Queering the City

Cities are powerful. They are the population center of the majority of the planet, account for a large majority of economic and cultural output, and have the ability to shape how we see the world. The very term "built environment" expresses this power in its contradictory invocation of natural and cultural. Because our built environments completely envelope us, are daily experiences and ostensibly permanent, they have the force to create subjects, to create mentalities, to create us.

One way that cities do this is in the creation and legitimation of the family. Our wasteful zoning policies and single-family housing all create the idea that there could be no other option than to pump out 2.5 kids and build a picket fence to protect them from the outside world. Let alone the "cleaning up" of public space to be "family-friendly," as described in Samuel Delany's groundbreaking Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. All of the ways our government and other powered interests maintain the nuclear family as the only legitimate lifestyle, painting single mothers, queers, foster children and a whole host of others as detestable.

The politics of the family are complicated. For many the structure works well, and I am not here to tell anyone that they cannot form those relations if they choose. I am, however, strongly promoting a visibility and acceptance of alternatives. The fight for gay marriage provides valuable insight into this discussion. The largest homosexual rights advocacy groups, major media outlets and political parties have made marriage the defining issue for LGBT rights. This trajectory leaves untouched many of the foundations of power and exploitation that are imbedded in the family.

When we build our cities, we create people. Queer studies, as a discipline extremely interested in subjectivities and their creation, could accomplish much more with a sustained effort to interrogate the inequalities sustained by the layouts of our urban centers. Next time you're thinking about zoning plans or the cute house next door, try to remember the politics of the family, and that the state should not be in the business of designing our social relations.

Further reading on the subject:
http://www.thepolisblog.org/2012/07/obsession-with-cars.html
Article about families and suburban landscape.

http://makezine.enoughenough.org/prop8.html
Several well-thought out left-wing critiques of marriage

http://readingfromtheleft.com/PDF/EngelsOrigin.pdf
Friederich Engels on why the capitalist system has a vested interest in maintaining the family.