Late April some activists from tenant organizations, local urban
movements, militant research and international housing rights networks met
in Essenand Wuppertal (Germany) for internal and public meetings. There
we discussed reasons and possible tasks of international solidarity cooperation
in the field of housing and cities under the conditions of financialisation
and crisis, austerity regimes and urban transformation. Coming from Barcelona,
Berlin, Hamburg, Istanbul, London,Madrid, Padova, Paris, Pescara, the
Ruhr-District, Rotterdam, Santiago, Vienna we used this occasion to
exchange local experiences, map common questions and brainstorm some ideas
for coordinated activities in future.
It was a main success of the meetings that activists from different
cities and countries, generations, professions and political movements
started to get into intensive communication within an open atmosphere.
We started some rich debates on the necessary activist analysis of
real estate in modern capitalism and crisis, about political orientations
and instruments for the defense and the realization of the right to
housing in the countries and at European levels, about the questions
of organizing across the fragmentations at local and transnational
levels, and about the need for international solidarity with concrete
actions.
We are still working on the reports from the meetings and the
resulting proposals for common action. You can find the results or join
ou rcollaboration on reporting at https://cross_urban.piratenpad.de/results (registration with your Email
may be necessary for full participation)
In advance, see especially our ongoing mapping of possible / necessary
projects on ACTIVIST RESEARCH AND
KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE, which we soon will elaborate a little more: https://cross_urban.piratenpad.de/mapping-research-projects
With this letter, in advance, we want to inform you about some “urgent”
ideas towards COORDINATED ACTION and
JOINT ADVOCACY within the
coming 1-2 years. Because of the scarce time these ideas have not
really been discussed in depth. But we think it is important to spread the
idea now, so that you and others may be able to relate and react to that
in time. We hope that this impulse may lead to a real process of better
organizing among activists and organizations for the right to housing and
the city across Europe.
* To read more, click here.