Nitra, Slovakia’s sixth-largest city, is home to 78,353 residents (2020), including migrant workers from Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and other Balkan countries, as well as a significant Roma community. While the economic base of the city is predominantly industrial, its surrounding areas maintain a strong agricultural tradition. In recent decades, Nitra has faced demographic decline […]
Forgotten for almost a decade, the complex of buildings that once constituted the offices for the administration of statistics under the old socialist regime came to the center of the public discourse as a symbol of an across-the-board struggle for the right to the city of Berlin. Civic society actors and public stakeholders joined their efforts to put the unconditional selling of publicly-owned buildings to a halt, stressing the need to replace the monetary principle with the pursuing of the societal common good. The professionalization of bottom-up forms of activism claiming space for culture and diversity transformed the Haus der Statistik initiative into a large-scale project. This currently aims at regenerating the buildings to benefit local neighborhoods, refugees and cultural producers alike through the implementation of participatory practices of urban development.
This collective house in Via Dazzi, Firenze, on the slopes up to Rifredi, is a historical experience of a student squat that has been essential for various Florentine urban movement initiatives.