The small town of Kiruna in Swe­den, with a pop­u­la­tion of almost 18,000, is to be moved. The rea­son for this is a mag­netite ore mine. The city could col­lapse if the earth is hol­lowed out. Plans have been devel­oped to part­ly demol­ish and part­ly rebuild the hous­es at a loca­tion about three kilo­me­ters away. This unusu­al move should be com­plet­ed by 2033. Many, includ­ing the city admin­is­tra­tion, see a town devel­oped on the draw­ing board as a poten­tial new begin­ning. How­ev­er, not every­one seems hap­py about the plans, which are close­ly linked to the company’s eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. What would hap­pen, for exam­ple, if the glob­al mar­ket price for mag­netite ore fell and the relo­ca­tion of Kiruna, which has already begun, could not be ful­ly implemented?

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The Wek­er­le estate in the south­east of Budapest has been part of the world­wide Tran­si­tion Town Net­work for sev­er­al years, which address­es the glob­al chal­lenges of the cli­mate emer­gency and devel­ops prac­tices for local pro­duc­tion as well as re-use. Alter­na­tive ener­gy con­cepts are devel­oped, food sov­er­eign­ty is cre­at­ed, sus­tain­able con­struc­tion and emis­sion-free mobil­i­ty are pro­mot­ed. In Wek­er­le, par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is placed on com­mu­ni­ty-sup­port­ed agri­cul­ture, organ­ic hor­ti­cul­ture is pro­mot­ed through cours­es, seeds of local veg­etable vari­eties are trad­ed on exchange plat­forms, and com­post is sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly col­lect­ed. The local gov­ern­ment has rec­og­nized this approach’s poten­tial and sup­ports it—despite some resistance—with mate­r­i­al and finan­cial resources. And so, a com­mu­ni­ty house has been built, a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den laid out, and the mar­ket place redesigned.

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South of Lis­bon, in the hin­ter­land of hotels and apart­ment com­plex­es, is the not yet legal­ized Ter­ras da Cos­ta quar­ter. In 2012, the idea of set­ting up a com­mu­nal kitchen was born in the neigh­bor­hood. Their pro­pos­al was tied to hopes that author­i­ties would agree to install a water sup­ply and there­by start the legal­iza­tion process of the set­tle­ment. The archi­tec­tur­al office ate­lier­mob and many oth­er groups, ini­tia­tives, and indi­vid­u­als sup­port­ed this ambi­tion in var­i­ous ways. Some con­tributed their work direct­ly, oth­ers posi­tioned them­selves in sol­i­dar­i­ty, and foun­da­tions fund­ed the project. After about two years, water final­ly flowed to Ter­ras da Cos­ta. But many oth­er aspects remained unre­solved or have not been decid­ed polit­i­cal­ly, so that set­tle­ments in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions have to con­tin­ue the fight for their rights to the city.

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Why is the cur­rent mantra in the con­struc­tion indus­try build, build, build—when reuse, recy­cling, or oth­er forms of respon­si­ble use of resources should be the focus of atten­tion? The inter­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lec­tive Bel­la­s­tock address­es this and oth­er major prob­lems in the con­struc­tion indus­try. La Fab­rique du Clos in Stains, a small town in the north-east of Paris, was used to store mate­ri­als from the demo­li­tion of res­i­den­tial tow­ers. Yet the yard also became a meet­ing place and stage for the neighborhood’s res­i­dents. There were dis­cus­sions: about future urban spaces, how and by whom and with what they will be designed. These activ­i­ties result­ed in pro­to­types for sheds, plant­i­ng beds, arbors, street pave­ment, play­ground equip­ment, bench­es, pavil­ions, and much more. They show how small-scale alter­na­tives can chal­lenge estab­lished systems.

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More than 400 peo­ple assem­bled at a self orga­nized meet­ing in FC St. Pauli’s ball­room in Ham­burg in Feb­ru­ary 2014. The rea­son for the unusu­al gath­er­ing were dra­mat­ic changes in St. Pauli. The neigh­bor­hood called for a »bot­tom up-orga­nized, demo­c­ra­t­ic plan­ning process.« With the expe­ri­ence and the mobi­liza­tion pow­er of the broad Right-to-the-city-move­ment back­ing them, the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary plan­ning office Plan­bude is found­ed to devel­op a new land use plan for the city. Wish pro­duc­tion starts in late sum­mer. Planbude’s claim: »Knack’ den St. Pauli Code!« (Crack the St. Pauli code!) becomes the leit­mo­tif for a process that builds on mul­ti­lin­gual­ism in expres­sion and mak­ing. The results of the process are cap­tured in a con­tract and become the foun­da­tion for a plan­ning com­pe­ti­tion. Local knowl­edge builds the basis for the rein­ven­tion of the city.

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The work EUROPA was cre­at­ed in the after­math of Britain’s ref­er­en­dum for with­draw­al from the Euro­pean Union. Europe, accord­ing to the archi­tec­ture and plan­ning office more­Platz, lacks vis­i­bil­i­ty, pub­lic pres­ence, and pos­i­tive feed­back. The huge lumi­nous tubes, which have been on dis­play in Berlin and many oth­er loca­tions across Ger­many and abroad since their first instal­la­tion in Novem­ber 2016, were con­cep­tu­al­ized to address this artic­u­lat­ed lack. But this notion of Europe that these let­ters and this light fix­ture are meant to rep­re­sent is also viewed crit­i­cal­ly by many for Europe’s exter­nal bor­ders are being increas­ing­ly sealed off and defend­ed. The promise of an open and sol­idary Europe remains for many an unat­tain­able goal. Radi­ant EUROPA does not shine equal­ly for everyone.

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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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