Following several recent entries on urbanist “quick wins”, local urban greening and reclaiming alleys, we’ve been increasingly aware of the new “guerrilla urbanism”. The concept is particularly showcased in Jeffrey Hou’s new book, Insurgent Public Space Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities.

In his book, Hou, the Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, sets out 20 case studies–from gardening to parking lot spaces turned parks–to illustrate the growing trend of nontraditional life-giving to otherwise unused city spaces.

But what of the symbols of such contemporary movements, such as the spade, or better yet, the shoe? We posed an interesting question about pedestrian and open space advocacy on Facebook this morning.

Premised on the embedded link below, is shoe-banging ipso facto pedestrian advocacy? Do the ends justify the means?