Cohabitation Strategies

Cohabitation Strategies: Challenging Neoliberal Urbanization Between Crisis presents 12 years of urban theories, projects, and interventions developed by Cohabitation Strategies, a Rotterdam- and New York City-based non-profit cooperative committed to radical socio-spatial research, design, and development.

Centering on the development of new action-research methodologies, neighbourhood-based initiatives, and the facilitation of community-driven transformative interventions, the book offers critical insights and progressive visions on the dramatic impact that neoliberal spatial-restructuring had in communities of colour and low-income neighbourhoods in the Netherlands, Italy, France, Canada, and the United States.

The book proposes new transdisciplinary methodologies, practices, tools, and strategies to challenge for-profit-driven urban development and the advancement of the right to the city.

Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra) is an international non-profit organisation for socio-spatial research, design, and development which focuses on conditions of urban decline, inequality, and segregation within the contemporary city. CohStra brings transdiciplinary methodologies to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the agents affecting urban areas and provides cross-disciplinary working frameworks to communities to generate sustainable transformations. It seeks to amplify the interest of individuals and communities through neighbourhood-based initiatives and local programs connecting citizens with public officials, government agencies, and public institutions. CohStra was founded in 2008 by Lucia Babina, Emiliano Gandolfi, Gabriela Rendón, and Miguel Robles-Durán in the City of Rotterdam. Since then, this non-profit has been engaged in urban and community projects of diverse scales and complexities commissioned by art, cultural, and academic institutions, as well as municipalities and government agencies in diverse countries, including the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, Venezuela, Ecuador, Canada, and the United States.
 
Lucia Babina is a cultural activist focused on research and reactivation of sustainable ways of cohabitation and coexistence. Her work aims to reflect on the current global unevenness and injustice through collective and artistic processes. She is the co-founder of Cohabitation Strategies and iStrike.

Emiliano Gandolfi is an urbanist and independent curator with a specific interest in communal agency and cultural strategies. He is co-founder of Cohabitation Strategies and Urban Front. Formerly, Gandolfi was the director of the Curry Stone Design Prize.

Gabriela Rendón is an urbanist committed to social and spatial justice. She is an assistant professor of urban planning and community development at Parsons School of Design, The New School, in New York City. Rendón is co-founder of Cohabitation Strategies and Urban Front.

Miguel Robles-Durán is a unitary urbanist focused on the design and analysis of complex urban systems, urban political-ecology and anti-capitalist strategy. He is an associate professor of urbanism at Parsons School of Design, The New School, in New York City. Robles-Durán is co-founder of Cohabitation Strategies and Urban Front.

David Harvey (foreword) is a distinguished professor of geography and anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His work in the fields of anthropology, geography, Marxists studies, political-economy, urban studies, and cultural studies have made him one of the most influential thinkers alive. He is co-founder of Urban Front.

Jeanne van Heeswijk (epilogue) is Dutch visual artist and curator who facilitates the creation of dynamic and diversified public spaces in order to “radicalise the local.” Her work focuses on social practice art and the relationship between space, geography, and urban renewal. She is co-founder of Urban Front.

Ruedi Baur (book designer) is graphic designer who looks at the relationships between architecture, urbanism, and political territory. He is professor of design at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the University of Strasbourg. He is co-founder of Institute of Research in Design Civic City, 10-Milliards-Humains and Urban Front.