Yeah, that's an interesting way of putting it. More elite groups ARE increasingly living in the urban cores of our cities, and I suppose this in large part is because people can tell peak oil is coming. I wouldn't be surprised either if in 20 years the slums in the United States and Canada are all in decaying suburbs.
Yeah, the Sud-Ouest is in a similar situation. I'm actually getting booted out of my apartment so that it can be gutted and redone come July - ah, the perils of being "first wave"/"risk oblivious youth". It's definitely an intense thing the way capital is radically reorganizing cities (in terms of sociogeography), along lines that basically presume the inevitability of peak oil, and ecological catastrophe. I've got $5 that says most of our generation is going to end up in sprawling suburban slums (as is obviously already very much a reality for third-world peoples, including in the first world). Weeee!
I live in a inner-city neighborhood that was historically very poor and had a Black majority. Over the past twenty years, a variety of white people--some queer punks and some yuppies--have moved into the neighborhood and caused the cost of living to skyrocket, and as a result about half of the former Black residents have been forced to move to more far-flung areas of the city with worse social services. In a word: gentrification. As a white, college-educated queer who recently moved here I'm part of this problem. So the activism that interests me most now is organizing across racial lines to prevent further gentrification of this neighborhood and enable long-time Black residents remain here.
I have moments where I definitely feel you on that type of scene. When I first moved to Montreal, I was pretty much living in a weird Sud-Ouest queer punk bubble. Once somebody told me, "My politics are pretty much bikes and punk rock." Gag me with a spoon. It's interesting though, and an important project, imho, to try to and overcome the respective limits of petty-bourgeois-identity-politics-oppression-olympics-struggle-alienates-marginalized-communities hipster crap and reductionist all-else-distracts-from-the-central-question-of-class sausage parties. Lately I've been pretty drawn to a lot of pre-Hard Times WUO / anti-imperialist stuff that tried to bridge that gap esp. around intersections of race and class. Anyway, yeah, welcome, and cheers!
I feel embarrassed like perhaps I should have been aware of LIES, but yeah, I don't think that's the sort of thing I or my friends normally read. I'm not a historical materialist, and I'm not a Marxist. And while I oppose capitalism and the state, I'm not really part of the anarchist scene in my city either, as my interests draw me more towards things like volunteering at organic food coops and queer community centers and less towards clashing with the police and reading Mikhail Bakunin. But I'm open to exploring new perspectives! And part of why I signed up for RevLeft, actually, was I wanted more regular exposure to leftist ideas, and most of my friends (even the ones who identify as "radicals") seem mainly radical in their perspective on identity politics. Which I totally appreciate, but I also want to talk to people who really oppose capitalism and have a compelling critique of it. Anyway, thanks for the messages, Virgin Molotov Cocktail, and I'll take a look at the journal!
Sorry, I made a guess about the sort of scene you might be involved in and was evidently at least a little off base. LIES is a "Materialist Feminist" publication that's been getting some buzz. I haven't finished the first issue yet, but so far, I'm having mixed feelings. Anyway: http://libcom.org/files/lies-final-d...ingle-page.pdf
"LIES Journal - thoughts?" I don't understand your question. Could you clarify it?
LIES Journal - thoughts?
