INURA 2025 - Anti-fragility through strengthening civil society

 

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. 

 

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.

• Irpin mayor reveals fate of Banksy artwork when building is demolished 
• Street art by Gamlet Zinkivskyi in Kharkiv, Ukraine
• War destroyed his city. He stayed to paint over the destruction 

 

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.

 

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.

 

Inside the bunkers (photo Carr, 2025)

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.  

 

Mark Saunders and Christian Schmid, 2025

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.

 

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 

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.

Carr appointed to the Scientific Committee of the inaugural BeNeLux Geography

The BeNeLux Geography conference (8-10 April 2026 in Leuven)is organized by the geographical communities of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, and will provide an opportunity to present and debate work in geography and spatial planning as well as ample opportunities for informal conversation and networking. The conference is a continuation, and scaling up, of the bi-annual Belgian Geography Days (hosted by Namur in 2024) and the Dutch Geographers Days (last organized by KNAG in 2006). As such BeNeLux Geography hopes to provide a forum for geographic conversation that is affordable and easy to reach for colleagues in the Benelux and beyond.

Carr from DGEO was appointed to the Scientific Committee that has further representation from all corners of the BeNeLux region and across the many sub-disciplines of Geography. You can find the list on our website (https://lnkd.in/dZsrZx5w).

A tentative timeline for the organization of sessions and abstracts is in the works. There will be two phases. The Scientific Committee will first propose a foundational set of sessions, which will be supplemented by a general Call for Sessions which will be open between 22 September and 15 October 2025. The Call for Papers/Abstracts will be open between 20 October and 16 November. 

So take a note of those dates and start thinking what new work you might want to share with the BeNeLux geography community next year!

Planning on retreat, or: Have you ever heard of “Bauturbo”?

Last week, the German federal government released the so-called “Bauturbo”, a legislative initiative dedicated to improving development conditions.(1) The new legislation is supposed to facilitate development and construction in areas where previous regulations didn’t foresee that. The initiative’s main objective is to accelerate development, particularly housing production. Housing shortages are generally considered a significant societal problem throughout Germany, and complaints about the lengthy development processes have increased in intensity and frequency. In this respect, Germany’s situation seems largely comparable to that of many other countries in the Global North. 

    This new government legislation indicates a significant shift in orientation. It sounds completely different compared to a consultation document published by the previous coalition only last summer.(2) That document was seen as a template for sustainable urban and regional development, as well as building and planning policies. In contrast, among other issues, the new legislation signals the government’s intention to abandon its own and the European Union’s commitment to significantly reducing land take. Of course, politics have changed since a new coalition of Conservatives and Social Democrats took office in May. As part of its political mission, the government claims to be accelerating development to revive the economy, reduce bureaucracy, and increase housing production. However, one might argue that this policy is akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as it could significantly harm planning. Associations such as the Deutsche Akademie für Städtebau und Landesplanung (DASL) and the Vereinigung für Stadt-, Regional- und Landesplanung (SRL) offered critical insights into the new legislation.(3) However, the issue with Bauturbo extends beyond that.

     As related calls for deregulation and less intervention have turned out to be problematic, at least five critical points can be noted. First, public debates have blamed planning and regulation for the delay in development. According to some observers, the “bureaucracy” associated with planning applications is the main reason for the lack of growth and investment. This statement is one-sided, to say the least. Development is usually composed of different elements and affected by various factors, such as the supply and demand of land, investment capital, interest from future users, speculation, and inflation. Therefore, the assessment that primarily blames planning is not backed by empirical evidence. It seems as if the proponents of this criticism have an issue with planning legislation and implementation, and they point at bureaucracy while actually hitting at planning more generally. 

    Second, the Bauturbo decision is just one part of a larger trend that puts enormous strain on planning. This trend undermines the practical relevance, feasibility, and acceptance of planning by regulation, targeting particularly legal procedures that are essential for land use planning, such as delineating building perimeters, informing land use and development decisions, and facilitating the preparation of development and building permits. However, the sentiment critical of planning has gone far beyond and affects neighbouring fields as well.(4) Rising political dissent is evident in areas such as environmental policy (related to air quality, water policy, and nature protection) and the long-contested field of mobility politics. Prominent cases include environmental policy in the Netherlands, which has long struggled with nitrogen depletion in groundwater and, as a result, earned a farmers’ party joining the parliament after the last elections; the housing crisis in England, which has given rise to another round of liberal planning reforms set to diminish regulations; or the battleground made up by transport and mobility controversies in many countries that seem extremely difficult to resolve. Not to speak of the apparent “war on motorists” in the UK, which seems to divide cities and societies. Numerous cases provide sufficient reason to believe that planning is under threat, misused as a scapegoat for societal conflict that should be accepted as normal in modern, pluralistic societies.

    Third, the promise to build more houses through accelerated development—made possible by abandoning legal restrictions—needs to be discussed in light of the main forces that dominate the housing market, most notably property, private capital and financialization. Even further building activity will not resolve the main problems housing currently faces under market conditions, and given the current malaise on the construction market, which are pressing in terms of both quantity and affordability. Without cleverly regulating the housing market, additional deliveries are unlikely.

