ABSTRACT
The ‘creative worker’ exhorted by Artscape (following Florida, 2002) as the leading class of the new urbanity is perhaps not so different from the gang member or ‘at-risk’ youth targeted by prevention programs, or from the corridosalterados blogger. In many ways, they constitute paradigmatic figures of urbanity (see Pedrazzini and Sanchez’s work on the figure o f the malandro in Venezuela for a similar argument, 1998). The city is not only their scene; it is their logic of action, their way of life, to paraphrase Wirth (1938). They act in ways that are difficult to understand from the rational-consequentialist logic of action guiding the modem project o f ordering that has (unevenly) dominated state activities for over one hundred and fifty years. In Montreal, for instance, the Youth Secretary of the Ministry of the Executive Council o f Quebec is investing $23,025,000 to ‘prevent and act on risk behaviour’ by pro moting healthy and responsible sexuality, countering the neglect of children, supporting young people in distress or with mental health problems, fighting drug abuse, and countering street gangs (www.jeunes.gouv.qc.ca/strategie/ defis/sante/prevenir-agir-comportements-a-risque.html). The logic underpin ning such programs is one of risk-management more than risk-taking.
