Social movements as ‘critical urban planning’ agents

Abstract

Curiously, even progressive planners usually share with their conservative counterparts the assumption that the state is the sole urban planning agent. This paper outlines that even if the state is sometimes controlled by more or less progressive forces and even influenced by social movements, civil society should be seen as a powerful actor in the conception and implementation of urban planning and management. Drawing on examples from urban social movements in Latin America, in particular favela activism, the sem‐teto movement and participatory budgeting, it explores how civil society can conceive, and even implement, complex, radically alternative socio‐spatial strategies. This can be seen as part of a genuine attempt at ‘grassroots urban planning’.

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