Insurgent Public Space

"In cities around the world, individuals and groups are reclaiming and creating urban sites, temporary spaces and informal gathering places. These ‘insurgent public spaces’ challenge conventional views of how public spaces are defined and used, and how they can transform the city environment. No longer confined to traditional public areas like neighbourhood parks and public plazas, these guerrilla spaces express the alternative social and spatial relationships in our changing cities.

With nearly twenty illustrated case studies, this volume shows how instances of insurgent public space occur across the world. Examples range from community gardening in Seattle and Los Angeles, street dancing in Beijing, to the transformation of parking spaces into temporary parks in San Francisco.

Drawing on the experiences and knowledge of individuals extensively engaged in the actual implementation of these spaces, Insurgent Public Space is a unique cross-disciplinary approach to the study of public space use, and how it is utilized in the contemporary, urban world. Appealing to professionals and students in both urban studies and more social courses, Hou has brought together valuable commentaries on an area of urbanism which has, up until now, been largely ignored.

Winner of 2012 Great Places Award -- http://www.edra.org/content/2012-place-book-winner"

To address the theme of urban divides,  this essay focuses on acts of commoning and their potential for overcoming social,  political, and  spatial divides—divides that  have become deeply entrenched  in  cities  and societies today, as manifested in new and old spatial forms,  including  gated commu- nities, privatized public spaces, and enclaves of migrant workers. They also  include  non- spatial barriers such as patented seeds and privatized natural resources that are equally, if not more, significant in their impact  on the everyday life and struggles in the contempo- rary society,  with worsening economic dis- parities, stagnant wages, and growing social tensions. Such  disparities have contributed to the widening divides  between the haves and have-nots, privileged and disenfran- chised, and  documented and  undocument- ed in today’s  neoliberal systems.

It is precisely against this  background of enclosures and  divides that the  expanding"acts of commoning around the world are significant and intriguing  to observe. Through acts of commoning, citizens and activists engage in self-organized social  and  spatial configurations that enable individuals and communities to thrive in niches within market-based economic and  state institutions. They create alternative social and economic networks and relationships across economic and class divides and put social justice  and equity ahead of financial and self-interests. In the context of the planning and design profession, these acts of commoning suggest ways to move away from the current paradigm of neoliberal, market-driven practices to rethink how architects, landscape architects, and planners can play a more  critical and  proactive role for social  change, which citizen groups and community organizers have already started to do.  These acts of commoning represent hopes and  possibilities in overcoming the ever more entrenched urban divides that characterize cities and societies today.

"從突尼西亞到埃及，從占領華爾街到占領土耳其的廣場，從北半球的香港到南半球巴西，城市造反事件如野火燎原般席捲全球。這股從城市點燃的人民之火向我們指引了前方的道路。我們想問的是，人民的力量如何參與新公共空間的建立，又如何打破權力者與既得利益者的城市想望？在新一波的公民行動中，對城市空間的改造如何能夠帶給社會關係、政治過程和文化認同新的解答？

《城市造反》從世界各地，收錄了十一個特色各異的社區營造實例，試圖提出更兼容並蓄的非典型都市規劃術。透過各地的城市造反實錄，瞭解當地民眾與專業者，在面對僵化的都市建設時，所從事的抵抗、反制與自力救濟，更重要的是重新營造一個更多元、開放的城市。

Unsanctioned, unscripted, and seemingly “undesirable” activities have long appropriated urban spaces in routine and sometimes unexpected ways, bringing new meanings and unforeseen functions to those places. In the last decade or so, such practices have inspired a growing movement under the banner of DIY and tactical urbanisms. The growing acceptance of these practices creates important openings in the formalized planning systems for greater flexibility and expedient change. Yet, the institutionalization of previously informal and even subversive acts has resulted in concerns regarding co-optation and de-politicization. This special issue seeks to pivot a refocus towards these unsanctioned and unscripted urban activities as a form of counter-hegemonic spatial practices, distinct from its professionalized and institutionalized counterpart. A range of cases is examined here sharing similar characteristics as challenges against the prevailing social and political paradigm. Key findings include the scalability of guerrilla actions, the fluid shift between overt and covert actions, and the linkage between everyday struggles and organized resistance. This special issue is intended to advance our understanding of urban design by situating it in a broader social, economic, and political praxis that encompasses both formal and informal practices performed by a wide variety of individual and collective actors.

