The Urban as a Concrete Utopia? Co-production and Local Governance in Distinct Urban Geographies: Transnational Learning from Chile and Germany

Abstract

Reflecting on empirical material from Chile and Germany, this chapter combines practical insights for an analysis of co-productive urban projects with the aim to generate insights for the ‘right to the city’, a concept that has travelled from Europe to North and later Latin America . We argue not only for different avenues to understand the right to the city, but also emphasise that there is a need to reflect on how the concept has been reformulated by different local interactions. Emphasis is placed on how civil society actors are locally connected to their cities—in our case mainly Berlin and Santiago , while at the same time engaged in networks of collaboration and knowledge exchange via ‘encounters’. In this chapter, reflections on encounters allow shedding light on emerging struggles but also negotiation practices between different actors in the co-production processes. Co-productive practices might certainly entail a risk of underestimating broader structural changes in urban development —which, at times, resonate with neoliberal individualism. Yet, our findings also reveal that such practices bring to light important elements of the right to the city, especially claims for being within the urban core and democratic engagement in city-building. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s terminology we, hence, argue that these practices reflect the right to centrality and the right to participation; they represent encounters that emerge in constant struggle, contestation and negotiation processes. Understood like this, the urban becomes a concrete utopia—a possibility, a promise to be constantly produced and reproduced.

This chapter is based on the authors’ research projects: ‘Ansätze von koproduzierter Stadtentwicklung und ihr Einfluss auf die Entwicklung von sozial-inklusiven Stadträumen—ein internationaler Vergleich von Theorie und Praxis’, preperation studies for the DFG Reseach Project, 2018–2021, TU-Berlin; ‘Spatial capital, social complexity of the rent gap formation, and social stratification: a comparative analysis of gentrification in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City, 2005–2017’ (Fondecyt Chile, Project #1151287); and the Centre of Conflict and Social Cohesion Studies (Conicyt Fondap #15130009). It also draws on findings from consultancies by uLab for several urban projects in Berlin (Initiative RAW. Kulturensemble; Ostkreuz Initiativen Netzwerk). Data was obtained through discourse analysis and comparative case studies in different German cities (e.g. Berlin, Leipzig and Hamburg) and Santiago de Chile (Estación Central comuna), involving municipalities, planners, various actors in civil society related to local urban development, and through consultation and monitoring of collaborative projects within local communities and the private sector. In both cases, the work concentrated on the processes of adaptation and transformation, which is accompanied by in-depth research on development approaches that initiate new forms of collaboration, local economies and local learning processes.