Urban Social Movements and Austerity Politics

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, austerity measures have reshaped urban governance across the world. Public spending cuts, privatisation of public assets and the retrenchment of welfare provision have provoked a spectrum of grassroots responses. Urban social movements have mobilised around housing rights, public space, anti-eviction campaigns and community solidarity networks to contest the erosion of collective goods. Drawing on the idea of the “right to the city,” activists employ tactics ranging from occupations, protest encampments and participatory neighbourhood assemblies to cultural events that reassert communal control over urban resources. These movements bridge social justice, spatial justice and environmental concerns, framing austerity as a driver of inequality, exclusion and the commodification of everyday life.

Research in this field emphasises the diversity of local contexts. In southern Europe, solidarity centres in Greece have provided mutual aid in response to state retrenchment, while in Latin America, housing movements have forged alliances between low-income communities and progressive municipal authorities. Parallel studies examine how the intangible dynamics of public life—informal exchanges, cultural practices and everyday appropriations of space—underpin sustained urban dissent. By highlighting the interconnections between policy, space and collective action, the field advances our understanding of how cities become crucibles for contesting neoliberal urbanism and reimagining alternatives.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Urban Social Movements and Austerity Politics publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in urban social movements and austerity politics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Austerity politics: A set of policy interventions involving public spending cuts and privatisation aimed at reducing government deficits.

Urban social movement: A collective, organised effort within cities to contest or transform social, economic and spatial conditions.

Right to the city: A concept asserting inhabitants’ entitlement to shape urban space, governance and resource distribution democratically.

Counter-space: An alternative or reclaimed urban environment created by social movements to challenge dominant spatial regimes.

Neoliberalism: An economic and political paradigm favouring market deregulation, privatisation and reduced state intervention.

References

1. Public life in flux: A journey from the 1940s to the present. Cogent Social Sciences (2023).
2. Grassroots creativity in arts and culture: a comparative analysis of case studies from the Balkans. Creative Industries Journal (2024).
3. Grassroots solidarity structures in Greece as counterhegemonic practices contesting the dominant neoliberal hegemony. HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES – Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography (2022).