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8. June 2023 – 12:39

INURA’s Open Letter – June 2023

Open Letter to the Federal Council of Switzerland concerning Credit Suisse bank’s huge real estate stock being taken over by the largest Swiss bank UBS. The letter was written as a collective effort at 31st INURA Conference Retreat, June 1-4, in Salecina, Canton of Grisons, Switzerland. Read the Open Letter

13. February 2023 – 16:35

INURA-Bulletin Nr. 33 out now!

Reflections from the 30th Anniversary Conference of the International Network for Urban Research and Action, INURA, in Luxembourg

INURA Luxembourg continued an old tradition: INURA bulletin Nr. 33 out now !

6. July 2022 – 7:01

INURA 2022 – Successfully held

Reflecting on research and activism in times of uncertainty and crisis: The 30th Anniversary conference of INURA in Luxembourg | Brennpunkt Drëtt Weltcon

From June 25 to 28 the 30th INURA Conference was held in Luxembourg. More than 60 participants gathered to learn about Luxembourg and to celebrate 30 years and the 30th conference. Read this report Reflecting on research and activism in times of uncertainty and crisis: The 30th Anniversary conference of INURA in Luxembourg | Brennpunkt Drëtt Weltcon: Download 30th_INURA_conference_Luxembourg

9. June 2022 – 11:15

INURA Annual Report 2021 _ 30 years of International Research and Action

16. April 2022 – 10:02

30th INURA Conference

June 25 – 27, followed by the retreat June 28 – 29 , register here. Early bird registration until April 20.

 

2. March 2022 – 20:51

War in Ukraine – message from Kharkiv

Kharkiv, March 1, 2022
We have just been attacked by missiles. Most likely from aircraft. One dropped near to my mother’s house, where I am now. The explosion was so strong that the building (16 floors) shaked 😱 It was damn scary! Neighbor say the other one dropped near my house. I hope I’m not homeless yet.
Our city administration informs that the explosions occured all over the city, there are some people dead.
Please, everyone who sees it!
I DON’T WANT TO DIE!!!
Help me, help millions others like me, in fair cities of Ukraine! #StopWar !!! #RussiaInvadesUkraine
We are trying everything in our power. But that monster will just not stop until we all are dead
This message is from our colleague inura member urban sociologist  Maria Prystupa. Fassungslos. Wishing, hoping, everything best ever. Today, housing, museums, schools and the institute of Sociology were bombed in Kharkiv and – as Maria writes – fair cities of Ukraine.
14. June 2021 – 11:27

New Mayor in Zagreb (HR)

Our colleague and comrade Tomislav Tomašević, activist, scholar, inura member and organiser of the 2019 INURA conference in Zagreb, politician since 2017, was elected on May 30, 2021 new Mayor of the Croatian capital city of Zagreb (805’000 inhabitants) with an excellent result of more than 65%. Congratulations and good luck!

Možemo! (we can!) an alliance of movements and organisations won elections in several cities on several levels. A majority in almost all of the neighborhood councils that Možemo! competed in. Možemo! is also the first political option in 16 out of 17 city quarter councils of Zagreb.
Možemo! also won 23 out of 47 seats in City Parliament which allows to have a comfortable majority with a minor partner – Social democratic party who won 5 seats.
Možemo! won seats in city parliaments of Pula, Rijeka, Split, Dubrovnik, Pazin, Korčula, Osijek and others.
Congratulations to all Možemo! and INURA members!!!!
19. January 2021 – 12:17

Minsk: Urban Geographer Eugene Kalinouski sentenced 4 years prison

Jan 16, 2021, Eugene Kalinouski, 22y urban geographer, was sentenced FOUR (4!) years of prison because of beat (by) OMOH Belarus police officers. This video explains what has happened.

