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First world urban activism

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  • Margit Mayer

Abstract

The paper looks at contemporary urban activism as it mobilizes around policies and conflicts characteristic of the comparatively privileged Western cities of the global North. It first analyzes the particularities of neoliberal urbanism and its implications for (divisions between) urban social movements, and secondly looks at how today's movements might move beyond their current predicaments, which lie in the tensions between more and less privileged movement groups occupying rather different strategic positions. Corresponding to the widespread trend of creative city politics, a sector of urban movements has flourished that benefits from innovative policies fostering alternative and (sub)cultural activism; on the other hand, various movements mobilizing around the intensifying trends of austerity urbanism have largely remained at a distance from leftist, autonomous and countercultural movements. The divides are beginning to be bridged in new forms of (post-)Occupy collaborations that bring together austerity victims and other groups of urban 'outcasts’ with (frequently middle-class-based) radical activists, allowing both to acknowledge their differences. This, it is argued, constitutes a necessary condition for struggles against the exclusivity of neoliberal urbanism to be effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Margit Mayer, 2013. "First world urban activism," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 5-19, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:cityxx:v:17:y:2013:i:1:p:5-19
    DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2013.757417
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Mark Thomas & Steven Tufts, 2016. "‘Enabling dissent’: Contesting austerity and right populism in Toronto, Canada," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 27(1), pages 29-45, March.
    2. Pera, Marina, 2020. "Potential benefits and challenges of the relationship between social movements and the commons in the city of Barcelona," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    3. Amelia Thorpe, 2023. "PREFIGURATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE: Mobility, Citizenship, and the Agency of Objects," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 183-199, March.
    4. Talia Margalit & Adriana Kemp, 2019. "The uneven geographies of post-political planning: Objections to urban regeneration projects in peripheral and central Israeli cities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(4), pages 931-949, June.
    5. Esin Özdemir & Ayda Eraydin, 2017. "Fragmentation in Urban Movements: The Role of Urban Planning Processes," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 727-748, September.
    6. Jessica Tanghetti & Roberta Comunian & Tamsyn Dent, 2022. "‘Covid-19 opened the pandora box’ of the creative city: creative and cultural workers against precarity in Milan [A heterodox re-reading of creative work: the diverse economies of Danish visual art," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 15(3), pages 615-634.
    7. Andrew Smith, 2021. "Sustaining municipal parks in an era of neoliberal austerity: The contested commercialisation of Gunnersbury Park," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(4), pages 704-722, June.
    8. Ross Beveridge & Philippe Koch, 2021. "Contesting austerity, de-centring the state: Anti-politics and the political horizon of the urban," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(3), pages 451-468, May.
    9. Badach Joanna Maria & Stasiak Anna & Baranowski Andrzej, 2018. "The role of urban movements in the process of local spatial planning and the development of participation mechanism," Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development, Sciendo, vol. 22(4), pages 187-196, December.
    10. Sinan Erensü & Ozan Karaman, 2017. "The Work of a Few Trees: Gezi, Politics and Space," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 19-36, January.
    11. Martin Kohler & Anita Engels & Ana Paula Koury & Cathrin Zengerling, 2021. "Thinking Urban Transformation through Elsewhere: A Conversation between Real-World Labs in São Paulo and Hamburg on Governance and Practical Action," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-23, November.
    12. Mustafa Dikeç & Erik Swyngedouw, 2017. "Theorizing the Politicizing City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 1-18, January.
    13. Cesare Di Feliciantonio, 2017. "Spaces of the Expelled as Spaces of the Urban Commons? Analysing the Re-emergence of Squatting Initiatives in Rome," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 708-725, September.
    14. Mengi, Onur & Bilandzic, Ana & Foth, Marcus & Guaralda, Mirko, 2020. "Mapping Brisbane’s Casual Creative Corridor: Land use and policy implications of a new genre in urban creative ecosystems," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    15. Morgana G Martins Krieger & Marlei Pozzebon & Lauro Gonzalez, 2021. "When social movements collaborate with the state towards the right to the city: Unveiling compromises and conflicts," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1115-1139, August.
    16. Alison L Bain & Julie A Podmore, 2021. "Placing LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1305-1326, May.
    17. Nicole Gurran & Madeleine Pill & Sophia Maalsen, 2021. "Hidden homes? Uncovering Sydney’s informal housing market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(8), pages 1712-1731, June.
    18. Baptiste Antoniazza & André Mach & Michael Andrea Strebel, 2023. "THE URBAN LEFT IN POWER: Comparing the Profiles of ‘Municipal Socialists’ and the ‘New Urban Left’ in Swiss Cities," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 745-772, September.

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