Resurgent Cities: Activating the Local

Resurgent Cities confronts the global crisis of neoliberal urban development where displacement, gentrification, and speculative markets threaten communities. This event, anchored by renowned geographer David Harvey, whose work has fueled decades of struggles for the Right to the City, brings together groundbreaking projects of grassroot resistance and radical imagination from across the globe.

Community organizers, neighborhood activists, city administrators, and preservation and housing advocates from Quito, Mexico City, and Cairo will share hyper-local tactics of defiance and repair from tenant-led battles for housing justice in Mexico City and grassroots cooperative infrastructures in Quito, to reimagining neighborhoods in Cairo via a powerful combination of cultural preservation and rebuilding of infrastructures. They prove that another urban future is not only necessary, but already in motion.

Together, these presentations amplify a transnational call: cities must be reclaimed and shaped by those who inhabit them. Join us as we chart collective strategies for self-determination in our cities—from policy to pavement—by forging cooperative economies, citizen-led governance, and social and cultural infrastructures rooted in justice.

This initiative is organized by the Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative and Urban Front.

Speakers include:

May al-Ibrashy, Cairo

Davarian Baldwin, Connecticut

Silvia Emanuelli, Mexico City

David Harvey, New York

Ola Hassanain, Amsterdam

Jeanne van Heeswijk, Rotterdam

Sandra Lopez, Quito

Annet van Otterloo, Rotterdam

Miguel Robles Duran, New York

Ana Rodríguez, Quito

Moderator:

Laura Raicovich, New York

Event info:

Tuesday May 27th

Location: De Hillevliet, Hillevliet 90, Rotterdam

Welcome 18:45

Start 19:00 - 22:00 end

About

Urban Front is a transnational collective of urbanists, strategists, and organizers. They fight alongside movements and institutions to reclaim cities from injustice—bridging frontline struggles with transformative policy. From housing to public health, they mobilize local knowledge to build just, livable cities rooted in solidarity, care, and collective power.

Resurgent Cities is a translocal initiative by Urban Front, linking five territories—Mexico City, New York, Quito, Cairo and Rotterdam—through site-specific collaborations to reclaim cities from speculation. By connecting civic actors, public institutions, and grassroots organizations, the project advances grounded approaches to housing, governance, and cultural infrastructure, placing community expertise and self-determination at the center of urban transformation.

The Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative founded in 2013, is a cooperative of engaged residents of Rotterdam-South. The Cooperative researches and tests new ways of living, how to learn and work together, and how to provide collective care in practice.

The Cooperative facilitates sustainable local production, knowledge exchange, cultural development and social entrepreneurship based on shared responsibility and participation. The Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative provides services such as catering, cleaning, recycling, textile production, gardening, consultancy and culture. All activities are run by residents or others rooted in the area. By being actively engaged and present in the area for many years, the Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative knows the power of local communities and small-scale open organizations, in which (informal) learning and working come together. The organizational form ensures that money circulates as much as possible within the district, thus benefiting the district itself. By joining forces, a greater and more capital-effective clout can be achieved.

This evening is funded by Gemeente Rotterdam, Creative Industries Fund NL, Cultuur en Campus Putselaan, the European Union and the Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative.