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Definitions
Originally, "no-go areas" is a military expression which designates
the areas where the authority of the government is powerless or not recognized.
By extension, in the popular speech, it designates any dangerous urban
area: forbidden territories, dangerous districts, ethnical ghettos - which
are therefore excluded from the "normal" public space (the one
you can go to).
In its original meaning, the word could be used to speak about gated communities,
but it is never used in that sense. This is why I created the neologism
"Nogoland", an ironic mix between the words "no-go areas"
and "Disneyland", to designate the areas which are voluntarily
excluded from the public realm by their own inhabitants or users .
Nogoland territories include gated communities of course, but also theme
parks, malls, office campuses, sects, airports, universities, etc.
No-go areas and Nogoland coexist in the same urban areas. Their opposition
particularly explicit in Minneapolis's downton, where most of the buildings
have been linked together by footbridges at the second floor level, forming
a continuous network giving access to shops, offices and parkings. The
network is air conditionned and patrolled by a private police. The street
underneath, which used to be the place of public life, is now frequented
only by the homeless.
Yet, this is a rather unique situation. The industrial district in Downtown
L.A. is more representative of a neglected American inner-city: mostly
inhabited by homeless people and dangerous.
Downtown L.A., photo
by Ofer REYHANIAN
No-go areas and Nogoland
are both excluded from the public realm; and they also exclude each other:
they are built against one another.
The opposition between no-go areas and Nogoland is at the crosspoint between
very accurate problems of today's society:
1) the exclusion from public space of a large number
of people from the society, wether voluntarily or not;
2) The insecurity problem, in a broad sense;
3) The vanishing of democracy and of the notion of state
as we know it
1) Exclusion
This problem of exclusion today is different from the traditional rejection
of certain social classes. Traditionnal rejection was based on race, religion
or whatever, and it still exists.
But it is not the same process that leads to the modern forms of exclusion.
Exclusion is not an ideology directed against a category of people, like
racism. Nobody really wants to reject the people who find themselves out
of the system. They are just not included.
Downtown L.A., photo
by Ofer REYHANIAN
The traditionnal societies relied on the "exploitation" of the
laborious classes by the upper classes: the untouchables in India, the
Jews in medieval Europe, or the XIXth century european working class.
These social classes were rejected, but at least had a function in the
society: the function of being exploited. They were included in the society,
even if they had the lowest possible place. The society needed them.
Therefore, their exclusion was the result of a (rather unequal) deal between
them and the society.
Today's "excluded" are NOT EVEN exploited by the society. The
society does not need them at all. There is no deal any more between the
society and them.
The excluded are out of the public sphere, in a parallel society that
is always more distant from the main society. BUT they still depend completely
on the society. They depend on any possible kind of social help, social
space, etc.
So, the society faces a huge problem: to have to feed a social class which
is of no use to the society.
According to Hakim Bey, this problem will be solved radically:
"Zones which
have been economically abandoned […] will gradually be eliminated
from all other networks controlled by the spectacle of the state, including
the final interface, the Police. […] The consuming classes will leave
these areas and move "elsewhere".
"I believe this process will speed up to the point where it will
be quite obvious, in 5 to 10 years, that portions of America are no longer
on the map. They will produce no growth, neither will they consume, and
they will no longer be serviced by any of the spectacle's vanishing bureaux
- IRS, Healthcare, military/police, social security, communication and
education. These areas (economic/social/geographic) will cease to exist
for all practical purposes of control."
Hakim Bey, "The no-go zone"
2) Insecurity
Even in the most "urban"
districts in Los Angeles, and even in the "good" districts,
the street is no longer the place for public space. Any street is a no-go
area.
photo by Stéphane
Degoutin
This picture shows a sidewalk on a large avenue, very near the "center"
of Venice, a "pedestrian-friendly" district in L.A.
