RESISTING AGAINST SPECULATIVE URBAN REGENERATION IN THE SHRINKING CITY OF FERROL
RESISTING AGAINST SPECULATIVE URBAN REGENERATION IN THE SHRINKING CITY OF FERROL

Summary/Abstract: The phenomenon of urban shrinkage constitutes an increasingly relevant challenge on the European level entailing dramatic socioeconomic and urban transformations and certainly altering urban policy-making standards. Recent debates suggest that urban shrinkage may enable alternative urban agendas and practices to take actual form. Against this backdrop, the article aims to analyse the role of shrinkage as regards local community empowerment through the empirical examination of a neighbourhood contestation movement against a failed urban redevelopment project in the old-industrial medium-sized city of Ferrol. To this end, the study mobilises semi-structured interviews and documentary research as principal data collection instruments. The paper argues that the overall vacuum of institutional power that holds sway over the city for the last four decades may act as a lever to upscale local grassroots movements’ strength in urban decision-making leading to effective modifications in mainstream growth-oriented neoliberal urban agendas. It contends that the organisation of resistance through the generation of strong collective alliances and a thorough use of each political momentum stem as crucial aspects to empower the grassroots forces on the common goal of dissuading speculative urban development purposes, giving rise instead to more progressive urban actions, agendas and decision-making models.

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