《反造再起》為「反造系列」第二輯，以「城市共生」為主軸，分為〔關懷弱勢：人生百味、萬華協力〕〔老城再生與活化：台中中區再生、高雄哈瑪星〕〔聯合公民社會和公部門資源：Open Green〕〔人群關係的再造：古風小白屋、南機拌飯〕〔用其他方式重組社區關係：玖樓共生公寓、燦爛時光書店、都農網、還我特色公園行動聯盟〕五大方向，收錄十二個經典案例。各案例之間並非獨自發展，而是可資相互參照，彼此交疊。在實踐上這些案例也相互協力和串連，有的已經發展出社會企業甚至商業化的運作方式。

「共生」指的是一群市民對於城市空間與發展的重新想像，當他們在經營共生實驗的同時，也同時在創造一個新的城市。相較於容易落入事業導向或物質環境改造的「地方創生」，「城市共生」的核心在於社會與社群關係的建構與資源的再生產，提供合作的機會與地方活化的基礎。

《反造再起》（第二輯）不同於《反造城市》（第一輯），在抗爭、游擊與開創之餘，嘗試進一步用「城市共生」的觀點，強調市民之間的協力、合作甚至跨域，與公部門的串連，進而發展自我治理的機制，創造城市生產與生活多元的新可能性，是對日益私有化、商品化、財團化、全球化，以及政府無所作為的應對之道。

Recent global appropriations of public spaces through urban activism, public uprising, and political protest have brought back democratic values, beliefs, and practices that have been historically associated with cities. Given the aggressive commodification of public resources, public space is critically important due to its capacity to enable forms of public discourse and social practice which are fundamental for the well-being of democratic societies. Public Space Reader brings together public space scholarship by a cross-disciplinary group of academics and specialists whose essays consider fundamental questions: What is public space and how does it manifest larger cultural, social, and political processes? How are public spaces designed, socially and materially produced, and managed? How does this impact the nature and character of public experience? What roles does it play in the struggles for the just city, and the Right to The City? What critical participatory approaches can be employed to create inclusive public spaces that respond to the diverse needs, desires, and aspirations of individuals and communities alike? What are the critical global and comparative perspectives on public space that can enable further scholarly and professional work? And, what are the futures of public space in the face of global pandemics, such as COVID-19? The readers of this volume will be rewarded with an impressive array of perspectives that are bound to expand critical understanding of public space.

Radical geographers have been preoccupied with Marxism for four decades, largely ignoring an earlier anarchist tradition that thrived a century before radical geography was claimed as Marxist in the 1970s. When anarchism is considered, it is misused as a synonym for violence or derided as a utopian project. Yet it is incorrect to assume anarchism as a 'project', which instead reflects Marxian thought. Anarchism is more appropriately considered a protean process that perpetually unfolds through the insurrectionary geographies of the everyday and the prefigurative politics of direct action, mutual aid, and voluntary association. Unlike Marxism’s stages of history and revolutionary imperative, which imply an end-state, anarchism appreciates the dynamism of the social world. In staking a renewed anarchist claim for radical geography, I attend to the divisions between Marxism and anarchism as two alternative socialisms, wherein the former positions equality alongside an ongoing flirtation with authoritarianism while the latter maximizes egalitarianism and individual liberty by considering them as mutually reinforcing. Radical geographers would do well to reengage anarchism as there is a vitality to this philosophy that is missing from Marxian analyses that continue to rehash ideas–such as vanguardism and a proletarian dictatorship–that are long past their expiration date.

While temporary urbanism has experienced a resurgence of interest in Western Europe and North America, the phenomenon of urban flux has long been an everyday phenomenon and even a norm in many East Asian cities.  In the dense and populous cities of East Asia, temporary uses are often not a strategy for occupying vacant and abandoned in a specific economic context, but rather an everyday survival tactic in the face of scarce real estate.

Since the 1970s, in Cairo, the mainstream planning tried to cope with growth and overcrowding by strengthening spatial control. The governmental centralization of power and resources resulted in a substantial deficit of govemance. The spontaneous reaction to social polarization and segmentadon of the urban space is the informal occupation or re-appropriation of the urban space, generating new relationships between the city and citizen's behavior. By exploiting bibliographicaI sources and morphological analysis of the informal built fabric, the paper offers a cognitive support for alternative approaches to the insurgent spatiality generated by informality, showing how the contemporary morphology and customary use of shared spaces rely on traditional patterns once underlying the historicaI urban layout. By integrating citizens' participadon, recovering vemacular patterns can provide solutions to several issues: housing, waste management, water supply, employment and entertainment.

