Negotiating (re)appropriation practices amid crisis and austerity

ABSTRACT In Berlin, Rome and Barcelona, three cities affected on different levels by the most recent wave of neoliberalisation and the global crisis, a rekindled interest in the strategies for the (re)appropriation of urban space has emerged among urban activists, as a way of resisting and challenging competitive oriented policies and austerity urbanism. The following three cases are hereby analysed in detail: the Flughafen (airport) Tempelhof in Berlin; the former Snia factory in Rome; the Can Batlló old industrial complex in Barcelona. The practices of resistance that have played out over these contended vacant public spaces have emphasized the limits of the current urban ideology in proposing alternative ways of doing things. Embodying the growing mistrust towards policy-makers and the intentions of institutional actors, these contentious urban practices have aimed to (re)politicise urban policies, planning and theoretical debates but face complex issues of institutionalisation that can co-opt and neutralize radical claims.