Conceptualising the production of alternative urban spaces

In October 2016 a broad range of representatives and stakeholders convened in Quito for the United Nations’ Habitat III conference to create and adopt a New Urban Agenda, signalling their collective commitment to the initiation of no less than an urban paradigm shift. Full of sweeping declarations, the New Urban Agenda promises people-centred efforts that empower ‘all individuals and communities while enabling their full and meaningful participation’ while also ‘promoting equally the shared opportunities and benefits that urbanization can offer and that enable all inhabitants, whether living in formal or informal settlements, to lead decent, dignified and rewarding lives and to achieve their full human potential’ (United Nations, 2017: 7). Crucially, the declaration also acknowledges that current urban development trajectories do not generally point in this direction, hence the perceived need for a paradigm shift.