Zaudern ums Gemeinwohl

Cooperative urban development is a buzzword of the moment. It stands for the pursuit of a more equitable city oriented toward the common good. In new partnerships—public-civic partnerships—stakeholders from politics and public administration collaborate with stakeholders from civil society. Conflicting approaches to urban design lead to misunderstandings, controversies, and uncertainties within these collaborations.

In this book, the authors explore the processes behind two extraordinary experiments in cooperative urban development in Berlin: the “Haus der Statistik” and the “Rathausblock Kreuzberg”. To this end, they invite the participating stakeholders to embrace hesitation. When hesitation becomes a method, ambivalence supports collaboration, uncertainties replace conflicts, and controversies between partners become visible. The book presents pointed theses on cooperative urban development, a glossary of misunderstandings, and methodological reflections on the artistic-ethnographic research method and its embedding in urban anthropological discourses. For everyone involved in cooperative urban development or who wishes to accompany it through research. For a just city of the many.