Shift Happens! Critical Mass at 20
In 2012, with Chris Carlsson and Adriana Camarena, I co-edited Shift Happens!: Critical Mass at 20 an anthology published by Full Enjoyment Books in honor of the 20th Anniversary of Critical Mass.
The book contains 39 essays from bicycle riders, activists, and advocates in 31 different cities around the world. From the introduction:
Critical Mass is a reclaiming of public space from a culture bent on privatizing everything and reducing human life to a series of commercial transactions. Critical Mass always existed outside of that logic, a zone of free association without buying and selling as its defining activities. We’re reinhabiting city streets on a new basis, reinventing them at least temporarily. We roll along, never stopping, so it’s a fundamentally mobile public space, changing with the geography and the ebb and flow of participants. We don’t petition the government, we don’t ask for reforms, we don’t make demands, we just get on with making and inhabiting a world we can only dream of the rest of the month. In other parts of the world, especially Italy, Hungary, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain—all well represented in this book—Critical Mass has been an important incubator for new political energies to coalesce, and new initiatives addressing broader questions of city life have emerged, especially regarding the natural ecological systems of cities, water use, climate change, urban agriculture, and much more. Critical Mass is a phenomenon that goes well beyond mere bicycling. Contributors Reboredo and Vázquez from A Coruña, Spain call it a “global prototype” and link the ride’s form to the upsurge of horizontalist political initiatives sweeping the planet. Collective writers from Budapest, Hungary, and Rome show how urban transportation, planning, and politics have been transformed by sharply pointed, creative tactics of cyclists, using mass rides to make much deeper changes.You can purchase the book and find out more about the authors and content here.