The subcatenous revolution: Three theses on the urban-forming potential of logistics

Abstract

_{The article is a polemical attempt to rethink the role of the logistics sector in the most important transformations of the contemporary urban fabric. Despite many indications proving its influence as a crucially important condition for the emergence of a post-industrial city as well as a catalyst for further, equally significant transformations, the revolution in logistics remains one of the most marginalized events in the field of critical urban studies. One of the reasons for such neglect is based in the dominant perspective on urbanization which, focusing mainly on the issue of agglomeration and Western-based urban phenomena, tends to ignore other, more peripheral urbanization processes. These include the global spread of circulation infrastructure, which is an indispensable condition for the materialization of a Lefebvrian urban society. Contrary to that perspective, logistical networks will be treated here as one of the most important patterns of the production of space, contributing to the proliferation of the urban in non-urbanized areas and providing justifications for new, assemblage-oriented ontologies of the city.}