 

 

Eugene (also transcribed as Yauhen) joined the INURA conference in Warsaw 2018. Eugene now declared political prisoner by VIASNA

THIS IS HOW YOU CAN HELP
Hello everyone!
Firstly, I (Marta) want to say a huge THANK YOU for all your love and support!
Secondly, this is how you can help us from abroad:
1. Financial help
We need money on short-term and long-term needs:
Short-term needs:
-advocate services
-сompensation for so-called “victims”
-food, clothes, books for Eugene in prison
Long-term needs:
When Eugene will be released, sooner or later, he will need some money for a start. I’m not sure that he will continue to work for the start-up he used to work for – it’s the matter of how much time he will spend in prison. So some kind of a personal fond for him is a necessity, e.g he will definitely need such things as:
– psychological help and medical check-up
– new laptop and smartphone [his belongings were confiscated]
and etc
I sorted out two ways of payments from abroad:
1. PAYPAL
As I understand, all you need for payment through PAYPAL is my email. Here it is: martashpinder13@gmail.com
2. Card
Bank account in euros:
PL30 1020 1811 0000 0302 0374 4570
Bank account in dollars:
PL25 1020 1811 0000 0502 0374 4562
Name: Marta Shpindzer

(If you need Marta’s address contact us: contact@inura.org. Marta is Eugene’s partner. We are in contact with her. You can also contribute / donate through INURA)

If there are questions or recommendations, let us know!
2. International organisations
Currently I’m writing the detailed document in English about the trial process (almost done🙂) and I want to send it to the organisations like Amnesty International and etc. If you have any contacts with the organisations like that, please let me know!
3. Contacts
I hope that Eugene will be released sooner than 4 years and we really want to have some options for him when he will be free. Eugene is a great specialist in GIS, urban planning, space syntax (I have his CV, if you are interested)
If you think that you will be able to help us to find the job or the university program for him in the future, please leave me your contact!
That’s it for now. I’ll be grateful for any recommendations!

Marta

3. December 2020 – 12:39

Overcoming the enclosures of urban space with urban commoning

Auni Haapala, Researcher
Athanasios Votsis, Senior researcher
Weather and Climate Change Impact Research, Finnish Meteorological Institute

Originally posted on https://smartland.fi/overcoming-the-enclosures-of-urban-space-with-urban-commoning/ as part of the SmartLand project (Finnish Strategic Research Program)

In the search for more sustainable modes of urban development it is vital to pay attention to the dynamics that ‘enclose’ urban land, infrastructure and public spaces from local citizens, often for the purposes of profit-making and commercial activities. Enabling citizens-led efforts to reclaim commons should be high on the agenda of sustainable urban land use policymaking.

Urban commoning refers to the bottom-up local action increasingly taking place in urban spheres. Self-organized groups of people initiate and maintain community gardens, communal housing, peer-to-peer forums for exchanging help, time and goods, and the use of public places for various purposes from ‘restaurant day’ to demonstrations.

Often the practices of commoning originate as confrontation of the struggles of everyday living, such as unaffordable rents and reduced access to city spaces. In a sense, commoning addresses the different forms of enclosures that limit what can happen in the city by initiating alternative social practices to live and interact in cities (Bresnihan & Byrne 2014; Borch & Kornberger 2016). Bottom-up adaptive responses to urban challenges are increasingly viewed as an essential component of sustainable, resilient societies (UN 2018).

The historical roots of commons and enclosure travel back to the meadows in England; the large-scale privatization of communal pasture lands to private management and ownership. Today’s urban condition and globalized economy has created new forms of enclosures (e.g. Sassen 2014), but the questions over land, resources and their usage remain central.

Forms of enclosures are many. Expansion of Airbnb accommodation — although a great example of a commercialized sharing economy platform — have in many city districts around the globe altered housing markets in such ways that local residents have been forced to migrate whereas flows of tourists have stayed, benefitting the property owner (Hult & Bradley 2017).

Similarly, some effects of climate change mitigation and adaptation policy — e.g. energy efficiency standards for buildings or urban green gentrification — impose unevenly harsh constraints on the right of vulnerable dwellers to socially and economically sustainable public and private spaces (Blok 2020; Anguelovski et al. 2016).

