RECLAIMING SPACES: news & events

The financial market driven globalisation as well as the globalized competition between places and regions heavily affect urban development, urban life and urban struggles across Europe . As a consequence millions of people from the lower classes get pushed out of their original neighbourhoods and houses. Among the reasons are post-fordistic urban transformations and renewal projects in favor of the wealthy, rocketing rents and reduced subventions for housing costs of unemployed, gentrifications and the cleansing of “slums”, privatisations and real estate speculation, mega projects, tourism and big events, racist exclusions, the control of informal forms of work and housing, the disciplination of unconformity…

From our experiences with struggles against these processes many questions arise:

How can local struggles against the consequences of these processes develop effective international networking, advocacy and targeted campaigning? How to achieve the RIGHT TO HOUSING in an Europe of workfare and privatization, of house demolition and social exclusion, of speculation and real estate violence? Which role does the EU play or should it play? How to link alter-globalisation with community organization in the neighbourhood? Which solidarity vision for the relations between territories and regions? Which role can urban issues and local movements play within a rescaling of anti-hegemonial struggles? What can be common claims among urban strugglers related to the global financial sector? How to build land/housing rights and urban campaigns targeted at trans-national financial investors, banks, institutions? How to internationalize our struggles?

Based on an exchange of recent experiences with struggles against neo-liberal urban transformations we want to try to discuss some of these questions.

TESTIMONIES AND CASE REPORTS

In the first phase we want to exchange testimonies from some of the recent struggles:

1. ISTANBUL <40 minutes ?>

In order to develop a internationally competitive global city authorities in the Istanbul metropolis are going to implement a brutal urban transformation plan which demolishes masses of affordable houses, destroys many popular neighbourhoods and the urban heritage. Our comrades from the Istanbul grass root movements and supporting researchers and journalists will introduce to this shocking case.

Regarding the styles of housing and living it is one of the most obvious characteristics of the Istanbul transformation process that it tries to establish a new normality based on a neo-liberal-islamistic mainstream which expresses itself in many gated communities and condos. Within this normalization there is hardly space for other ways to live and work, especially for the poor. Therefore, it is not astonishing that the members of the Roma community which since many centuries settle at the historic peninsula are among the first victims.

In case of the bulldozing of the traditional Roma neighbourhood SULUKULE, which since centuries built an important part of Istanbul’s culture, a broad platform of inhabitants and supporters tried to raise public awareness and to stop the destruction. SUKRU PÜNDÜK, leader of the Roma community and organizer of many music events, will give testimonies from this mainly sad experience. Sukru with the support of music and celebrations wants to spread international protest against such destructive urban development. PELIN TAN, a researcher/sociologist and urban activist from the solidarity platform for Sulukule (Sulukule Platform) will contribute Sukru’s presentation.

Links:

http://sulukulegunlugu.blogspot.com/

However, not only cultural minorities like the Roma and - to give another example - Kurds who concentrated in some traditional Istanbul neighbourhoods after the expulsions from Turkish Kurdistan are among the victims. The Istanbul authorities are trying to resemble the whole metropolitan area according to a master plan which includes a big financial city as well as a tourist city and middle class settlements cities, but excludes the many small industries and many of popular neighbourhoods which after the squatting in former decades have not been totally regulated yet. Especially in these neighbourhoods some very heavy social struggles developed during the recent years. The neighbourhood groups even built a city wide network.

One of the examples is the struggle in GÜLENSU, a neighbourhood at the Asian part (Maltepe) with a long left organizational tradition. ERDOGAN YILDIZ from Gülensu neighbourhood foundation will report. He even will give an overview on urban struggles in the whole Istanbul area.. TAN MORGUL and ULUS ATAYURT, critical journalists and urban activist in Istanbul can assist the presentations, explain and analyse further political and economical backgrounds of the brutal transformation and resistance in Istanbul.

See some of the points at this map:

http://istanbulmap.org/?q=node/53

Everywhere resisters against the neo-liberal city are under oppression. But not everywhere its as brutal as in Istanbul. See for instance: http://video.azbuz.com/videoParts/view.jsp?videoId=41000000000877078#set:0

2. GERMANY <20 minutes?>

Compared to Istanbul the situation in other countries seems less brutal. However, while Istanbul currently paints an extra ordinary picture of factors and consequences of neo-liberal urban transformations we can identify many of the phenomenon even in countries with a softer first look. This is even the case in Germany where privatisations and gentrifications are virulent, where squatters get criminalized as well as researchers who deal with gentrification.

