{"id":61,"date":"2013-09-27T16:33:44","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T16:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cohstra.wwwth1.a2hosting.com\/?page_id=61"},"modified":"2025-02-02T17:24:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T22:24:34","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/","title":{"rendered":"COHABITATION STRATEGIES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Book available in fall 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An urgent, praxis-oriented guide to urban co-production, demonstrating how collective action can challenge capitalist urbanization and reclaim spaces through grassroots coalitions, critical theory, transdisciplinary cooperation, and creative spatial interventions across continents.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Book launch and presentations’ dates coming soon!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Cohabitation Strategies: Visions and Actions for the Co-production of Social Space<\/em> introduces a radical form of urban praxis, showing how collective support systems, through co-production, can defy capitalist urbanization and reclaim communal spaces. Authored by Emiliano Gandolfi, Gabriela Rend\u00f3n, and Miguel Robles-Dur\u00e1n of Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra)\u2014a collective shaped by the crises of our times, from the 2008 financial meltdown to the COVID-19 pandemic\u2014it offers a compelling exploration of how critical theory, creative interventions, transdisciplinary cooperation, and grassroots alliances can co-produce social spaces rooted in justice and solidarity. Readers are invited to engage with a dynamic collection of interconnected projects that exemplify the merging between collective action and anti-capitalist critique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing from Marxist, indigenous, and feminist, perspectives, the book challenges the ruthless commodification of land, housing, and public resources. It tells stories of resistance and resilience, demonstrating how collective efforts and artistic interventions can transform abandoned spaces into vibrant spaces of possibility. From cooperative housing trusts in New York City to a ludic initiative assembling useful knowledge in Philadelphia, and from the design of an urban union in Rotterdam to facilitating socially engaged art in Bordeaux, CohStra\u2019s distinctive approach mobilized communities across continents, proving that an anti-capitalist shift is not only possible but already underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a wealth of in-depth case projects, this book equips readers with actionable strategies to dismantle the injustices embedded in urban systems. It calls on activists, urban practitioners, scholars, and policymakers to join a collective struggle for spatial justice, reminding us that cities are not mere playgrounds for capital, but contested spaces brimming with radical potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe lessons learned through CohStra\u2019s projects\u2014both successes and challenges\u2014illustrate that the fight for socio-spatial justice demands class consciousness, constant reflection and reinvention. These experiences have shown that collective imagination and determination can transform even the most entrenched systems of oppression. But this requires a shift in how we approach urban practice, rejecting the commodification and fragmentation of space and knowledge in favor of cooperation, solidarity, and an unwavering commitment to justice.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013Emiliano Gandolfi, Gabriela Rend\u00f3n, Miguel Robles-Dur\u00e1n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cUrbanization is never neutral; it is a dynamic outcome of power-driven negotiations, alliances, and conflicts. Urban practitioners who limit themselves to formal aesthetics or isolated interventions will remain oblivious to the underlying conditions that shape design possibilities. To work effectively in the urban arena demands comprehending the social hierarchies embedded in property regimes, the fiscal dependencies that tie municipal governments to private investors, and the manner in which global financial cycles dictate the rise and fall of entire districts. Without such an understanding, interventions can merely decorate, rather than genuinely alter, the urban condition.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013Miguel Robles-Dur\u00e1n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe world we live in is not inevitable\u2014it is designed. And because it is <\/em>0designed, it can be redesigned. The cities we inhabit are not static\u2014they are contested spaces, shaped by the forces of capital but also by the power of collective resistance, imagination, and decisive action. The question is no longer whether change is possible; it is whether we will rise to the challenge with the vision to imagine just futures, the courage to act decisively, and the solidarity to dismantle the capitalist structures that perpetuate inequality, oppression and environmental destruction.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013Emiliano Gandolfi, Gabriela Rend\u00f3n, Miguel Robles-Duran<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThis book is essential for reclaiming our cities\u2014so they once again embody freedom and life, not -speculation and inequality. Against the backdrop of neoliberal urbanism, we must (re)build democratic cities where the rights of their inhabitants take precedence over profit. Cities that resist, cities that inspire. Cities of hope.\u201d<\/em> \u2013Ada Colau, Politician, Activist, and Former Mayor of Barcelona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cCities need to be radically democratized, and this book helps us think through how to do it. Drawing on the authors\u2019 experiences working in European and North American cities as well as insights drawn from Marxist, feminist and indigenous urban perspectives, \u201cCohabitation Strategies\u201d is a tool for praxis. The urban future will be co-produced, and \u201cCohabitation Strategies\u201d  is a crucial guidebook.\u201d<\/em> \u2013David Madden, Associate Professor at the London School of Economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BOOK CONTRIBUTORS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Authors:<\/strong> Emiliano Gandolfi, Gabriela Rend\u00f3n, and Miguel Robles-Dur\u00e1n. Foreword:<\/strong> David Harvey.
Contributor:<\/strong> Lucia Babina. Copyeditor:<\/strong> Elizabeth Chin. Book Design:<\/strong> Robin Coenen, Visual Intelligence<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Book available in fall 2025. An urgent, praxis-oriented guide to urban co-production, demonstrating how collective action can challenge capitalist urbanization and reclaim spaces through grassroots coalitions, critical theory, transdisciplinary cooperation, and creative spatial interventions across continents. Book launch and presentations’ dates coming soon! Cohabitation Strategies: Visions and Actions for the Co-production of Social Space introduces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-61","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":208,"href":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1597,"href":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61\/revisions\/1597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cohstra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}