Collaborative planning is an often-debated approach in conjunction with attaining more sustainable cities. Many models were theorized to help implement a more collaborative planning process, such as when municipalities employ densification to grow the city sustainably. However, not all planning processes that are collaborative are also rational. Hence, this thesis is interested in comprehending Västerås Municipality’s planning process through performing a case study regarding DP-1858. To that end, this thesis will follow Innes & Booher (2018) Collaborative rationality theory and use its DIAD model as a lens to understand the positions of the stakeholders involved in the DP-1858 case. In the same vein, to probe for how the collaborative planning process regarding DP-1858 resonates with the DIAD model of Collaborative rationality.
Nevertheless, the reaction of the Hammarby-residents raises the need for framing to understand if a concept such as insurgent citizenship is sensible to norms. Thus, it is essential to know how insurgent citizenship manifests itself in a Swedish context. The method used to collect primary data was semi-structured interviews with elite respondents. Among other conclusions, this study found enough evidence suggesting that the planning process in conjunction with DP-1858, even though having embedded collaborative mechanisms, has critical shortcomings when contrasted with the collaborative rationality DIAD model. In the same vein, insurgent citizenship can occur even when laws were respected while norms were not.
Keywords: Collaborative rationality, Insurgent citizenship, Västerås municipality, Social sustainability, Public planning, Densification, Inclusion, Authentic dialogue, Interdependence, Exist-alternatives, Invented spaces.

Esta investigación se centra en especular sobre la naturaleza de lo público y reformular las condiciones fundacionales del espacio público. Así, se proponen los espacios autogestionados sin mediación institucional como alternativas a un espacio público tradicional. El trabajo se focaliza especialmente en los Centros Sociales, como experimentos espaciales con una cierta estabilidad temporal e infraestructura en la que reinventar el encuentro público y, de paso, la democracia. La apertura política que ensayan los Centros Sociales y espacios similares, posibilitan una nueva manera de acercarnos y producir el espacio público y esbozan el posible embrión de una sociedad postcapitalista. Para ello el trabajo comienza por resaltar la importancia de los conceptos en la confección de la orientación del conocimiento y, seguidamente, se analiza la genealogía conceptual del espacio público. Después se exploran las disidencias al y en el actual espacio público y se describen los casos de estudio que fundamentan la hipótesis de una posible apertura del espacio público. Finalmente se exponen unas reflexiones a modo de conclusión en la que se sintetiza todo lo desarrollado a nivel práctico y teórico.

從十四、十五號公園到華光社區，從樂生爭議到大埔事件，從溪洲部落到華光社區，在全球化的時代，我們追逐國際美好城市的榮銜，公園綠地、便捷交通、拔地而起的嶄新高樓，窄化為我們視野裡唯一的目標。為了這些競爭力，政府進行美其名為都市規劃，實際作為卻是Cities for Sale的手段：讓大資本進駐、清除邊緣族群的身影、抹除歷史紋理，彷彿眼不見為淨。在同時，從突尼西亞到埃及，從占領華爾街到占領土耳其的廣場，從北半球的香港到南半球巴西，城市造反事件，如野火燎原般席捲全球。這股從城市點燃的人民之火向我們指引了前方的道路。我們想問的是，人民的力量如何參與新公共空間的建立，又如何打破權力者與既得利益者的城市想望？在新一波的公民行動中，對城市空間的改造如何能夠帶給社會關係、政治過程和文化認同新的解答？

"從十四、十五號公園到華光社區，從樂生爭議到大埔事件，從溪洲部落到華光社區，在全球化的時代，我們追逐國際美好城市的榮銜，公園綠地、便捷交通、拔地而起的嶄新高樓，窄化為我們視野裡唯一的目標。為了這些競爭力，政府進行美其名為都市規劃，實際作為卻是Cities for Sale的手段：讓大資本進駐、清除邊緣族群的身影、抹除歷史紋理，彷彿眼不見為淨。

我們要問的是：這些名為公共的利益，是由誰決定的？一座城市的勝利除了經濟繁榮，還有其他選項嗎？人民的智慧如何可以幫城市靈魂注入多元的可能性？

《反造城市》試圖提出更兼容並蓄、思考更周延的非典型都市規劃術。抗爭往往只是部份案例裡居民初期的對應，更值得我們參考的是後來的具體行動和溝通技術；專業工作者與居民如何在制度與政治的縫隙中，保障社會正義的存在，成為其他社區可以仿效的先例。
"