KNUT UNGER, a tenants organizer from the Ruhr District will give a brief overview on the consequences of the MASS PRIVATISATION of social housing to international investors during the recent years. More than 1.3 million housing units were sold to international financial investors. In some cases this was accompanied by condo-conversions and individual sales which forced the sitting tenants, often retired workers, to leave. Even workers’ gardens are much under pressure. Knut even will give an overview on the housing consequences of the so called HARTZ IV reform, the neo-liberal replacement of the former insurance for unemployed by a workfare regime with reduced basic income. About 8 million people depend on these welfare subsidies which very strictly limit the subsidies for the housing costs. Many people had to leave their homes because of short cuts of their income. If they want to change the flat they need the allowances of their workfare offices. As a result the unemployed more and more concentrate in the worst housing situations, And in cities with significant housing needs and gentrification it’s hard to find an affordable flat at all.

Knut, accompanied by KARIN BAUMERT, an urban activist and sociologist from BERLIN will even report about some of the resistance movements, such as referendums against the privatisation of public housing and action against the forced moves as a consequence of Hartz IV.

KARIN however will mainly report about the successful strategy if the INITIATIVE BETHANIEN and the INITIATIVE MEDIA SPREE VERSENKEN in Berlin. They did not only manage to legalize a squat. The recently even finished a successful referendum against a huge urban development project (Media Spree) in the centre of Berlin.

3. RUSSIA <20 minutes?>

Evgeny Kozlov, Movement of citizens’ initiatives, Saint-Peterburg and/or Andrey Konoval, Coordinating soviet of citizens’ actions, Izhevsk together with Carine Clement from the “Soviets Regional Co-ordination Union of Russia” (SKS) will report about housing rights campaigns in Russia.

The SKS network (which intervenes in all social problems, but whose main priority today is housing) leads a consistent campaign for the self-organisation of inhabitants and the protection of their rights and interests in the face of management companies and local and federal authorities. Since the end of 2005, the Union has initiated several campaigns coordinated on an inter-regional level as part of its campaign “For a Social Housing Policy”. On average some 10,000 people in 25 regions of the country are involved. The Union has drawn up a programme of demands and supports progressive amendments to the Housing Code, backed by a tiny minority of MPs in the State Duma, SKS brings together in protest apartment building and district committees and it works in a network with the movement of inhabitants from the workers’ hostels as well as with other movements of this type.

The introduction of neoliberal reforms since 2005 are showing most adverse effects in the sphere of habitat: The dues for maintenance of our houses are rising, but at the same time the condition of the housing stock and its maintenance are degrading. Corruption and mismanagement are omnipresent, partly due to the progressing privatisation of the construction and administration sectors, where investors and corrupt civil servants are gaining huge amounts of money at the disadvantage of habitants. Privatisation and liberalisation hit hardest the most vulnerable parts of society - guest workers, migrant families, working poor or unemployed - who are not only moved out of their communal housing, but who cannot find alternatives due to lacking social housing construction.

Since 2005 and the hardening of neoliberal housing policies a growing movement against the abuse from the side of the state and private investors, against demolitions, in-fill-constructions, expulsions, ecological degradation or the neglect of maintenance and for self-organisation and -administration and social/communal housing is overcoming apathy and frustrations; groups of inhabitants are struggling before the courts and in the streets, organising themselves, building networks. To delegitimise the claims of the people the state is stigmatising them as “extremists”, whereas illegal action is mostly coming from the side of investors, be they public or private, and the media draw a vail of silence around the awakening movement. To break our stigma and the silence around us and force the government to improve the situation of inhabitants in Russia, we want to not only create networks of struggling groups locally and nationally (e. g. in the Union of Soviets of which I am a member), but also internationally. Together with movements in Europe we want to put pressure on embassies, our governments or UN Habitat, organise joint actions, meetings and days of action (as we already did on the 26th of January for the International Day of Action) to improve the situation of inhabitants in Russia and elsewhere.

4. ZÜRICH < 10 minutes?>

Vesna Tomse of the initiative “urban.lab” will show the strategy of implementing megaprojects into poor neighbourhoods to gentrify former working class areas of Zurich.

