6 Urban Activism and Co-Housing

6 Urban activism and co-housing David Scheller and Henrik Gutzon Larsen Introduction In this chapter we look at the interrelations and dynamics between urban activism and the politics of co-housing. Drawing on our empirical investigations of Hamburg and Barcelona, the chapter explores the specific socio- political context of the politics of co-housing in the interplay of bottom-up organizing and top-down governance. Famously, in Hamburg, the houses in Hafenstraße were squatted in the early 1980s. After nearly a decade of violent battles between the police and the squatters, the city of Hamburg began to negotiate with the squatters, offering them recognition and financial support if squats were re-organized as legalized co-housing projects (see also Chapter 3). Over the years, Hafenstraße has hosted homeless, youth, political groups and refugees, and thus become a symbolic reference point in the struggle for self-organized and affordable housing for many urban activists. Squats with no housing, such as Rote Flora, legalized squats such as Hafenstraße and the more recently occupied Gängeviertel have become important nodal points and symbols on different scales, from the surrounding neighbourhoods up to the transnational scale. Barcelona also has a history of squatting, for example the Can Masdeu squat in the Collserola hills, Can Vies in Sants neighbour- hood and Kasa de la Muntanya in the Gràcia district. But after the 2008 mortgage crisis hit Barcelona, with foreclosure and displacement affecting a large number of home owners, buildings all over the city have been squatted. Social centres have been established as spaces for mutual solidarity in specific neighbourhoods, such as El Banc Expropiat. Such spaces became hubs for political organizing by people hit by mortgage problems. At the same time, squatting relates both indirectly and directly to the development of the first co-housing projects in Barcelona (see also Chapter 4). In our study of the politics of co-housing, we pay particular attention to squatting and related questions of urban activism. This investigation is struc- tured according to three issues identified as particularly critical for squatting movements: relations to the state; whether to legalize or not; and intersections with broader movements. These three issues, which we use to structure our empirical investigations, are introduced in the first section. Following this, we Urban activism and co-housing 121 discuss relations between co-housing, squatting and urban activism more generally in Hamburg and Barcelona. Finally, drawing on insights from the two cities, we discuss what we term the ‘dialectics of the politics of co-housing’. This dynamic relation between grassroots organizing and top-down governance intersects in different political aspirations for co-housing – and eventually in what is understood as sustainable urban development. On the one hand, squatting and urban activism follow a political logic of empowerment, self-management, mutual self-help and solidarity. On the other hand, local city governments impose a political logic of urban governance, often with the aim of regulation, control, marketization and co-optation (Kuhn 2014). As we will see in our different cases in Hamburg and Barcelona, although they play out quite differently, the underlying contradictory political logics remain similar. Urban activism in the crisis of neoliberal urbanism: an analytical perspective Urban transformations have been shaped by neoliberalization processes during recent decades (Peck et al. 2009). At the same time, urban social movements have been described in their relation to the state as reactions to the several crises and the emergence of neoliberal urbanism (Mayer 2012b). As a result of this process, neoliberal urbanism – characterized by a growth- first approach, entrepreneurial forms of governance, privatization and polarization – has become the hegemonic modus operandi in many cities (Mayer 2016: 64–71). Nevertheless, the financial crashes of the 2000s have shaken this hegemony and neoliberal urbanism itself has fallen into crisis. This crisis has been challenged by a new convergence of counter- or alter-neoliberal and anti-austerity movements. As networks of urban social movements against the neoliberal city, different actors politicize and connect different protest fields, such as housing, climate change and refuge. Since the 2008 financial crisis these have included new actors and modes of organization in urban social movements that have evolved into deepening convergences of socio-political thematical backgrounds to address the crisis of neoliberalism (Mayer et al. 2016). These recent movements have been characterized as post-autonomous (Vollmer and Scheller 2018) to emphasize the relation between autonomous and institutional orientations to the state and to demands, and the involvement of different actors and actions. This can also be seen to imply democratizations of neoliberal post-democracy (Scheller 2019). In his conceptualization of hybrid- autonomous movements, Martínez emphasizes the collaboration of autonomous movements with new protesters who converge in opposition to the state: A hybrid autonomous initiative is one whose members do not accept the fate of remaining isolated alternatives to the dominant forces. Rather, they actively engage in creating strong or pragmatic bonds both with other autonomous islands, and, eventually, with state and even market 122 D. Scheller and H. G. Larsen institutions, all the while facing the contradictions and unintended con- sequences that may likely occur. (Martínez 2016: 259) The novelty of what we will term post-autonomous urban social movements is a combination of autonomous strategies, such as direct action and civil disobedience, and more mainstream demands for grassroots-oriented institutional reforms and programmes tied to specific needs of citizens, for example sustainable social housing. In this chapter we will focus in particular on post-autonomous practices as constituted by three dimensions (Table 6.1). First, post-autonomous practices involve a shift in relations to the state. This is rooted in the autonomous criticism of political representation and refusal of institutionalized hierarchical organizational structures and leaders. But in post-autonomous practices, movements engage in strategic collaborations with state actors to foster institutional change. Second, post-autonomous practices involve an expansion of horizontal organizing beyond the traditional emphasis on direct democracy (Sitrin and Azzellini 2014; Graeber 2013). Historically rooted in the anarchist movement, but revived and popularized by the alter-globalization movement, the expansion of horizontalism involves ele- ments of flat hierarchies (Sitrin 2006). This includes a post-identitarian mobiliza- tion of diverse actors (rather than a closed autonomous peer group), connection of different critical issues (e.g. in relation to racism, sexism and classism), self-reflection on the thematic boundaries of the movement (e.g. housing, precarization, refuge) and, related, the joining of forces in collaborative networks and actions that eventually may evolve from particularistic to generalized political demands (Marchart 2013; Scheller 2019). Third, traditional autonomous practices of direct action and non-violent civil disobedience remain political tools of post-autonomous movements, for example occupations, blockades, go-ins and take-overs of public events (Vollmer and Scheller 2018). But these tools are applied tactically by these new diverse actors, often to force political changes by the state. Moreover, a mixture of cultural and political action has been emphasized (Fraeser 2016; Mayer 2012a). These dimensions provide our analytical lens for discussing movement activism in the politics of co-housing. To this end, we apply a historically and locally contextualized approach in the following analyses of movement activism in relation to co-housing in Hamburg and Barcelona. Many forces are at play in the politics of co-housing in these cities, of course. But we have found it particularly interesting to focus on squatting and – to various degrees – wider forms of urban activism that connect to grassroot struggles for sustainable communities, neighbourhoods and cities. Hamburg: from autonomous squats to post-autonomous networks Over the last three decades, Hamburg has been shaped by neoliberal urbanism and social urban movements alike, and urban policies have significantly followed the toolkit of growth first, entrepreneurial governance, privatization Urban activism and co-housing 123 Table 6.1 Characteristics of post-autonomous practice Dimensions Post-autonomous practice Relation to the state Critique of representation Not in sheer opposition to the state Strategic relation to institutions Aiming for institutional change Horizontal organizing Direct democratic decision making Inclusive post-identitarian politics Connection of diverse subject positions Self-reflection of thematic boundaries From particularities to generalization of claims Direct actions Civil disobedience Self-determination and appropriation Occupations, blockades, go-ins, take-overs Mixture of cultural and political action and polarization (see also Chapter 3). The dialectics of these developments came to the fore with the 2008 crisis, which also hit Hamburg with rising housing insecurity and a public spending crisis. All over the globe significant cracks appeared in the global hegemony of neoliberal urbanism, and even

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