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Right in the middle of the German constitution, a group of ordinary citizens discovers a forgotten clause that allows them to take 240,000 homes back from multi-billion corporations. In this work of creative non-fiction, scholar-activist and Nine Dots Prize winner Joanna Kusiak tells the story of a grassroots movement that convinced a million Berliners to pop the speculative housing bubble. She offers a vision of urban housing as democratically held commons, legally managed by a radically new institutional model that works through democratic conflicts. Moving between interdisciplinary analysis and her own personal story, Kusiak connects the dots between the past and the present, the local and the global, and shows the potential of radically legal politics as a means of strengthening our democracies and reviving the rule of law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
List of contents
1. Taking the Tram Home: Prelude to Change; 2. We Are All Staying Put: Property and Freedom; 3. Berlin Becomes a High Risk Capital: The Law and the Movement; 4. Who Constitutes Power?: Checks and Balances; 5. Berlin Is the Greatest Extravaganza: Sexy and Solidaristic; 6. The Rule of Law Is Having a Midlife Crisis: Shadow and Difference; 7. Before the Law: Franz Kafka feat. DWE.
About the author
Joanna Kusiak is a Junior Research Fellow at King's College, University of Cambridge. Her work focuses on urban land, housing crises and the progressive potential of the law. In 2021 she was one of the spokespeople for Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen, Berlin's successful referendum campaign to expropriate stock-listed landlords. In 2023 she won the Nine Dots Prize.
Summary
Right in the middle of the German constitution, a group of ordinary citizens discover a forgotten clause that allows them to reclaim their homes from multi-billion corporations. Kusiak argues that to save our cities from the housing crisis we need a revolution powered by the law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Foreword
Kusiak argues that to save our cities from the housing crisis we need a revolution powered by the law.