Almost every house
in the rich districts of L.A. display explicit "Armed Response"
signs. These signs are provided by security companies which are supposed
to intervene quickly in case of intrusion.
photo by Stéphane
Degoutin
Different kinds of gated communities proliferate, for almost any kind
of people:
- California's Château, Palmdale, L.A., CA is an example of a middle
class gated community:
photo by Stéphane
Degoutin
- Cardiff by the Sea, San Diego, CA is a Lower middle class appartments
gated community:
photo by Stéphane
Degoutin
- This community in Inglewood is a Low budget appartments gated community:
photo by Stéphane
Degoutin
- Manhattan Village is an upper class gated community, designed in a Disney-like
style:
photo by Stéphane
Degoutin
The proliferation of gated communities in Dana Point, California:
photo by Stéphane
Degoutin
In his science-fiction
novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson gives a very realistic description of
L.A. in a near future:
"Southern California doesn't know whether to bustle or just strangle
itself on the spot. Not enough roads for the number of people. Fairlanes,
Inc. is laying new ones all the time. Have to bulldoze lots of neighborhoods
to do it, but these seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed,
right ? No sidewalks, no schools, no nothing. Don't have their own police
force - no immigration control - undesirables can walk right in without
being frisked or even harassed. Now a Burbclave, that's the place to live.
A city-state with its own constitution, a border, laws, cops, everything."
Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
The proliferation
of gated communities reflects the ever increasing feeling of insecurity.
The casual question
is: why does the feeling of insecurity continue to increase, even if the
crime rates have dramatically decreased in the 1990s ? And the usual answer
to this question is: because of the over-exploitation of the theme by
the media.
I do not think this answer explains everything, because the feeling of
insecurity, in the broad sense, does not only depend on crime rates.
It comes from the fear of instability of the society: fear of losing one's
job, social position, financial security, wife or husband, friends...
The feeling to have no control on what's happening around you; the fear
to wake up one day and realize you've become suddenly useless to the society;
the fear to disappear overnight from the mainstream society and become
part of the excluded.
The presidential elections in France have proven in a dramatical way the
intensity of this feeling of insecurity. The theme has monopolized the
campaign, to such an extent that no other debate seemed possible. The
traditionnal political partys were not able to propose a credible promise
of security. Everything indicates that French citizens do not believe
any longer in a strong and protective state - and this can be considered
as a bad presage, coming from a country which has always believed in the
State and the Republic more than any other.
3) Vanishing of
Democracy
In the text "Religion
and government", in Human, All too human, Nietzsche explains what
will happen in the future of democratic societies.
The need for religion does not disappear with the discovery of the "death
of God". Religion becomes a private affair, and everybody can choose
his own religion. Therefore, religion is replaced by a profusion of sects.
So on for the government: when every individual has the choice to rule
his life, how could a state government survive ? Therefore, government
itself will become a private affair, and private governments will proliferate.
Private governments are to public government what sects are to religion.
According to Nietzsche, democracy will kill itself:
"Step by step, private companies incorporate state businesses; even
the most stubborn vestige of the old work of governing (for example, that
activity which is supposed to secure private parties against other private
parties) will ultimately be taken care of by private contractors. Neglect,
decline, and death of the state, the unleashing of the private person
(I am careful not to say "of the individual") - this is the
result of the democratic concept of the state; this is its mission."
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Religion and government", in Human, All
too human
When the democracy
vanishes, and with it any kind of social contract, there is no use to
feed the "useless/excluded" anymore. Therefore, the excluded
disappear and the upper classes depend less than ever on the society.
Already today, the members of the upper classes of the world are more
close to each other than they are to the excluded of their own country.
One example of this trend is the population we belong to, who frequents
international symposiums.
The society is divided in two major classes: the included and the excluded.
The most included of the included are the first to exclude themselves
of a system in which they do not believe anymore. For them, building walls
and gates is a preventive measure against the excluded - just the same
as when Americans were building nuclear bunkers in their gardens during
the cold war - to be ready just in case the democratic society would disappear
a little too quickly.
© Stéphane
Degoutin
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