Starting from the analysis of two case studies of temporary (re)appropriation and reconversion of urban unused areas for public purposes, such as the appropriations / (re) appropriation of the former Tempelhof airport area in Berlin and the ex-Snia industrial site, where is emerged a natural "pond", in Rome, the article aims to explore some questions such as: Is it possible to individuate a real alternative to the reduction/replacement of public space, largely due to budget problems that threaten the operations of local governments, enhancing the experience self-organization, self-management and participation emerged in these cities? How to interpret / translate into operative strategies and methods the urgent demand of participation invoked by an active citizenship that today is once again claiming the recognition of his "right to the city"? How to plan a public space that preserves its plural (character) and recognizes the unavoidable dimension of the conflict that develops in determining the public dimension of the space between the different elements of the plurality?

Starting from the analysis of two case studies of temporary (re)appropriation and reconversion of urban unused areas for public purposes, such as the appropriations / (re) appropriation of the former Tempelhof airport area in Berlin and the ex-Snia industrial site, where is emerged a natural "pond", in Rome, the article aims to explore some questions such as: Is it possible to individuate a real alternative to the reduction/replacement of public space, largely due to budget problems that threaten the operations of local governments, enhancing the experience self-organization, self-management and participation emerged in these cities? How to interpret / translate into operative strategies and methods the urgent demand of participation invoked by an active citizenship that today is once again claiming the recognition of his "right to the city"? How to plan a public space that preserves its plural (character) and recognizes the unavoidable dimension of the conflict that develops in determining the public dimension of the space between the different elements of the plurality?

Since June of 2019 and with no end in sight, the protest movement in Hong Kong has stretched our imagination about the possibilities of social and political movements. It has challenged what is conceivable and practical in terms of tactics and organizational structures of a protest movement. It has redefined the common narratives of the Hong King society. It has pushed the boundaries and limits of human capacity. It has overturned many accepted norms in terms of how cities and societies can function. These norms include those that have historically governed the functions and meanings of public space.

This article aims to understand the geographical specificity of the repoliticized public space in the Cabanyal-Canyamelar-a neighbourhood in Valencia (Spain). The goal of this endeavour is to discuss how the struggles over public space reveal and expose hidden, latent, and wider tensions that produce different configurations of active citizenship; those, in turn, pose the questions of the access to and the uses of public space, which are mostly determined by class and ethnicity. To this end, the peculiar topography and history of the Cabanyal-Canyamelar, the practices, politics, and discourses through which the 'publicity' of space is produced, the differences in the social, cultural, and power capital among two antithetically polarised groups of grassroots associations have been considered and compose the discursive and empirical ground on which the research was based on. This research shows how within the abstract definition of public space as a space open to everyone, structured conflicts among unequal and plural publics pose questions of who is entitled to claim and assert control over space.

Through a brief account of the evolution of city design discourses in the United States, this chapter examines the influence of the everyday and the bottom-up in American city design. It argues that bottom-up, everyday urbanism presents a recurring theme in the discourses of city design in America. Rather than esoteric diversions or frivolous interventions, bottom-up urbanism, as embodied in the non-pedigreed, spatial practices of ordinary citizens has arguably been a constant source of inspiration and innovation for theories and practices in American city design and should be recognized as having a central and defining role in its evolution.

Do-It-yourself (DIY) urbanism is a worldwide movement where individuals make changes to their streets or neighborhoods using creative interventions. DIY urbanism can range from a large-scale event like PARKing Day to organizing a few friends to transform a street median into a "guerrilla garden".

Join UAA's Center for Community Engagement and Learning and the Alaska Design Forum for a hands-on workshop focused on improving cities through DIY urbanism tactics.

Our workshop will begin with a talk by Dr. Jeff Hou, department chair of landscape architecture at the University of Washington. Dr. Hou has a multidisciplinary background in architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and public art. He is the editor of Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities (2010) and a co-author of Greening Cities, Growing Communities: Learning from Urban Community Gardens in Seattle (with Julie Johnson and Laura Lawson) (2009). He is a contributor to Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism (2008) and Companion to Urban Design (2011). His research on innovative practices of community participation and design education has also been published in Journal of Planning Education and Research, Landscape Journal, Journal of Architectural Education, and Open House International.

Following Dr. Hou's talk, participants will be split into groups and brainstorm transformative ideas using the Alaska Design Forum's contemporary cabin design challenge ("Cabin") as a case study.