Stephen Graham’s „Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism“ (2010) is a disturbing yet influential work that analyzes the creeping militarization of urban spaces. Against the backdrop of the “War on TerrorA global counterterrorism campaign launched after the September 11 attacks.” and a globalized security architecture, Graham shows how military logics, technologies, and control practices increasingly permeate everyday life in Western cities. The book has become a key text in critical security studies—an interdisciplinary field that does not affirm security practices normatively, but analyzes their political, economic, and social effects. Cities Under Siege is also gaining attention in criminology.
Graham’s central thesis is that the traditional distinction between war and policing—between external enemies and internal security—is increasingly blurred within the “new military urbanism.” Urban spaces are transformed into battlegrounds of preventive control—through surveillance, access technologies, security zones, walls, biometric tracking, and risk assessment. Control policy becomes spatial policy, differentiated by class, origin, mobility, and visibility.
Key Points
Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism
Author: Stephen Graham
First published: 2010
Country: United Kingdom
Core thesis: Military logics and security regimes are increasingly entering civilian urban spaces, transforming social order, architecture, and political governance.
Related theories: Michel Foucault (Discipline/PowerThe capacity to influence others and shape outcomes, even against resistance.), Loïc Wacquant (Urban Marginality), Giorgio Agamben (StateThe political institution that holds legitimate authority over a defined territory. of Exception), Paul Virilio (Dromology), Lucia Zedner (SecurityProtection from threats, harm, or danger. Assemblages), Alessandro De Giorgi (Governing through Risk), Cultural CriminologyA perspective that studies crime and control as cultural products shaped by meaning, emotion, and symbolism.
Key Arguments
Militarization of the Urban: Cities are increasingly viewed not as civilian living spaces but as potential crisis zones and security threats. In both Western metropolises and conflict regions, military logics and technologies are infiltrating everyday urban life. Control practices such as checkpoints, security gates, armed patrols, wall systems, drone use, or biometric scans—originally designed for military use—are applied to urban contexts. This shift is rooted in a logic of preemptive threat prevention and leads to the perception of the city as a “potential battlefield,” particularly in marginalized neighborhoods or against specific population groups.
Space as Security Architecture: Urban planning is increasingly driven by security imperatives. Urban design becomes a tool of control: video surveillance, defensible space concepts, urban security zones, access restrictions, and so-called “hostile architecture” (e.g., benches with armrests to deter the homeless) aim to regulate behavior in public space. Graham shows how these spatial measures not only promise security but actively produce social exclusion—e.g., by marginalizing youth, the poor, or migrants. Cities become selective zones: open to wealth and consumption, but restrictive toward deviance and vulnerability.
Dual Mobility: While global elites, capital flows, and consumer goods circulate almost freely, other actors face increasing control, selection, or immobilization. Graham calls this “Splintering Urbanism”—a fragmented urban structure in which privileged mobility and enforced immobility coexist. MigrationThe movement of people from one country or region to another for residence, work, or protection. control, urban displacement policies, racialized policing, and digital surveillance regimes contribute to unequal freedom of movement. The city becomes a space of social segmentation along class, ethnicity, and legal status.
Dissolution of Boundaries between War and PolicingThe practice of maintaining public order and enforcing laws through authorized institutions.: In the new security architecture, the traditional boundaries between military warfare and police operations blur. Concepts such as counterinsurgency, targeting, or surveillance—originally military—are applied to civilian space. Graham argues that police, military, private security firms, and tech providers form a hybrid security complex aimed not only at reacting to threats, but at enforcing preemptive control. Risk profiling, data mining, and biometric classifications increasingly replace principles of due process and the presumption of innocence.
Urban Warfare: Drawing on examples from Baghdad, Gaza, Johannesburg, London, and New York, Graham shows how urban spaces change under conditions of emergency. Techniques of military occupation (e.g., zoning, walls, “green zones”) are adapted for civilian use. Western cities also come into focus—for example, when mass surveillance and control systems are deployed during major events like G20 summits, protests, or terrorist attacks. The city becomes a laboratory for authoritarian governance—with consequences for democracy, publicness, and participation.
