RECLAIMING SPACES: 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.

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Posted on August 24th, 2008 under ESF 2008 Malmö, preparations. Tags: gentrification, globalisation, housing, Istanbul, private equity, privatisation, Ruhr, Russia, speculation, urban transformation. Comments: None