world. There is an interesting resonance with the war
against a virus. (M.Kaldor and S.Sassen CITIES AT WAR. Columbia University Press 2020)
Saskia Sassen is an American sociologist, writer, and teacher. 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for
Social Sciences and 2018 CLACSO Award in 2018, she is currently Professor of Sociology at the
Robert S. Lynd Chair at Columbia University (New York) and Visiting Professor of Political Economy
at the London Department of Sociology School of Economics. She has an honorary doctorate from
the University of Delft (Netherlands), that of Poitiers (France), that of Ghent (Belgium), that of Warwick
(United Kingdom) and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.