Cities today are increasingly becoming spaces of conflict between different development strategies, where public interest is often lost and citizens are targeted by commodification, enclosure of public and living spaces, and the disappearance of collective planning and decision-making. Not only are citizens losing their right to the city, but they are also faced with systemic efforts to depoliticise the communal aspect of the city, and with complete disintegration of urban ecosystems that until recently provided for vital needs.
However, there are more and more examples of citizens in some European cities using different models of collaboration and mobilisation to develop practices opposing city neoliberalisation, and transforming the city to make it more accessible to everyone. Whether they are micro-initiatives changing the lifestyle and housing in neighbourhoods, larger development plans envisioning the city as a communal space, or courageous local government policies returning the city to its citizens in „fearless“ and „rebellious“ cities Barcelona and Grenoble, they are in various stages of creating a different city through disobedience, imagination and new praxis.
At the public debate „Good City for All“, we will talk to activists, citizens and experts from less known European cities that join this family, Ghent, Rotterdam, Belgrade and Budapest to learn more about the ideas and politics stemming from the concept of the city as commons (or a set of the commons), and about the current attempts of initiatives from these cities to transform them, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.
Speakers:
Michel Bauwens, Peer to Peer Foundation
Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen, Stealth / City in the Making
Ksenija Radovanović, Ne davimo Beograd
Annamaria Babos i Petra Horogh, Közösségben Élni
Moderator:
Vedran Horvat, IPE
The debate is organized by the Institute for Political Ecology in cooperation with Green European Foundation and with the financial support of European Parliament. The activity is supported by Heinrich Böll Stiftung and Open Society Initiative for Europe.