The Help-Yourself City

When cash-strapped local governments fail to provide adequate services and planning policies prioritize economic development over community needs how do concerned citizens respond? In The Help-Yourself City Gordon Douglas looks closely at the people who take urban planning into their own hands dubbed do-it-yourself urban design. Through in-depth interviews with do-it-yourselfers professional planners and community members as well as participant observation photography media and policy analysis Douglas demonstrates that many do-it-yourselfers employ professional techniques and expertise to enable and inspire their actions. He argues that many unauthorized interventions are created from a position of privilege where legal repercussions are unlikely while people from disadvantaged communities where improvements may be most needed face disincentives to taking such actions themselves. Presenting a needed social analysis of this growing trend while connecting it to debates on inequality citizenship and contemporary urban political economy The Help-Yourself City tells a street-level story of people''s relationships to their surroundings and the individualization of democratic responsibility.