Berlin-Tem­pel­hof Air­port build­ing: 312,000 square meters of total floor space. Con­cret­ed apron: 236,000 square meters. Tem­pel­hof Field: a vast 355 hectares. For twelve years, flight oper­a­tions have been sus­pend­ed. Since 2009 the build­ings, includ­ing the air­field, have been owned by the State of Berlin. In the inter­ven­ing years: dis­cus­sions and process­es about what to do with this mas­sive area. The col­lec­tive, which has been work­ing from the for­mer gate­house of the air­port since 2018, joins many oth­ers with the demand that what­ev­er trans­for­ma­tion hap­pens, it must be for the com­mon good—fit for our children’s chil­dren. This means: Mak­ing the city of the future and devel­op­ing new imag­i­nar­ies demand plan­ning with care for humans and non-humans, but also with respect for this planet.

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The book and action research project Fund­ing the Coop­er­a­tive City. Com­mu­ni­ty Finance and the Econ­o­my of Civic Spaces describes numer­ous case stud­ies from across Europe, which tell of how local com­mu­ni­ty finance can be set up. A wide vari­ety of groups that have devel­oped new mod­els for devel­op­ing and oper­at­ing non-com­mer­cial spaces for their neigh­bor­hoods are pre­sent­ed and dis­cussed. None of this is easy, as many inter­views and dis­cus­sion notes reveal. But it is pos­si­ble: through the for­ma­tion of sol­i­dar­i­ty net­works, neigh­bor­ly com­mit­ment, a will­ing­ness to exper­i­ment, and admin­is­tra­tive and often finan­cial sup­port from the respec­tive communities.

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Twen­ty years ago, the archi­tec­ture office ZUS moved into an anony­mous Schieblock in Rot­ter­dam as an anti-squat­ter. At that time, how­ev­er, the areas sur­round­ing this block were cut up and sep­a­rat­ed by roads and rail­way lines. This is how the idea of a bridge was born. The hope: new impuls­es and uses for emp­ty build­ings and urban waste­lands. Inter­est­ing­ly, the bridge brought peo­ple togeth­er even before it exist­ed. Via an inter­net plat­form, peo­ple were able to pur­chase wood­en plank­ing for the future bridge, which was ful­ly opened in 2015. Oth­er aspects of the project were strong­ly sup­port­ed by the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Rot­ter­dam: Work and office space, restau­rants, cafés, and green spaces. Since then, there has been a lot of talk about the quarter’s new vital­i­ty but also about the con­se­quences of upgrad­ing and exclusivity.

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Due to out-migra­tion, the city of Gör­litz has shrunk by a quar­ter of its pop­u­la­tion since the 1990s. In 2008, a research group of the TU Dres­den and the Gör­litz city admin­is­tra­tion dared an exper­i­ment to attract new peo­ple to the city. Tem­po­rary liv­ing in Gör­litz should reveal the qual­i­ties and poten­tial of this place. Probe­wohnen, Stadt Erleben, and Stadt auf Probe, and now the fourth edi­tion of the project is under­way. Those inter­est­ed can try out liv­ing in the city and get to know the net­works in the cul­tur­al and youth sec­tors. They can use shared work­spaces as well as work­shops and thus direct­ly explore new social and pro­fes­sion­al perspectives.

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In the 1980s, Tox­teth is the set­ting for vio­lent class strug­gles. Peo­ple move to oth­er parts of Liv­er­pool; many of the Vic­to­ri­an row hous­es fall into dis­re­pair. As a result, a group becomes active in the neigh­bor­hood. They clean up, plant flower beds, paint win­dows, and estab­lish a mar­ket. A Com­mu­ni­ty Land Trust is set up. The aim: to cre­ate afford­able hous­ing that is owned by the peo­ple from the neigh­bor­hood. The group con­vinces the munic­i­pal­i­ty not to demol­ish the hous­es. Lat­er, the archi­tec­ture col­lec­tive Assem­ble comes on board and devel­ops a plan for the area. Although the work is still unfin­ished and many hous­es are still in need of fur­ther atten­tion, the people’s goal of tak­ing the future of their area into their own hands has been achieved for the time being.

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The small town of Altenburg in Thuringia is shrink­ing. Since the 1980s, the pop­u­la­tion has declined by over 40%. Numer­ous indi­vid­u­als and ini­tia­tives have there­fore been active for sev­er­al years. They want to coun­ter­act the down­beat atmos­phere. The coop­er­a­tion of var­i­ous ini­tia­tives, sup­port asso­ci­a­tions, and cul­tur­al institutions—Stadtmensch—is sup­port­ed by a pro­gram under the Nation­al Urban Devel­op­ment Pol­i­cy and work­ing on pur­pose­ful­ly expand­ing exist­ing mod­els for the co-pro­duced city. In con­crete terms, the aim is for civ­il soci­ety to assume respon­si­bil­i­ty for pub­lic indoor and out­door spaces. Calls for ideas bring forth projects, the imple­men­ta­tion and pro­mo­tion of which are decid­ed upon by locals through var­i­ous pro­ce­dures. An impor­tant cri­te­ri­on: the projects should serve the com­mon good.

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For­mer may­or Domeni­co »Mim­mo« Lucano of the south­ern Ital­ian munic­i­pal­i­ty of Riace was co-founder of the asso­ci­a­tion Cit­tà Futura—City of the Future. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with aid orga­ni­za­tions, he took in refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Pales­tine, and Lebanon. With this came state sub­si­dies that were then also invest­ed in the village’s infra­struc­ture, which—many today believe—would like­ly have died out with­out the new res­i­dents. And so, togeth­er with the locals, aban­doned hous­es were repaired. The new­com­ers were also intro­duced to local tra­di­tions of glass mak­ing, ceram­ics, and embroi­dery. But from the begin­ning, there was resis­tance to what was seen as an idio­syn­crat­ic approach, which final­ly led to the project’s col­lapse a few years ago. Lucano was accused of mal­prac­tice, abuse of his posi­tion, and had to leave Riace. In the mean­time, how­ev­er, he’s back forg­ing new plans.

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In the north of Brus­sels, sur­round­ed by streets and yet almost hard to find, a small par­adise has emerged. In 2013, a diverse team put an idea into prac­tice: they com­bined the spe­cial and unique fea­tures of a park with urban agri­cul­ture and micro-farm­ing. Involved were local ini­tia­tives and groups that had been using the fringes of the fal­low land for some time for the col­lec­tive cul­ti­va­tion of fruit and veg­eta­bles, small ani­mal hus­bandry, and pigeon­ries. The result­ing location—Parckfarm—still brings the neigh­bor­hood togeth­er today. Dif­fer­ent actors orga­nize var­i­ous activ­i­ties, work­shops, gar­den­ing, and debates. How­ev­er, a land use plan for the area is now in place. Neigh­bor­hood asso­ci­a­tions and ini­tia­tives see access to and use of the park as threatened.

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