About six­teen years ago, two skaters found a plot of fal­low land in Hanover-Linden’s indus­tri­al area. They start to clean up and build a small skate park. In 2009, they form an asso­ci­a­tion, nego­ti­ate an inter­im use con­tract with the own­er togeth­er with the city council’s sup­port, and reach a lease agree­ment for one euro per year, which is still valid today. In 2013, anoth­er asso­ci­a­tion is cre­at­ed: Platzpro­jekt aims to cre­ate a space for ini­tia­tives, a place for self-help, for mutu­al sup­port offer­ing knowl­edge, tools, and crafts­man­ship. Research funds and state sub­si­dies enable the estab­lish­ment of long-term par­tic­i­pa­tion struc­tures for young peo­ple who want to dis­cuss their cities in self-orga­nized spaces and active­ly shape them.

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Even if Min­istry of Space sounds quite offi­cial, it is not a state-run min­istry. Con­cealed behind the name is a small group of activists com­mit­ted to social jus­tice. Thus, the group fights for a city that ben­e­fits all those who live there. They fight against cor­rupt prac­tices, the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of pub­lic mon­ey, and—as they argue—abuses of pow­er by polit­i­cal play­ers. In this way, the activists mon­i­tor, ana­lyze, and crit­i­cal­ly com­ment upon large-scale urban devel­op­ment projects by transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the pri­va­ti­za­tion of pub­lic assets. They scru­ti­nize the con­struc­tion of lux­u­ry res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties or shop­ping cen­ters. Through their work, the group thus sup­ports a broad protest cul­ture that demands civ­il soci­ety inclu­sion in urban pol­i­cy events.

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The City Plaza Hotel in Athens’ Vic­to­ria dis­trict stood emp­ty for a long time. In April 2016, an ini­tia­tive, togeth­er with strand­ed refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syr­ia, and many oth­er places, occu­pied the build­ing. They trans­formed the 126-room ex-hotel into a res­i­den­tial com­plex and man­aged it them­selves. In doing so, the project is a demon­stra­tion of the prac­tice of eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal sol­i­dar­i­ty with refugees. Thus, it was also a cen­ter for the fight against racism, bor­ders, repres­sive migra­tion poli­cies, and social exclu­sion. After thir­ty-six months, the exper­i­ment came to an end in 2019. Despite the project’s brevi­ty, this build­ing in cen­tral Athens, as well as the activ­i­ties that unfold­ed there, rep­re­sent crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant top­ics to all of us—and not only in times of crisis.

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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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Hous­ing, just like land, must not be a commodity—this is the goal of the Miet­shäuser Syn­dikat in a nut­shell. Since its offi­cial foun­da­tion in Freiburg in 1993, it has devel­oped and pro­mot­ed self-orga­nized hous­ing projects. The unique fea­ture of the syn­di­cate is that land and build­ings are per­ma­nent­ly decom­mod­i­fied. This means that the orga­ni­za­tion, togeth­er with the ten­ants of a house, buys the prop­er­ty and the land, thus dis­solv­ing tra­di­tion­al own­er­ship struc­tures or oth­er depen­den­cies. By with­draw­ing build­ings and the land they stand on from the real estate mar­ket, the syn­di­cate posi­tions itself explic­it­ly against spec­u­la­tion and prof­it. Today, around 160 projects in Ger­many, the Nether­lands, and Aus­tria exist under the syndicate’s umbrel­la, mak­ing long-term afford­able res­i­den­tial, work­ing, and liv­ing spaces a reality.

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When Yuriy Fylyuk and his friends moved from Kyiv to Ivano-Frankivsk in the sum­mer of 2008, they found a place with scarci­ties of all sorts. Out of this, Teple Mis­to or Warm City emerged—a net­work that today includes around six­ty local com­pa­nies. A restau­rant became one of the plat­forms for the group’s activ­i­ties and serves as a place for meet­ing as well as exchange. One hun­dred peo­ple par­tic­i­pate as co-financiers in the Urban Space 100 project. Since 2015, parts of the restaurant’s prof­its have gone into a pot that finances and sup­ports ini­tia­tives, small and larg­er projects. The mon­ey col­lect­ed in this way has already been used to restore his­toric build­ing entrances, pro­cure com­put­ers for med­ical facil­i­ties, and orga­nize sport­ing events and festivals.

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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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