Cities and Self-organization
In the contemporary city, we are today more and more witnessing different practices and processes of “re-appropriation of space”: regeneration of empty buildings, spaces of cultural production, urban gardens, green areas given renewed significance and re-shaped public spaces, and so on. Beside this, we could also mention experimentations that are activating new social services and welfare spaces, and finally squatting projects, which are defining different modes of co-existence, housing and service provision.
This is a vast field of activity and experience, with the widespread involvement and the leading role of the inhabitants, organized or not in committees or associations, and other local actors. Such experiences are both illegal and legal, and question the relationship and the very meaning of the institutions.
We should even consider in particular micro-practices that are able to broaden and transform the city from the bottom up, alongside more stable forms of social production. A specific kind of “city making” built upon a mix of practices, social relations and modes of local activation.
Reading Development 