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| Darth Vader unmasked in Finland. Mural of Urho Kaleva Kekkonen by Matti Lankinen (photo by Carr, 2025) |
At the end of June, Kryvets and Carr attended the annual conference of the International Network for Urban Research and Action (INURA) conference, held in Tampere, Finland, and co-organized in hybrid format with colleagues in Ukraine. The theme was “In War We Fight, In Peace We Build”: a title provocative too for some; but an unavoidable, daily and visceral reality for others.
INURA 2025 was an invitation to both explore the socio-spatial dynamics of a city (as is usual during the city part INURA conferences), as well as the contested processes of building, reimagining, strengthening, and sustaining a liberal civil society in the face of conflict.
Between the two of us, Kryvets and Carr attended a number of tours, which at first glance might seem a disparate selection of themes ranging informality, art, wartime urbanism, infrastructure, and civil society. In retrospect, we contend it was about anti-fragility. 
Infrastructure for Defence and the Everyday - Bombs are not falling in Finland, but city officials were not blind to threats to their territory, their institutions, their bodies - i.e. their sovereignty - and the need for response measures to protect its residents. A well-visited excursion prepared by Panu Lehtovuori’s led visitors through the city’s above ground (wide allees) and below ground defence mechanisms. Currently repurposed as sports centres and parking lots, bunkers at a depth of 50 m underground had the capacity to shelter 300,000 residents in less than 72 hours.
Meanwhile, Tampere continues its investments in infrastructures for public good. A tram tour with Jaakko Stenhäll, Green Party City Councillor, introduced visitors to Tampere’s transit-oriented development.
Anti-Fragile Cities -- Ultimately INURA 2025 posed deeper questions about what constitutes anti-fragility in urban space. How and when is anti-fragility invoked? How do locally specific circumstances (resources, information, education, strength of inclusive institutions) shape processes of resilience? What are the epistemologies behind agendas of resilience? What can cities learn from each other? Being from Luxembourg, what can we learn from abroad?
On the tours and during the informal conversations in-between, anti-fragility in Tampere, was indeed about a dramatic project of building systems of preparedness against violence (pathetic as it is that in 2025, there are still some on the international stage who--to put it mildly--act in bad faith). However, and moreover, anti-fragility was also about strengthening civil society: preserving inclusive spaces for different forms of expression (including the freedom to critique figures of authority), protecting labour, building mobility and communication networks, caring for neighbours and young people, valuing the experimentation with different ways of living.
Thank you to the organizers Mariia Pristupa and Jens Brandt, and to Linda Strande, Jason Katz, Elke Rauthe, Britta Grell, Marit Rosol, Philipp Klaus, Richard Wolff, Stijn Oosterlynk, and so many others for the deep conversations.
Arends et al 2023; Decentralization and trust in government: Quasi-experimental evidence from Ukraine. Journal of Comparative Economics 51(4), Pages 1356-1365 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2023.08.002
Carr C (2014) Discourse yes, implementation maybe: an immobility and paralysis of sustainable development policy. Eur Plann Stud 22(9):1824–1840. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.806433
Colomb C. (2007) Requiem for a lost Palast. ‘Revanchist urban planning’ and ‘burdened landscapes’ of the German Democratic Republic in the new Berlin. Planning Perspectives, 22 (July 2007) 283–323
Hitz, H., Schmid, C., & Wolff, R. (1994). Urbanization in Zurich; Headquarter Economy and City-Belt. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 12(2), 167-185. https://doi.org/10.1068/d120167
Kudlenko, A. (2023). Roots of Ukrainian resilience and the agency of Ukrainian society before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Contemporary Security Policy, 44(4), 513–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2023.2258620
Informality and Art - Artist Matti Lankinen led us through Hiedanranta, a former industrial district where artists from around the world were invited to render large-scale murals, repurposing industrial spaces. Most appreciated was Lankinen’s depiction of former President Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, who held office from 1956 to 1982, and who apparently was rather fragile and easily offended by critique.
Visitors were also introduced to the Labra540 Collective, showing interim cultural spaces in underused buildings. The project's ethos: inclusion, experimentation, and circular economy, towards sustainable living. And, in Pyynikki, artist Mika Pettissalo introduced visitors to Koko Kylän Piha (“the whole village’s yard”) — a squatted art space in a former hospital courtyard. Together, these were tours about spaces of expression and experimentation.
Wartime Urbanism from Ukraine - Hybrid tours with colleagues in Ukraine connected Finland with the urban realities in both Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Joining from Kharkiv, Svitlana Gorbunova-Ruban explained the evolution of a local volunteer movement -- from Chornobyl through COVID to the current conflict. Peer support, animal rescue, infrastructure for vulnerable populations, and emergency help, exposed was the grassroots activism that defines resilience in Ukraine.
Another presentation offered windows into the emotional and artistic landscapes in wartime Ukraine. Unfortunately, the sample of art pieces showcased were mainly the yellow and blue murals containing strong military motifs. This mislead the audience - that is well versed in, and sensitive to, the production of national socalisms - to conversations about Ukrainian state-sponsored propaganda and to an interrogation about how Ukraine handles diversity in the construction of its nation. Of course, questions of academic curiosity are expected and indeed essential, but to us, we understood this as a conversation around popular Kremlin tropes that ultimately blame the victim. To round out this discussion, we provide links that hint at the diversity of art expressions that are found around Ukrainian cities.