Kreis 4/5, lying in between the tradition industrial zone of Zurich and its banking district, has been radically transformed by the deindustrialisation of Zurich. Since the 60s only one of the two sides of the industrial society - capital and labour - remained in the city: The Bahnhofstrasse with the headquarters of the renowned Swiss banks is blooming, while the industrial zone was transformed into a zone for the service and leisure industries. With the transformation of the industrial zone, the left over working class living area also had to change. The leisure sector (prostitutes, bars, multicultural restaurants) nowadays are sharing the space with newly settling yuppies consuming the city. To upgrade the space according to the needs of the new clientele, new architectural implementations squeeze the old working class populace out of the centre and prepare the centrally located area for the employees of the producer services of global city Zurich.
The gradual process sometimes takes on more brutal forms: The implementation of mega-projects destroys inhabited housing, causing social unrest; to crush such initiatives, the expulsion of poor people is legitimated by the city administration through the strategy of megaprojects which are said to “develop” these neighbourhoods. Vesna Tomse names four mega-projects gentrifying the traditional working class center of Zurich and shows peoples’ initiatives against these developments.

REFLECTION - ANALYSIS - PERSPECTIVES <45 minutes ?>

In the second phase of our seminar we want to start with a reflection on the cases. What is common? What are local factors, which are international? What are elements of effective resistance? Which international solidarity initiatives could help?

Besides a few brief impulses we want to have more space for a free debate.

As an impulse the ISTANBUL comrades (see above) will present some brief analysis about the political and economical background of the Istanbul transformation plans including a view on the role of transnational financial capital and of cultural normalization policies.

SEBASTIAN MÜLLER, an urban sociologist and activist from INURA Rhein-Ruhr, Germany, will give an impulse on the challenges of neo-liberal globalization and especially the globalized real estate speculation for local social struggles. He will propose an orientation for the struggle for social regularization of the international real-estate and financial investments at European levels.

CARINE CLEMENT from Russia will present an impulse on the political and economical background in Russian Cities. <please add>

FOLLOW UP - URGENT ACTION AND IMPROVED NETWORKING

Finally we will try to discuss some options for further cooperation.

The preparation group will present options for urgent solidarity action, at least in the case of Istanbul.

Cesare Ottolini, IAI, will briefly present a proposal for an European alert system on forced evictions and may introduce IAI campaigns.

Knut Unger will present a proposal for an international online-magazine for exchange, reflection and political intervention of urban social movements.

If there will be time Knut Unger and Sebastian Müller can report about German projects for watching international real estate investments and give an idea about the possible international perspectives and use of this within corporate campaigns.

If possible, a preparation group will present a draft for a short common joint statement for an international press release on urgent cases to be distributed at the occasion of the world habitat day , October 6.

The exchange and debates - especially on the follow up and future action - should be continued in informal meetings we have to organize ourselves. There will be open spaces at the ESF during the whole Social Forum.

LIST OF SPEAKERS (so far)

1 SUKRU PÜNDÜK , Sulukule platform, Istanbul is a leader of the local Roma community and organizer of cultural events.

2 PELIN TAN, Sulukule platform, Istanbul is an urban researcher and activist supporting the survival struggle of Sulukule.

3 ERDOGAN YILDIZ from Gülensu neighborhood in Istanbul is a neighbourhood orgnizer and activist. 

4 TAN MORGUL is a critical journalist and activist from Istanbul.

5 ULUS ATAYURT is a critical journalist and activist from Istanbul.

6 KNUT UNGER, Habitat Netz - Witten Tenants Association, is a tenants organizer and journalist from the Ruhr district in Germany.

7 KARIN BAUMERT, Initiative Bethanien Berlin and others, is an urban sociologist and activist in autonomous urban struggles with roots in eastern Berlin.

8 CARINE CLEMENT from the “Soviets Regional Co-ordination Union of Russia” (SKS) lives in Moscow

9 Evgeny Kozlov, Movement of citizens’ initiatives, Saint-Peterburg

10 Andrey Konoval, Coordinating soviet of citizens’ actions, Izhevsk

11 VESNA TOMSE is a sociologist, journalist and urban activist from Zurich, partly working in St. Petersburg, Russia.

12 SEBASTIAN MÜLLER, INURA Rhine-Ruhr, is a retired professor for urban sociology and theory of planning from Dortmund, Germany. Currently mainly working on international financial investment in the housing market he is even an activist in close relations to the tenants associations in the Ruhr District.

13 CESARE OTTOLINI, Italy, is the coordinator of the International Alliance of Inhabitants (IAI)

Posted on August 24th, 2008 under ESF 2008 Malmö, Seminar: RECLAIMING THE CITY • Tags: Bethanien, city competition, demolitions, gentrification, globalisation, housing, Istanbul, mapping, private equity, privatisation, Ruhr, Russia, speculation, Sulukule, urban transformation. •  Print This Post • • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback