In December 2014 Street Plans principal Mike Lydon tweeted out his misgivings about the conception of Tactical Urbanism put forward in Pedro Gadanho‘s widely-contested MoMA exhibition Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities. Lydon explained that an interview with Gahando “shows how far apart our definitions of tactical urbanism are” and that he would “rather see real completed projects” than the speculative and sometimes utopian projects in the MoMA exhibition. In the same thread Gahando responded that he was using tactical urbanisms in the plural for a reason, and that ‘[t]here’s no longer ownership of definitions these days.”

I entered the conversation to invite both Lydon and Gahando to discuss their views on the Slow Ottawa audiocast. They graciously agreed, resulting in the hour-long conversation recorded today, 13 Feb 2015. In December 2014 Lydon wrote a Planetizen blog post outlining his own test-before-you-invest conception of tactical urbanism (described at length in the book Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action, Long-Term Change), and today he published a follow-up with a critique of Uneven Growth, which travels to Vienna in summer 2015.

To listen to the complete conversation use the player below, or click HERE for more options. If you enjoy this interview, please support this site.

[UPDATE 17 March 2015: Go here for my review of Lydon & Garcia’s book.]