Summary Inclusive cities
Power ER, Williams MJ. Cities of care: A platform for urban
geographical care research.
Power and Williams propose a research agenda to broaden urban care
conceptualizations in geography, moving beyond traditional focuses on
interpersonal welfare to encompass universal needs for human and non-
human flourishing.
The authors identify three existing areas: spaces of care (e.g., how urban
settings enable caring relations), materialities of care (e.g., objects like
prams or cars that facilitate care practices), and subjects of care (e.g., who
provides or receives care in cities).
They outline three platforms for advancing urban care theory: expanding
care to all beings across urban scales (everyday city life), and locating it in
governance, planning, markets, and more-than-human elements. The work
envisions care as a foundation for just, utopian cities, challenging
geographers to explore its transformative urban potential.
Botha, L., Druta, O., & van Wesemael, P. (2025). Prefiguring the
Caring City: Everyday Practices and Postcapitalist Possibility in
Neighborhood Living Rooms.
Botha, Druta, and van Wesemael integrate an ethic of care with
prefigurative politics to frame everyday care practices in Dutch
neighborhood living rooms (buurthuiskamers) as glimpses of postcapitalist
urban life. These self-organized spaces sustain communities amid
neoliberal care deficits while envisioning alternative relational and living
modes.
The spaces operate dually: fostering present-day care cultures that
support individuals in uncaring cities, and demonstrating feasible ways of
caring, relating, and living beyond capitalism. Ethnographic fieldwork and
interviews in Rotterdam and Eindhoven reveal how care transforms
participants' daily experiences, expands future possibilities, and stems
from desires for systemic change.
Viewed through prefiguration, these practices offer concrete models for
care-centered cities, highlighting necessary socio-spatial infrastructures—
like accessible venues and shared resources—for scaling care capacities.
The study critiques neoliberal urbanism and advocates linking survival-
oriented care with radical urban futures.
Lehtonen, P., & Jupp, E. (2025). Care Infrastructures in
Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods at Times of Welfare State
Change: Finland and UK Compared.
, Lehtonen and Jupp examine urban care cultures in disadvantaged
neighborhoods amid welfare state restructuring in Finland and the UK,
framing care as everyday political practices shaped by economic shifts and
austerity. Drawing on ethnographic research, they highlight
"infrastructures of care"—formal and informal systems supporting
communities—as responses to fractured welfare landscapes.
In the UK, community-led sharing of food, clothing, and items emerges
through affective urban interactions, filling gaps left by state withdrawal.
In Finland, neighborhood responses to urban development in socio-
economically challenged suburbs prioritize vitality and inclusion amid
decentralization and efficiency drives.
These bottom-up practices reveal care's potential for solidarity-based
alternatives, urging urban planning to integrate relational infrastructures
for equitable cities. The comparative analysis underscores how welfare
changes polarize care access, emphasizing local initiatives' role in just
urban futures.
Griffith, E. J., Jepma, M. & Savini, F. (2024). Beyond collective
property: a typology of collaborative housing in Europe
Griffith, Jepma, and Savini develop a typology of collaborative housing in
Europe, analyzing 100 cases from Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Austria, the
Netherlands, and Germany to move beyond simplistic views focused solely
on collective property. They define collaborative housing by three criteria:
complex ownership blending public, common, and private tenure;
collective self-management by dwellers; and designs promoting shared
spaces.
The framework spans three key areas: architecture (e.g., shared facilities
varying by scale), institutional setup (legal status relative to regulations
and internal tenure forms like dispersed or concentrated rights), and
organization (values driving collectives, such as eco-communitarian,
intergenerational, identity-based, affordability, or service-oriented).
Applied to Rome's 4Stelle Hotel, the typology reveals diverse combinations
enabling comparison across contexts, challenging reductive definitions and
supporting future research on housing alternatives to financialization and
speculation.
Card, K. (2020). Contradictions of housing commons: Between
middle-class and anarchist models in Berlin.
Card examines two contrasting models of housing commons in Berlin amid
housing shortages: middle-class projects like those in the Mietshäuser
Syndikat, which use legal cooperatives for stable, affordable housing, and
Power ER, Williams MJ. Cities of care: A platform for urban
geographical care research.
