Crystallising actual neighbourhood development via public space, ‘non-adversarial’ political subjectivity and extra-institutional politics

Abstract

In this chapter, I argue that formal processes of neighbourhood development usually fall short in promoting actual development, due to limitations to substantially incorporate residents’ input to make decisions and, what’s more, take action. In view of such institutional incapacity, I explore how ‘traditional’ politics of neighbourhood development may be superseded through collective political activities that are neither institutionalized nor provided by government agencies (that is, ‘extra-institutional’). In so doing, I underscore the pivotal function of public space in the process whereby citizens recognize themselves as political subjects able to intervene and perform beyond given political identities, roles and arenas. As a result, people, by way of their reshaped political subjectivity, may well propel significant development in their living places.