A blog entitled “Intercultural Urbanism – An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Urban Culture, Space, Architecture, and Design” curated by Dean Saitta, Department of Anthropology, University of Denver, has really jumped the shark.

In this article he suggests that we recognize “the need to drive the conversation away from luxury developments and toward sustainable construction, and to shift the discipline’s radar from form-based aesthetic evaluation to a broader social-based evaluation.”

He praises and suggests cities be fashioned after the ingenuity of “refugee camps” and gulags, because they offer a “new way of thinking” about not only the pressing refugee crisis but also urbanism more broadly. He praises their collectivism and containment, citing “sustainability”.

Oh my.

As we have said all along, the irony of comparing the new forced urbanism to gulags and refugee camps is not lost on those of us who fight regionalism, as we have said this is the goal all along. You have to wonder if Saitta hasn’t realized that he’s inadvertently given away the store?

Hitler would be proud.