Building BLOCs: Modeling Resilience at the City-Block Scale in Philadelphia

Abstract

Enclosure, the division of common land into private segments which forms the underlying logic of capitalism, also finds expression in our relationships to time, space, community, the body, knowledge, labor, and life itself. Abolition derives from both the Latin abolere, to destroy, and adolere, to grow. Abolition might therefore even be defined as the dissolution of enclosures, which creates or restores pathways for living. Commoning, the return to stewardship, sharing, and solidarity, is a key strategy in our approach to abolitionist horizons. While we must resist relations of domination at every turn, it is essential to prefigure the world we want. Building BLOCs — block level organizing committees — to dream, design, and democratically develop our immediate social and material realities is one tactic being explored in Philadelphia for modeling and practicing more liberatory relations, toward greater autonomy and self-determination.