ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the connection between the normative ideas of the open or dromocratic city to the process of gentrification, in so much as the former implicitly, or disavowedly, supports the latter. The values of dromocracy and the ethical turn can be understood as constitutive of a certain type of contemporary subjectivity; a subjectivity that is comfortable with and can take advantage of openness. Cosmopolitans and nomads are both contemporary and timeless figures; they are ideal types that have both ancient and contemporary manifestations. But as theoretical constructs of contemporary critical theory, they possess a distinctly modern and urban progenitor: the flaneur. In post-human city of encounters and becoming, such traditionally humanist values like community are rendered bereft of meaning, and as such, critical theory surrenders the strongest principles mobilized against the forces of gentrification. The chapter concludes by exploring how some specific principles associated with a genuinely "political" theory of the city might contribute to counteracting this enabling effect.
