Asphalt Displaced: Global Crises, Local Citizenship, and Potholes

Abstract

Potholes define urban landscapes. They are a significant part of urban streetscapes and public infrastructure. More accurately, they mark a deterioration of infrastructure. In New Orleans, this deterioration is a local manifestation of global processes of neoliberalization and climate change. Drawing on scholars of infrastructure and society before us, we conceive of streets and, by extension, potholes, as sites where the state and its citizens collide. In this project, we use spatial methods to posit the relationship between infrastructure and citizenship by first mapping potholes in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. The distribution of potholes, and how such distribution overlays with various social and environmental spatial patterns is expected to reveal insight into who deals with potholes, where, and to what degree. We are also interested in understanding how the material conditions of deteriorating infrastructure (i.e. potholes) might variably shift local acts of citizenship, from the everyday to the extraordinary. To this end, we then analyze the geography of 311 calls reporting potholes as a measure of resident engagement. We supplement these spatial analyses with local cultural products to illuminate extraordinary aspects of the local public discourse around potholes. Theoretically, we emphasize citizenship beyond the confines of its typical legal definition; instead stressing that local citizenship is significantly constituted through acts in the streets, how citizens claim rights to the city, and, ultimately, the material manifestations of global crises.