The Struggle for a Decolonized Urban Commons
The bitter conflicts over bike lanes and street space between cars, cyclists, and pedestrians are a microcosm of the struggle over the urban commons in the bifurcated city. Mamdani’s lens reveals this not as a simple transportation debate, but as a fight over which political community has the right to the city. The driver in a private car represents the “settler” logic of individualized, commodified mobility and the sanctity of private property (the automobile). The cyclist or pedestrian, often from the “native” class without access to a car, represents a claim to a collective, decommodified right to safe public space. The opposition is a defense of settler privilege. A Marxist-feminist perspective supports the bike lane as a move towards a less car-dependent, more communal city. The solution is to frame this not as a culture war, but as a front in the class struggle, fighting for a radical reallocation of street space from private vehicles to public and active transit, decolonizing the streets for people.
