ABSTRACT

The outline of the logic of urbicide provided in the previous chapter represents a lexico-conceptual account of this particular form of violence. According to this account, urbicide comprises a logic of destruction in which buildings are targeted in a coordinated manner as the conditions of possibility of a heterogeneity that is the existential quality which defi nes urbanity. Urbicide is thus the killing of urbanity. Such an account provides a powerful argument for considering the destruction of the built environment as a form of violence in its own right, distinct from other forms of violence such as genocide.