Reception and Significance
„Cities Under Siege“ is regarded as a seminal work in critical urbanism, security studies, and urban sociology. It has sparked debates on how architecture, technology, and governance shape urban security discourses. In criminology, the book has been influential in the context of Cultural CriminologyThe scientific study of crime, criminal behavior, prevention, and societal reactions to deviance within and beyond the criminal justice system., surveillance studies, and technocratic security governance. Graham’s work bridges spatial sociology, policing studies, and urban control.
A complementary perspective can be found in Raquel Rolnik’s Urban Warfare: Housing under the Empire of Finance (2022), which analyzes how global finance capital turns housing into an investment asset—driving displacement, exclusion, and inequality. Her focus on urban political economy complements Graham’s security-oriented lens.
Reflection and Critique
Stephen Graham’s Cities Under Siege impresses with its rich empirical detail and vivid portrayal of urban security architectures. Reviewer George Steinmetz (2012) calls it a “fascinating and depressing overview of the ongoing militarization of urban space and the reorientation of the military toward urban warfare.” However, some critics argue that the accumulation of case studies comes at the cost of theoretical clarity.
Another critique concerns the book’s consistently dystopian tone. Nicholas Lezard (2011) in The Guardian notes that Graham paints an atmospheric alarmist picture of militarized urban control—supported by thorough documentation but lacking space for resistance or emancipatory alternatives. Indeed, the book offers little discussion of counter-movements or urban dissent, which some see as a conceptual weakness.
Despite these concerns, Cities Under Siege remains a foundational text for critical urban studies. Its relevance persists amid recent developments such as AI-based surveillance at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, the digitalization of border regimes, and the expansion of smart city infrastructures. Still, Graham’s approach needs further development—toward a more nuanced, democratic vision of urban control and spatial justice.
Global Reflections and Limits of Generalization
While Cities Under Siege has found strong resonance in Anglo-American contexts and in regions marked by conflict or authoritarianism, its analytical framework poses challenges when applied globally. Graham draws extensively on case studies from places like Baghdad, Gaza, Johannesburg, London, and New York—contexts characterized by high levels of militarization, spatial segregation, or emergency governance. These examples are powerful but not universally representative.
In cities across Latin America, Asia, and parts of Africa, the militarization of urban life often intersects with legacies of colonial control, gang violence, or state fragility. Here, Graham’s concept of “new military urbanism” captures real and ongoing struggles over space, mobility, and authority. Similarly, in many parts of the Global North, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom, preventive policing, biometric surveillance, and fortified urban designs have become entrenched in the post-9/11The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, which profoundly transformed security policies worldwide. era.
However, in other regions—such as parts of continental Europe, Canada, or Australasia—legal safeguards, civil society mobilization, and urban planning cultures can limit or reshape the diffusion of these security architectures. Urban governance remains contested, with many cities simultaneously sites of control and resistance, securitization and solidarity.
Critics have also noted that Graham’s dystopian tone—marked by terms like “urban siege” or “battlespace”—risks obscuring everyday forms of democratic urban life, spatial justice movements, and collective practices of care. Across the globe, urban actors resist securitized logics through community organizing, legal advocacy, artistic interventions, and alternative spatial imaginaries.
Ultimately, Cities Under Siege should not be read as a universal diagnosis but as a critical lens for understanding how militarized logics may infiltrate urban life under specific socio-political conditions. Its value lies in prompting localized analysis, comparative reflection, and a broader conversation about the future of cities in an age of surveillance, inequality, and securitization.
References
- Graham, S. (2010): Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism. London: Verso Books.
- Rolnik, R. (2022): Urban Warfare: Housing under the Empire of Finance. London: Verso Books.
- Lezard, N. (2011, December 13). Cities Under Siege by Stephen Graham – review. The Guardian. Link
- Steinmetz, G. (2012). Cities under Siege. Review by George Steinmetz. Society & Space. Link
Video
Stephen Graham’s lecture at the London School of Economics „Cities Under Siege“:
Stephen Graham’s lecture at the Alexander von Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft „Urban Digital Infrastructure“:
