an urban social movements’ calendar
Title: Neoliberal Urban Transformation in Istanbul and Opportunities of Counter-Culture in Urban Spaces
Location: Dortmund, Taranta Babu
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2009-02-05
Neo-liberal policies, financial globalisation and global city competition heavily affect urban life and struggles. Millions of people from lower classes get pushed out of their neighbourhoods and houses. Based on an exchange of recent experiences with struggles against neo-liberal urban transformations in Istanbul, Germany, and Russia we want to discuss options for internationalised resistance.
The project INSTANBULMAP in 2007 produced a map of central Istanbul showing many of the points of violant urban transformations against the heritage and the inhabitants. You can download the PDF-file (heavy!) at http://www.istanbulmap.org/?q=node/53
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.