one of the great things about being in a country where it rains all of the time is that you have nowhere else to be except inside [laughter from audience] umm..i err i spent much of my life actually wrestling with the question of what is the relationship between urbanization, capital accumulation and various forms of social conflict including of course class struggle and anti-capitalist struggle and "rebel cities", which is the latest essay on this theme attempt to bring together some basic ideas and it is of course particularly appropriate at this particular conjuncture, because the present mess, errr, which we are in really was signaled by a collapse in housing markets particularly in the united states, but with certain regions of the united states, particularly the american south west southern california, arizona, nevada, also in florida and georgia and it was paralleled of course by the collapse in housing markets elsewhere and most notably in spain and ireland