Post-socialist Cities and the Urban Common Good

Maja Grabkowska is a human geographer and Assistant Professor at the Department of Socio-Economic Geography, University of Gdańsk, Poland. She authored and co-authored research publications on post-socialist urban regeneration, gentrification, and grassroot initiatives, including a book titled Regeneration of the Post-socialist Inner City: Social Change and Bottom-up Transformations in Gdańsk (2012). She is also a co-founder of Sopocka Inicjatywa Rozwojowa, an informal citizen group in Sopot, Poland, advocating participatory democracy and sustainable development at the local level.

• IntroductionPART I: Urban common good before and after 1989 in theory and practice1. The city and the common good: in search of a common ground Commonality in the city What makes the urban common good? The neoliberal imprint: city as a commodity versus city as a commonsPost-socialist geographies of urban common good 2. Transforming conceptions of urban common good in Central and Eastern Europe Urban common good during and after socialism City as a communal infrastructure: the rise and demise of the socialist urban utopia City as a commodity: privatisation and appropriation of the common since 1989City as a commons: return to the idea(l) of urban common good in the mid-2010sPART II: Commoning the post-socialist city: evidence from Poland3. Towards the city as a commons: the changing public discourse in Poland between 1989 and 2019 Discourse analysis as a key to understanding urban change in Poland after socialismOccasional and unassuming: legal notions of urban common goodUnravelling of the urban common good in the print media Embracement of the urban common(s) in academic research 4. Interpretations of common good by urban actors in Gdańsk, Kraków and Łódź Selection and overview of the case-study cities Interviewing urban stakeholders in Gdańsk, Kraków and Łódź The post-socialist urban common good unpackedGoing back to the obvious’?: the forging of urban common good in concrete narratives5. (Re)making of the urban common good in a post-socialist city