We Own the City

• On pop-up urbanism, emergent urbanism, guerrilla urbanism, temporary urbanism, DIY urbanism and emancipatory practices
• With examples from Amsterdam, Hong Kong, New York, Moscow and Taipei

Bottom-up initiatives are emerging in urban environments, while institutions, governmental offices and developers sometimes find themselves inadequately organized to enable this trend. In We Own The City the editors acknowledge that this international trend deserves more analysis. Through five cases in five cities, this book analyses different dynamics and intensities of citizens’ driven urban redevelopment process in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Moscow, New York and Taipei. The quest started by wondering how traditional ‘top-down’ cities (from different ideologies) are adapting and approaching the civil society with the aim to provide new recommendations based on the need to carefully construct our cities through interactive processes that respond to community needs and people’s aspirations. This book is made by professionals for professionals, but also for experts and students that are involved in the act of creating new urban constellations. We Own The City promotes an era of new urban ownership.

Contributors: Wei-Hsiu Chang, Peter Cookson Smith, Shu-Mei Huang, Tris Kee, Bob Knoester, Jia-He Lin, Ying-Tzu Lin, Shriya Malhotra, Mark Minkjan, Beatriz Pineda Revilla, Chris Webster, Wang Weijen