The aim of the course is to present and discuss contemporary perspectives of the city as a political idea. Special emphasis will be placed on a confrontation between Western European urban theories and the experiences of Central-Eastern European cities in the post-socialist era. The main assumption that lies behind the course is inspired by post-colonialist critique: that particular phenomena and tendencies of Central-Eastern European cities can shed a new light on universality of Western narratives. The focus on questions that were of vital importance in the period of transition from real socialism to capitalism – e.g. neoliberalization of the city, privatization of public spaces, enclosures of the commons or gentrification and suburbanization – could help us to re-think the prospects of urban community not only in the East, but also in the Western cities. The conceptual act of „provincionalization” of social theory of the city is proposed here not in order to delegitimize Western theories, but to correct their accuracy. The working hypothesis of the course is that the developments of Central-Eastern European cities and communities in the last 30 years shouldn’t be treated as marginal or secondary.

The city of the future will be understood as the emergent reality arising from today‘s tendencies in capitalist post-modernity, especially those which are widespread in (semi)peripheries and in the regional experiences of Central-Eastern Europe. These tendencies will be grouped into two big groups. The first one will be focused on internal tendencies of capital to transform urban structures, such as automation, algorithmization, uberization, platformization, precarization, commodification and enclosures. The second group will de devoted to scrutizine the counter-tendencies, those organized from below, against and potentially beyond capital: commoning, reclaiming of the public space, reindustrialization from below, caring and sharing social economies, informal structures of migrant solidarities, reproductive strikes, urban social movements.