Challenge for cities

The core aim of the Smartland project is to identify and develop suitable land use policies to address the increasing and entwined environmental, economic and social challenges emerging in and from the urban: the production of greenhouse gas emissions, rising housing prices and social segregation.

Approaching the city as a terrain of struggle over commons may make more visible the different forms of enclosure that are in play in the city and limit local people — often first the most disadvantaged groups — to sustain everyday life and wellbeing in their very own urban habitat.

For urban land-use policymakers and practitioners the challenge surrounding urban commons is twofold: to identify and aim to diminish potential future enclosures, and to find ways to enable and facilitate the emergence of urban commoning practices. This requires re-thinking the contemporary city-led land-use policy and planning to go beyond view of local residents as merely ‘participating’. It is acknowledging local citizens as active “makers” and “sharers” of their city (Hult & Bradley 2017).

References

Anquelovski, I., Shi, L., Chu, E., Gallagher, D., Goh, K., Lamb, Z., Reeve, K., Teicher, H. (2016). Equity impacts of urban land use planning for climate adaptation: Critical perspectives from the Global North and South. J. Plan. Educ. Res. 36(3), 333–348.

Blok, A. (2020). Urban green gentrification in an unequal world of climate change. Urban Studies. First published online January 21, 2020.

Borch, Christian, and Martin Kornberger, eds. (2016). Urban Commons: Rethinking the City. 1st ed. London: Routledge.

Bresnihan, P. & Byrne, M. (2014). Escape into the City: Everyday Practices of Commoning and the Production of Urban Space in Dublin. Antipode 47 (1), 1-19.

Hult, A. and Bradley, K. (2017) Planning for Sharing – Providing Infrastructure for Citizens to be Makers and Sharers. Planning Theory & Practice, 18:4, 597-615.

Sassen, S. (2014). Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

United Nations (2018). Sustainable, resilient and inclusive societies – the path towards transformation. Together 2030 written inputs to the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) 2018.

9. July 2019 – 10:05

INURA letter to the City Assembly of Zagreb – Gradskoj skupštini Grada Zagreba

English: INURA letter to the City Assembly of Zagreb

Mi smo skupina međunarodnih sveučilišnih profesora i stručnjaka u području urbanog planiranja i razvoja koja je ove godine posjetila Zagreb u sklopu svoje 29. godišnje konferencije. Posjedujemo stručnost i znanje po pitanju projekata uz obalne pojaseve (tzv. waterfronts) u gradovima poput Londona, Amsterdama, Hamburga, Barcelone, Bostona, New Yorka, Toronta, Vancouvera, Hong Konga, Beograda, Sydneya i Melbourna. Za vrijeme posjeta izrazito nas je zabrinula informacija da bi Zagreb mogao slijediti primjer gradova koji su privatizirali i posljedično uništili svoj obalni pojas kroz projekte tzv. urbane regeneracije slične projektu ‘Zagrebačkog Manhattana’.

Ako Gradska skupština odobri izmjene Generalnog urbanističkog plana koji bi omogućio realizaciju “Zagrebačkog Manhattana”, Zagreb će biti izložen velikoj opasnosti. Širom svijeta
vidjeli smo da predaja zemljišta u ruke međunarodnim investitorima, bez jasno postavljenih demokratskih procedura i uvjeta, obično rezultira izgradnjom građevina koje izvlače vrijednost iz grada, a ne doprinose potrebama tog grada. Takvi projekti uvijek se planiraju i grade na način da pogoduju interesima globalne, mobilne elite, a vode malo ili nimalo računa o potrebama lokalnog stanovništva. Programirani su na način da su odvojeni od grada i imaju vrlo usko i isključivo shvaćanje urbanog života i kulture. Također, imaju minimalnu ili nikakvu obvezu da služe javnom interesu i isključivo su orijentirani na stvaranje profita za investitore. Svjedočili smo mnogim takvim slučajevima u drugim svjetskim gradovima gdje je gradska uprava, nakon što bi žrtvovala vrijedno zemljište, imala malu ili nikakvu proračunsku korist jer su investitori skloni iskorištavanju poreznih olakšica i kreativnom računovodstvu.

