The Production of Alternative Urban Spaces: An International Dialogue

Alternative urban spaces across civic, private, and public spheres emerge in response to the great challenges that urban actors are currently confronted with. Labour markets are changing rapidly, the availability of affordable housing is under intensifying pressure, and public spaces have become battlegrounds of urban politics.

This edited collection brings together contributors in order to spark an international dialogue about the production of alternative urban spaces through a threefold exploration of alternative spaces of work, dwelling, and public life. Seeking out and examining existing alternative urban spaces, the authors identify the elements that provide opportunities to create radically different futures for the world’s urban spaces. This volume is the culmination of an international search for alternative practices to dominant modes of capitalist urbanisation, bringing together interdisciplinary, empirically grounded chapters from hot spots in disparate cities around the world.

Offering a multidisciplinary perspective, The Production of Alternative Urban Spaces will be of great interest to academics working across the fields of urban sociology, human geography, anthropology, political science, and urban planning. It will also be indispensable to any postgraduate students engaged in urban and regional studies.

Jens Kaae Fisker is a postdoctoral researcher in the Danish Centre for Rural Research at the University of Southern Denmark. Working at the intersection of rural and urban studies, his research is rooted in political geography with a particular emphasis on the spatial dimensions of contentious politics and the material and political pursuit of post-capitalist futures.

Letizia Chiappini is a PhD candidate in urban studies at the University of Milano-Bicocca and in the Geographies of Globalization group at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests revolve around urban transformations and the generation of societal change under late capitalism. In particular, she attends to the relations between urban policy making and hyped phenomena such as the sharing economy and the maker movement.

Lee Pugalis is chair of urban studies at the Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney, and a visiting professor at Leeds Beckett University. He is an international urban scholar, whose research traverses local and regional economic development, urban regeneration, and strategic planning. He has a particular interest in metropolitan governance and urban entrepreneurship.

Antonella Bruzzese is Associate Professor at the Politecnico di Milano in the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies. Her research interests cover urban design and urban transformation strategies. She is particularly interested in the spatial implications of urban policies and their relationships with participatory processes, communication strategies, and temporary interventions.