Representing density: the politics of fear in Zurich city planning

Density dominates current urban discussions, especially in light of still-developing understandings of Covid-19's impact on urban populations. This paper argues that critical scrutiny of visual representations of urban density is both missing from academic focus and critically important for understanding how perceptions of density are both created and reproduced. The political rhetoric of density shapes public perceptions as much as it responds to them, and scrutiny of visual density politics adds a new lens to critical density debates. This research takes the speculative imagery of imagined future density created for a public ballot referendum in Zurich, Switzerland as the main focus, and compares the verbal and written campaign rhetoric to the visual images produced as tools of public persuasion. By assessing the gap between what the campaigns claim and what the campaign imagery represents, the research finds embedded in conventional rhetoric a deep-seated and self-defeating assumption that the electorate unilaterally fears density and the changes it might bring. As a winning electoral strategy assuming fear of density worked; as a tool of persuasion it failed, and risks amplifying or creating the perception it assumes.