Power and Williams propose a research agenda to broaden urban care
conceptualizations in geography, moving beyond traditional focuses on
interpersonal welfare to encompass universal needs for human and non-
human flourishing.
The authors identify three existing areas: spaces of care (e.g., how urban
settings enable caring relations), materialities of care (e.g., objects like
prams or cars that facilitate care practices), and subjects of care (e.g., who
provides or receives care in cities).
They outline three platforms for advancing urban care theory: expanding
care to all beings across urban scales (everyday city life), and locating it in
governance, planning, markets, and more-than-human elements. The work
envisions care as a foundation for just, utopian cities, challenging
geographers to explore its transformative urban potential.
Botha, L., Druta, O., & van Wesemael, P. (2025). Prefiguring the
Caring City: Everyday Practices and Postcapitalist Possibility in
Neighborhood Living Rooms.
Botha, Druta, and van Wesemael integrate an ethic of care with
prefigurative politics to frame everyday care practices in Dutch
neighborhood living rooms (buurthuiskamers) as glimpses of postcapitalist
urban life. These self-organized spaces sustain communities amid
neoliberal care deficits while envisioning alternative relational and living
modes.
The spaces operate dually: fostering present-day care cultures that
support individuals in uncaring cities, and demonstrating feasible ways of
caring, relating, and living beyond capitalism. Ethnographic fieldwork and
interviews in Rotterdam and Eindhoven reveal how care transforms
participants' daily experiences, expands future possibilities, and stems
from desires for systemic change.
Viewed through prefiguration, these practices offer concrete models for
care-centered cities, highlighting necessary socio-spatial infrastructures—
like accessible venues and shared resources—for scaling care capacities.
The study critiques neoliberal urbanism and advocates linking survival-
oriented care with radical urban futures.
Lehtonen, P., & Jupp, E. (2025). Care Infrastructures in
Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods at Times of Welfare State
Change: Finland and UK Compared.
, Lehtonen and Jupp examine urban care cultures in disadvantaged
neighborhoods amid welfare state restructuring in Finland and the UK,
framing care as everyday political practices shaped by economic shifts and
austerity. Drawing on ethnographic research, they highlight
"infrastructures of care"—formal and informal systems supporting
communities—as responses to fractured welfare landscapes.
In the UK, community-led sharing of food, clothing, and items emerges
through affective urban interactions, filling gaps left by state withdrawal.
In Finland, neighborhood responses to urban development in socio-
economically challenged suburbs prioritize vitality and inclusion amid
decentralization and efficiency drives.
These bottom-up practices reveal care's potential for solidarity-based
alternatives, urging urban planning to integrate relational infrastructures
for equitable cities. The comparative analysis underscores how welfare
changes polarize care access, emphasizing local initiatives' role in just
urban futures.
Griffith, E. J., Jepma, M. & Savini, F. (2024). Beyond collective
property: a typology of collaborative housing in Europe
Griffith, Jepma, and Savini develop a typology of collaborative housing in
Europe, analyzing 100 cases from Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Austria, the
Netherlands, and Germany to move beyond simplistic views focused solely
on collective property. They define collaborative housing by three criteria:
complex ownership blending public, common, and private tenure;
collective self-management by dwellers; and designs promoting shared
spaces.
The framework spans three key areas: architecture (e.g., shared facilities
varying by scale), institutional setup (legal status relative to regulations
and internal tenure forms like dispersed or concentrated rights), and
organization (values driving collectives, such as eco-communitarian,
intergenerational, identity-based, affordability, or service-oriented).
Applied to Rome's 4Stelle Hotel, the typology reveals diverse combinations
enabling comparison across contexts, challenging reductive definitions and
supporting future research on housing alternatives to financialization and
speculation.
Card, K. (2020). Contradictions of housing commons: Between
middle-class and anarchist models in Berlin.
Card examines two contrasting models of housing commons in Berlin amid
housing shortages: middle-class projects like those in the Mietshäuser
Syndikat, which use legal cooperatives for stable, affordable housing, and
