Article Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Austerity urbanism and 2018, Vol. 36(5) 812–830 ! Olympic counter-legacies: The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: Gendering, defending and sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0263775817753844 expanding the urban journals.sagepub.com/home/epd commons in East London Tom Gillespie University of Manchester, UK Kate Hardy Leeds University Business School, UK Paul Watt Birkbeck, University of London, UK Abstract This article reflects on an occupation led by single mothers to contest the destruction of social housing in post-Olympics East London. In the process, it argues for a more gendered theorisation of the urban commons. Drawing on auto-ethnography, participant observation and qualitative interviews, the article argues three central points: First, that the occupation demonstrates the gendered nature of the urban commons and the leadership of women in defending them from enclosure; second that the defence of an existing urban commons enabled the creation of a new temporary commons characterised by the collectivisation of gendered socially reproductive activities; and third that this commoning has had a lasting impact on housing activism at the city scale and beyond. This impact is conceptualised as an ‘Olympic counter-legacy’ that is characterised by the forging of new relationships and affinities, the strengthening of networked activism and circulation of tactics between campaign groups. Keywords Housing crisis, urban commons, austerity, gender, social reproduction, occupation Corresponding author: Tom Gillespie, School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. Email:
[email protected] Gillespie et al. 813 Introduction In September 2014, a housing campaign headed by single mothers occupied two empty social housing units on the Carpenters Estate in Newham, East London.