    Fourth, it is clear that bypassing planning procedures will by far not automatically achieve the desired outcomes of accelerating the development process and improving acceptance of the results. Often, the opposite will happen. As long as neighbours and stakeholders have legal recourse against development processes, little will change in substance. The only difference will be that bad planning will shift the point of contestation from within the planning process to the courts, potentially resulting in lengthy (and costly) disputes. This will not be better, faster or more effective. The risks are high that the big promise of acceleration ends up in the quandaries of governance, finance and public opinion.

    Fifthly and finally, the new legislation also signals the German government's intention to abandon its own land policy targets (nationwide reduction of land take to 30 hectares/year, originally by 2020, currently by 2030) as well as the target formulated by the European Union to significantly reduce land take (net zero land consumption by 2050). This is a very problematic signal from the point of view of open space protection and the generally recognized need to create climate resilience and promote biodiversity.

    The Bauturbo-discourse suggests that planning processes can be accelerated at will and without disadvantages. This is an illusion. Today, spatial planning is confronted with two interlinked problems that are equally difficult to solve. They affect both urban and regional or peripheral areas: on the one hand, the growing pressure to develop land reserves and, on the other, the decreasing ability to deal with the resulting conflicts appropriately. Resistance to plans and planning procedures appears to be growing in general. These changes have led to an intensification of the conflict situation, whereby planning and politics appear to be losing ground to the media and populist discourse. In this mixed situation, not less, but more and above all better planning is needed.

    These changes have led to increased conflict, with planning and politics seemingly losing ground compared to media and populist discourses. Although the call for better planning is justified, forming a coalition of ambitious planners and political decision-makers who can campaign for democratic planning on a large scale probably requires strong political will. In summarizing these thoughts, planners need a new skill: the ability to articulate and constructively deal with conflict. And they must emphasize the role of planning in democratic societies.(5) This has nothing to do with bureaucracy. An effective and efficient approach to dealing with private demands is required to protect the public interest. In other words: Technocrats from all countries must unite ... to combat paperwork, paragraphs and particular interest in order to plan for the common good. This is the primary objective of planning institutions and practitioners. 

Markus Hesse

Index

(1) Bundesministerium für Wohnen, Stadtentwicklung und Bauwesen (2025): Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Beschleunigung des Wohnungsbaus und zur Wohnraumsicherung. Berlin. (18.6.2025). Previous version as of 5.6.2025 available HERE.

(2) Bundesregierung (2024): Transformationsbericht der Bundesregierung zum Bereich Nachhaltiges Bauen und Verkehrswende – Herausforderungen und Wege der Transformation mit Blick auf die Stadtentwicklung, den Bau- und Bauwerksbereich und die nachhaltige Gestaltung der Mobilität. BT-Ds 20/12650 v. 28.08.2024. Berlin. Available online HERE.

(3) DASL (2025): Letter to members of the Deutscher Bundestag as of 27.6.2025. An earlier draft can be found HERE. SRL (2025) Stellungnahme zum Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Beschleunigung des Wohnungsbaus und zur Wohnraumsicherung. Berlin as of 18.6.2025. Online HERE.

(4) The latest issue of the online/OA-scholarly journal Urban Planning was devoted to the topic 'The Role of Planning in 'Anti-Democratic Times', which comes extremely timely. All papers available HERE.

(5) Town & Country Planning Association (2025): The end of democratic planning? A briefing by the TCPA on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill for the House of Lords. London: TCPA.

A quick bibliography of references on Ukraine

Sometimes, when discussing Ukraine one gets the sense that different languages are being spoken, or at the very least, different reference points. So, I provide a very brief list of key thinkers here. All of the following have made marathon careers studying fascism, autocracies, authoritarianism. You could spend hours and hours on each of them, diving into their writings, interviews, podcasts, substacks.

 

General:

 

Prof Phillips O'Brien - Head of the School of International Relations, Uni St. Andrew
Professor of Strategic Studies/ War Studies. Find his substack and podcast here: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com

Prof. Timothy Snyder
Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, Uni. Toronto
On youtube, find 20-hour course lectures on Ukraine, when he taught at Yale.
recent interview:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PcxC1p-Z-g&pp=ygUOdGltb3RoeSBzbnlkZXI%3D

Anne Applebaum, Senior Fellow of International Affairs, John Hopkins
https://www.anneapplebaum.com/books/

Prof Stephen Kotkin, Professor in History and International Affairs, emeritus, Princeton Universtiy. Here is a recent speech at Vienna Humanities Festival:
https://youtu.be/3Odt-z_-1cA

 

 

In urban geography specifically:

Prof Vlad Mykhnenko
Professor of Geography and Political Economy, Oxford University
(some here might also know him for his path-breaking work on shrinking cities)
Here is a recent interview:https://youtu.be/OZ7Lnc8gbpk

 

Here is a collection of articles on Ukraine at the Transactions of the British Institute of Geographers -- the journal of the Royal Geographical Society.  All of these articles speak to each other. I would recommend to comb all the bibliographies for further important references! Kryvets and Carr also have a paper as part of this conversation: It should actually be listed there (note to self: contact publisher).  But here is a link to the article in the meantime.

Carr invited to keynote panel at Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Thank you Ilia Antenucci, Armin Beverungen, Maja-Lee Voigt.  It was a great pleasure to join the keynote plenary to discuss “Amazon & Co. - resistance is not futile” Panel Discussion Yonatan Miller (Berlin vs. Amazon) & Katja Schwaller (Stanford University) (Chair: Maja-Lee Voigt). Information here, and the final programme here: