Acceso usuarios
Chryssanthi Petropoulou
The December youth uprising in Greece took on a new form, one that has generated inits turn other uprisings and new kinds of social and radical urban movements. Led by abroad spectrum of people of different ages and socio-economic backgrounds, it becamethe call for the ‘right to the city’, conceived as the right to free space and free expression,especially for the young who live in cities that have been designed to accommodateneoliberal capitalist expansion. This essay discusses the manifestations of globalizationthat the uprising attacked. It shows that the targets of the uprising were the symbols ofneoliberal consumption and consumerism, especially in the rich city centres. It thendiscusses the novelty of this uprising in terms of its organization, networking,composition and resources, and the means it used to further its goals. It further describeshow it differs from, and has transcended, previous social movements and has influenced,and will continue to influence, subsequent ones. It concludes that the new urbanmovements go beyond simple rejection and confrontation in order to enter into thecollective creation and radical changes of space and of everyday life in the city.
