This year the discussant will focus on a comparative analysis of housing movements in Berlin, Vancouver, and New York City.
In recent years, both cities have been rocked by rising rents, increased displacement, and gentrification. Much of these changes have been linked to increased speculation of housing as well as weakening of tenant protections.
In response, activists and left policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic have developed creative movements that seek to protect existing affordable housing, while attempting to expand housing stocks. This is has taken the form of expanding rent control laws, the municipalization of housing stock, and challenging technological firms’ takeover of city owned land. These strategies have been augmented by a vibrant, robust movements that have amplified the voices of tenants against finance capital, while connecting the dots between housing, healthcare, and immigration to secure a vital sense of what is the right to the city.
This roundtable will allow for a deepening of shared analysis through case studies, field trips, and mapping exercises.
(For more information please contact Kazembe Balagun at kazembe.balagun [at] rosalux.org)
Participants
Christian Petermann, Urban Strategy Department (Office of Katrin Lompscher)
Helge Peters, Oxford University
Derrick O’ Keefe, tenant organizer/Left Municipal movements
Ryan Alcoff, Rochester Tenants Union/Right to the City Coalition
Dominic Moulden, One DC/Right to the City Coalition
Oksana Mironava, Community Service Society of New York
Cea Weaver, Democratic Socialists of America/Housing 4 All
Susanne Blakely, Right to Counsel NYC
Akilah Browne, New Economy Project
Hillary Caldwell, City University of New York
Kazembe Balagun Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office
Andreas Gunther, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office