Abstract
Geographical imaginations are reflected in “soft cities” of the mind and affect “hard” material cities. Athens has been one of the clearest formations of this interplay throughout its recent urban history. European power elites have often superseded the resident population in imagining “soft cities” and then affecting their materialization in art and architecture or economic restructuring. This chapter presents a contrast of two conjunctures when global imaginations rather than national ones constructed the city of Athens: the beginning of the city building process in the nineteenth century and the present of the twenty-first century. In the 1830s, neoclassical architecture, re-imported to Greece’s new capital by the Bavarian administration, was in line with the ambition of forging an identity for Athens inhabitants; and in the 2010s, the city of crisis and austerity was realized in EU-inspired visible but also invisible “soft” ways, reminiscent of the stigmatization of the Mezzogiorno by North Italians in Gramsci’s time. Dismissive versions of “Orientalism” or “crypto-colonialism” in the 2010s offer the opportunity for a theoretical contrast between this recent dystopia and the “soft city” of eutopia in the 1830s. After the comparative analysis, the question of ways out of dystopia is posed, with reference to popular resistance to the neoliberal offensive during and after the grassroots “movements of the piazzas,” which has shaken the broader Mediterranean since 2011.
The city as we imagine it, the soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture.(Raban 1974, p. 4)
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Notes
- 1.
Though it should not come as a surprise that destructive riots occasionally break out as impoverishment hits Athens (Vradis and Dalakoglou 2011), peaceful demonstrations are much larger (Leontidou 2013). Visibility is highest for violence, unfortunately, and even for arson attacks on historic buildings in selected inner-city areas, which may well not have been random events (Leontidou 2012b).
- 2.
Street fighting and destruction of shop windows, pavements and cars command heavy emphasis by governments and media. This attention may have contributed to their recent configuration into fascist violence on the city streets and open markets (Dalakoglou 2012).
- 3.
The package tour lasted for 7 nights and cost £2500 per person.
- 4.
See, among others, https://www.rt.com/news/422572-guardian-refugee-tourism-greece/ (last accessed 8.3.2020).
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Leontidou, L. (2021). The “Soft City” of EU Power Elites: Athens from Neoclassical Capital to “Oriental” Margin. In: Lois-González, R.C. (eds) Geographies of Mediterranean Europe. Springer Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49464-3_10
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