Editorial: Social mobilisations and planning through crises

Abstract

The 2007/08 financial crisis triggered waves of austerity that profoundly restructured urban planning, exposing cities and their populations to further vulnerabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated inequalities, highlighting the fragility of urban systems, particularly in securing housing, public space, and socio-economic rights.

More recently, global geopolitical crises—wars and conflicts around the world—along with the supply-chain crisis, energy price volatility, and inflationary pressures, have further intensified pre-existing inequalities and territorial conflicts. Finally, extractivism and subsequent limitations of resources, violent conflicts, and climate change made migration the only viable solution for many, resulting in a migratory crisis in many cities. The concatenation and overlap of multiple types of crises characterising our era have been defined as a polycrisis.

In this shifting landscape, grassroots responses and organised urban social movements may play a pivotal role in resisting these multi-level crises. They mobilise against financialisation, gentrification, touristification, evictions, the privatisation of public spaces, austerity-driven urban policies, and the lack of access to basic resources as for decent and affordable housing.

Young academics, in particular, are on the frontlines, sometimes even directly involved with grassroots organisations as practitioners, activists, or engaged researchers. They push the academic agenda by examining the potential of social mobilisations to envision and experiment with solutions to this polycrisis, while navigating the tensions between these mobilisations and financial and governance constraints.

This issue brings together diverse case studies and theoretical contributions that explore the relationship between social mobilisations and urban planning in times of crisis. The contributions examine how urban movements contest neoliberal urban governance, advocate for the right to the city, and develop alternative urban futures based on solidarity, commoning, and self-management. It includes articles analysing cities from different parts of the world, including Athens, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Caracas, and Turin, offering a comparative perspective on how urban struggles and planning policies unfold across varied socio-economic and political contexts.

We identify several crosscutting themes in the articles in this issue. Several articles focus on planning, crises, and the reinforcement of neoliberal urbanism and policies, while others examine grassroots-led urban initiatives, ranging from the most informal and precarious ones to the most institutionalised. The special issue explores these themes through the lens of diverse case studies with a special emphasis on the politics of urban resistance in housing and public space.