Practicing Urban Transformation: Places of Solidarity and Creative Traditionalism in Transatlantic Comparison

In this paper, I make use of the comparative method to discuss two social movements for urban grassroots transformation, Collectif 7‐à‐Nous in Montréal, Canada, and Project Gängeviertel in Hamburg, Germany. For my analysis, I develop and apply two concepts – terrain solidaire and creative traditionalism – to discuss the differences and similarities in how both social movements have been justifying their claims to urban property with reference to and in dialogue with local culture, local space, and local temporalities in order to withstand adverse dynamics of entrepreneurial urbanism. How have activists constructed urban imaginaries that tie the historically grounded identity of place to current practices of solidarity amongst local dwellers? Moreover, how have creative practices of rediscovering and rewriting local history and memory in activists’ narratives of belonging contributed to rooting their claims in local contexts and against the currents of presentist temporalities? Finally, I discuss the difficulty of activist projects and narratives in escaping the increasing tendencies of commodifying urban culture. [Urban Social Movements; Urban Transformation; Solidarity; Narrative; Presentism; Urban Imaginary]