The Redefinition and Co-Production of Public Services by Urban Movements. The Can Batlló Social Innovation in Barcelona

Abstract

A wealth of social innovations sprang up in recent years in Southern Europe in bosom of urban movements to cover citizens´ needs from below. Reacting to commodification of neoliberal city and increasing dismantling of welfare state, they provide services and interrelate in var-ious forms with authorities. Drawing on outstanding social innovation case of Can Batllo (CB) in city of Barcelona, a 14-ha former factory including more than 30 different projects and involving more than 350 activists, this paper analyses how social movements are redefining the in articulation between institutionalization, service co-production, disruptive repertoires of action, and autonomy. It argues that this multiplicity of strategies and strength of movement helped not only to avoid turning CB social innovation into a neoliberal rollout strategy, but even to act as a safety cordon against austerity politics. Affecting boundaries of legal-institutional framework, and rejecting conflation of public goods with state goods, CB organizes services provision and planning in a more democratic form, pressuring government to deliver promised services, while reclaim-ing them as commons that activists contribute building and designing. CB´s movement dimension and rootedness in neighbourhood ensure prioritisation of and neighbourhood concerns over short-term, particularistic, and organizational survival interests.