In another panel discussion later (by the same presenter), the audience was unfortunately misinformed again about the history, implication and function of Hromadas - the Ukrainian system of decentralized local governance. Members of the audience left believing that Hromadas were reflective of an ambiguous set of cultural communities organized east-west across the territory (another trope). First, Snyder's 23 lectures at Yale University on the Making of Ukraine instruct that Ukraine's cultural divides are not east-west, but north-south. Second, Hromadas are not cultural, they are in the first instance, administrative. They are the new units of administration that resulted from the decentralization of governance process that began institution in 2014/2015: Hromadas are municipalities.
The purpose of the Hromada was to produce a new decentralised governance structure across the country, redistributing financial resources and decision-making power to the local level. Local councils became responsible for the management of public properties, utilities, transport networks, health care facilities, and education (Rabinovych et al 2023), which was made possible through increases of tax revenues to the Hromadas.
Today,
Homadas are the primary structures through which the United Nations,
USAID (until recently), the GIZ, the Red Cross, hundreds of
international twin city initiatives, and thousands of other smaller
institutions deliver resources and build institutions of democratic
civil society, and resilience. While deep debates about restructuring
continue, Hromadas are also lauded with being the key avenue of self-organization, volunteer organizing, and resistance (not the national level as is often suggested) (Kudkenko 2023; Rabinovych et
al 2023).
Academically, the Hromada system is a classic case of government restructuring, and as such there is no shortage of literature to draw upon towards the formulation of a founded critiques, as the contradictions in multi-level, multi-scalar governance is very well established in urban studies literature (Affolderbach and Carr 2016; Carr 2014; Brownill & Carpenter 2009; Jessop 2005; Hitz/Schmid/Wolff 1994; Keil 2008; Smith 2008). (Markus and I have have been teaching this at DGEO for 15+ years.). And, correspondingly, questions about the Hromadas structure are indeed being asked because there are, of course, risks, including how to deal with the aggression, how to govern in times of war, and ownership of reconstruction efforts (Arends et al 2023; Colomb 2007; Keudel and Huss 2024; Rabinovych et al 2023; Rabinovych et al 2025). These are important urban lessons, not about culture, but of research, action, politics and power.
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| Inside the bunkers (photo Carr, 2025) |
Anti-Fragile Cities -- Ultimately INURA 2025 posed deeper questions about what constitutes anti-fragility in urban space. How and when is anti-fragility invoked? How do locally specific circumstances (resources, information, education, strength of inclusive institutions) shape processes of resilience? What are the epistemologies behind agendas of resilience? What can cities learn from each other? Being from Luxembourg, what can we learn from abroad?
On the tours and during the informal conversations in-between, anti-fragility in Tampere, was indeed about a dramatic project of building systems of preparedness against violence (pathetic as it is that in 2025, there are still some on the international stage who--to put it mildly--act in bad faith). However, and moreover, anti-fragility was also about strengthening civil society: preserving inclusive spaces for different forms of expression (including the freedom to critique figures of authority), protecting labour, building mobility and communication networks, caring for neighbours and young people, valuing the experimentation with different ways of living.
 |
| Mark Saunders and Christian Schmid, 2025 |
And Mark Saunders, founding member of INURA, it was with great sadness to learn that you had to leave this world so early. While everyone is grateful for the time with you in Tampere, you will be missed terribly. For readers, here is his work at Spectacle. Memories of Mark can be contributed here.
-- Constance Carr and Olga Kryvets
References
References
Affolderbach J, Carr C (2016) Blending scales of governance: land-use policies and practices in the small state of Luxembourg. Reg Stud 50(6):944–955. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2014.893057
Arends et al 2023; Decentralization and trust in government: Quasi-experimental evidence from Ukraine. Journal of Comparative Economics 51(4), Pages 1356-1365 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2023.08.002
Brownill,
S., & Carpenter, J. (2009). Governance and `Integrated’ Planning:
The Case of Sustainable Communities in the Thames Gateway, England.
Urban Studies, 46(2), 251-274.
Carr C (2014) Discourse yes, implementation maybe: an immobility and paralysis of sustainable development policy. Eur Plann Stud 22(9):1824–1840. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.806433
Colomb C. (2007) Requiem for a lost Palast. ‘Revanchist urban planning’ and ‘burdened landscapes’ of the German Democratic Republic in the new Berlin. Planning Perspectives, 22 (July 2007) 283–323
Hitz, H., Schmid, C., & Wolff, R. (1994). Urbanization in Zurich; Headquarter Economy and City-Belt. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 12(2), 167-185. https://doi.org/10.1068/d120167
Keil, R. (2008) Governance Restructuring in Los Angeles and Toronto: Amalgamation or Secession? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 24(4) https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.00277
Keudel, O., & Huss, O. (2024). Polycentric governance in practice: the case of Ukraine’s decentralised crisis response during the Russo-Ukrainian war. Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice, 39(1), 10-35. Retrieved Jul 14, 2025, from https://doi.org/10.1332/25156918Y2023D000000002
Kudlenko, A. (2023). Roots of Ukrainian resilience and the agency of Ukrainian society before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Contemporary Security Policy, 44(4), 513–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2023.2258620
Rabinovych et al (2023). Explaining Ukraine's resilience to Russia's invasion: The role of local governance. Governance - An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions. 37(4) https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12827
Rabinovych, M., Brik, T., Darkovich, A., Hatsko, V., & Savisko, M. (2025). Ukrainian decentralization under martial law: challenges for regional and local self-governance. Post-Soviet Affairs, 1–25.
Smith, N. (2008) Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space, Basel Blackwell, Oxford, 3rd Edition. University of Georgia Press, Atlanta.
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