plaNext–Next Generation Planning

Resisting and reinforcing neoliberalism

2025-03-14T14:20:42+01:00

In the context of the ongoing global intertwined financial, environmental, socio-political crises, the intricate relationship between neoliberal urban planning and the challenges these crises present has become increasingly visible. Despite these challenges, neoliberal restructuring justifications remain central to urban agendas and planning culture, often exacerbating social inequality. Its principles and related political decisions frequently intensify social conflicts, sparking protests as their adverse effects on marginalized communities and areas become evident, especially after decades of market-driven policies and the global financial crisis. In many cities around the globe, these popular rebellions, as local and residential activism, started increasingly to target varying regulatory regimes and strategies pursued by supranational, national, or local authorities, often organized as urban social movements.
This think piece examines how neoliberal urbanism simultaneously incites resistance and absorbs it, reflecting a paradox where insurgent practices challenge the system but are also co-opted into its framework. By exploring key dynamics in urban governance, participation, and social movements, it seeks to understand how neoliberalism’s resilience lies in its ability to incorporate dissent into its operating logic while marginalizing radical alternatives, so to perpetuate its dominance despite widespread opposition. Briefly mentioning some examples of organized groups and forms of resistance around the globe, theoretical debates, and historical perspectives, the discussion unfolds by: analyzing how neoliberal practices shape urban governance and planning; investigating how movements resist neoliberalism and how their ideas are co-opted; addressing the enduring struggle over “to whom the city belongs” and proposing ways to foster meaningful democratic engagement.

Public spaces and neoliberal policies: The Greek case

2024-03-12T04:57:46+01:00

The process of neoliberalizing public spaces involves implementing policies aimed at increasing capital flow to offset reductions in local budgets. In Greece, although public spaces are decisive elements of the urban tissue, the tools, strategies, and mechanisms for their development are mainly based on public funding and the role of the private sector is still weak. The current paper analyzes the policies for public spaces since 1950 until today and the role of public and private sectors in their development. It focuses on specific periods as the Olympic Games, the economic crisis and today, to investigate the policies followed for public spaces development. The research area is the capital of Greece, and the examined case studies include both small- and large-scale areas to cover different types of public spaces. Research focuses on the changes in the legislative framework to promote the role of private sector and evaluates its role and collaboration with the public sector. The analysis of the case studies shows that constrained expertise, centralized decision-making procedures, and inadequate coordination of synergies among management entities, have resulted in notable deficiencies in the partnerships between the public and private sectors in supporting projects for the regeneration of public areas.

The right to the ecological city: Reconciling ecological sustainability and social justice in a neighbourhood transformation in Turin

2024-05-28T18:06:01+01:00

Cities have gained increasing attention in the debate on how to tackle the global environmental crisis. However, urban strategies for sustainability have often been criticised for being insufficient in effectively mitigating environmental impacts due to externalisation and cost-shifting, and for producing social contradictions, such as ecological gentrification. Rather than considering these critiques as reasons to abandon ecological urban transformations, this article advocates for the right to the ecological city, for which the goals of ecological sustainability and social justice need to be reconciled through a degrowth strategy based on the principles of sufficiency, reuse and sharing. However, this theoretical framework encounters several challenges in urban practice. These are discussed through the author’s lens as an observant participant in the Fondazione di Comunità Porta Palazzo, a community foundation involved in the transformation of the neighbourhoods of Aurora and Porta Palazzo in Turin, Italy, through projects focused on public space and housing. The discussion of these challenges suggests that while the right to the ecological city is hard to achieve, it remains an important goal in the transformation of cities and neighbourhoods, one that must rely on structural change driven by diverse actors across multiple scales.

Reclaiming public spaces: Radical alternatives to the exclusionary project of rightsizing policies

2024-08-22T16:35:02+01:00

Under the growing pressure of financial markets, the shrinking of public resources and services have been justified by discourses on inefficiency or redundancy in cities adhering to a dominant growth paradigm in urban development and planning, within the framework of austerity policies. Related rightsizing policies are then identifiable as forms of smart shrinkage and can be described as exclusionary projects in a context of increasing social polarisation. In response to these developments, groups of inhabitants have begun employing reclaiming strategies for the co-/self-management of public spaces and services, countering the conversion of common, collective, and state forms of property rights into exclusive private property rights. While these initiatives may, on one hand, be driven by the mainstream rhetoric of the citizen entrepreneurship, social market and “Big Society,” which often align with neoliberal frameworks emphasising privatization and individual responsibility, on the other hand, these forms of “subsidiarity with the state” emerged from a counter rhetoric rooted in solidarity, social sustainability and urban justice. This counter rhetoric advocates for collective, community-driven approaches challenging the logic of privatisation and for more equitable and sustainable planning models. Building on these reflections, the article seeks to analyse a paradigmatic case of resistance against privatization through the creation of a radical alternative social project for the self-management of public spaces and service delivery. By examining the compelling case of the illegal occupations and subsequent legalisations of the former hospital Bethanien in Berlin, the article explores how this experience of self-management demonstrated effective alternatives to the reduction of public spaces through the implementation of bottom-up practices aligned with the principles of degrowth.

Imitation of planning: Strategies to address tenure and economic insecurities in informal settlements of Buenos Aires

2023-10-07T08:10:05+01:00

This paper analyses economic and tenure insecurities and risk of eviction in informal settlements and shantytowns in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It shows how the bottom-up planning initiatives led by community leaders and activists are often motivated by the fact that engagement with or imitation of formal planning regulations and codes increase the perceived tenure security in these settlements. If and when security from eviction is achieved, however, or when households who occupy these lands do not aspire to stay there in the long-term, planning efforts might be ignored or even rejected. In such situations they may refocus their priorities on livelihood strategies and saving.

This research was conducted as an ethnographic case study based on physical and digital fieldworks. The findings urge urban planners to pay more attention to the way in which mainstream planning approaches magnify existing and create new insecurities and informalities, instead of addressing them. Planners need to recognise the gaps between their planning ambitions, and the realities and priorities of people living in informal settlements and shantytowns in situations where the state is unable to ensure access to affordable housing.

Caracas, Departure City: Urban planning after emigration and collapse

2024-07-26T11:39:23+01:00

The recent deterioration of living conditions in Venezuela has resulted in an unprecedented migratory crisis, infrastructure collapse, and institutional decline. In the middle of this complex situation, migrants’ left-behind properties are being transformed into new uses. These changes often contradict zoning regulations, prompting a series of legal, social, and spatial strategies to conceal them.
This article examines ongoing spatial and programmatic transformations of vacant homes in Caracas, the country’s capital, framing these changes within disciplinary discourses of shrinking and departure cities and in a specific experience of collapse that shapes daily life in the city. The article studies spatial transformations in terms of their material conditions and the opaque and informal procedures that produce them, describing the process from the point of view of various actors, from architects and entrepreneurs to local residents and planning authorities. Through interviews, site visits, and photographic documentation, the article describes the challenges and possibilities for social organization and institutional renovation in a climate of emigration and uncertainty.

Editorial: Social mobilisations and planning through crises

2025-03-19T20:26:05+01:00