Building urban power from housing crisis

Abstract

Though urban space is increasingly shaped by private finance, the tactics and breadth of housing movements are also integral to the shape of our cities. This struggle for a democratic physical and social environment is acute in London, where mobilisation does not reflect the widespread animosity and structural tensions that exist between inhabitants and their landlords. The localised nature of the housing movement gives it endurance as people fight in their direct self-interest. But the connective structures between local groups, whether on a city-wide or continental scale, also need to amplify struggles, to make a coalition more than the sum of its parts. The creation of fluid democratic strategy in these scenarios has never been resolved by political parties, trade unions, NGOs, or most social movements. With popular discontent driving opposition parties leftwards, grassroots campaigns need the strength that both prevents us folding into parliamentarianism, and that requires leftist politicians to seek strategic alliances. This uncomfortable relation should be articulated as an exercising of community power more than a bestowal of trust. For many campaigners who have limited experience of either consistent grassroots power or its relation to political power, making one serve the other is a new challenge.