Ne postoje istraživanja koja dokazuju da su ovakvi projekti u drugim gradovima rezultirali pozitivnom ekonomskom ili društvenom promjenom. Ne moramo se zagledati daleko: samo 400 km niz istu rijeku možemo vidjeti da sličan projekt u Beogradu nije donio ekonomski razvoj gradu, nije privukao kvalitetne poslove i već se pokazao štetnim za zdravlje i životni standard stanovnika.

Pogotovo zabrinjavajućim u slučaju izmjena Generalnog urbanističkog plana Grada Zagreba smatramo potpuno nepoštivanje mišljenja građana i mnogih stručnih udruženja koji su izrazili svoje protivljenje kršenju formalnih i demokratskih procedura, poput potrebe da se o izmjenama organizira javna rasprava. Također je alarmantna činjenica da se ‘Zagrebački Manhattan’ dogovara iza zatvorenih vrata bez javnosti dostupnih informacija o detaljima projekta ili potpisanom memorandumu o razumijevanju s investitorom te s ciničnim rokom od samo 18 dana za javni poziv investitorima za iskazivanje interesa u realizaciji projekta na površini od preko milijun kvadratnih metara.

Unatoč tome što se razvoj ovog područja pažljivo planirao preko 60 godina, uključujući i recentnu studiju Arhitektonskog fakulteta o Zagrebačkom velesajmu koju je naručio Grad Zagreb, najvažnije odluke o budućnosti ovog područja sada se donose nevjerojatno ishitreno, pri čemu je jedino sigurno da se radi o prijenosu velike količine javnog vlasništva u privatne ruke.

S druge strane, mnogi bi vam gradovi zavidjeli na onome što imate – jedinstveni pojas javne zelene površine uz riječnu obalu koji prolazi središtem grada. Ovakva vrijedna imovina postajat će sve dragocjenija kako se gradovi budu morali sve više prilagođavati rastućim rizicima koje donose klimatske promjene. Zeleni pojas oko rijeke Save već predstavlja zaštitnu mjeru protiv urbanih toplinskih otoka jer stabla i ostala vegetacija hlade grad i doprinose bioraznolikosti. Također, kao javne zelene površine, ova područja doprinose fizičkom i mentalnom zdravlju svih građana koji ih koriste. Njihova iskoristivost u smislu prostora za rekreaciju, biološke i okolišne vrijednosti može se dodatno unaprijediti, no jedino ako grad zadrži vlasništvo i kontrolu nad njima.

Istovremeno, impresionirani smo bogatstvom institucija i civilnog društva koje se razvilo u Zagrebu i koje je zaista neobično i distinktivno obilježje grada, te sukladno tome apeliramo na zastupnike Gradske skupštine da uzmu u obzir postojeću građansku participaciju i prigovore koje su građani iznijeli – naročito više od 14 000 potpisa koji su dosad prikupljeni protiv uništavanja sportsko-rekreacijske zone i realizacije ovog projekta.

Ovim pismom mi, istraživači, stručnjaci i profesori sa sveučilišta u Londonu, Torontu, Amsterdamu, Berlinu, Parizu, Ateni, Zurichu, Melbourneu i mnogim drugim gradovima, apeliramo na zastupnike da odbace predložene izmjene Generalnog urbanističkog plana kojima se omogućuje realizacija projekta ‘Zagrebačkog Manhattana’. Ukoliko dozvolite da se to dogodi, vi ćete kao demokratski izabrani predstavnici svih građana Zagreba izgubiti mogućnost da planirate i razvijate svoj grad. Time ćete grad predati u ruke globalnim investitorima koji ne odgovaraju nikakvom institutu demokracije.

Apeliramo da dopustite građanima, a time i sebi, raspravu o tome na koji način ovaj javni prostor može i dalje služiti cijelom gradu, i da to napravite prije nego se obvežete bilo kakvim investitorima.

Nedjelja, 7. srpnja 2019., Zagreb
INURA Hardturmstr. 261, CH-8005 Zürich, Switzerland,
contact@inura.org

 

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