Paper short abstract:

Along with such related terms as “rogue urbanism,” “opportunistic urbanism,” and “everyday urbanism,” DIY urbanism has entered the vocabulary of contemporary urban studies. “Doing-it-yourself” can reflect self-help improvisation, or, conversely, justify state withdrawal under the mantle of neoliberalism.

Paper long abstract:

Along with such related terms as "rogue urbanism," "opportunistic urbanism," and "everyday urbanism," DIY urbanism has entered the conceptual vocabulary of contemporary urban studies. By supplementing notions of "informal urbanism," these ideas seem to capture the widespread realities of improvisational (and largely spontaneous) activities which ordinary urban residents undertake in distressed cities when state regulatory regimes are virtually non-existent and when formal housing and income-generating options are highly circumscribed. DIY urbanism conjures up a new urban imaginary where ordinary residents take matters into their own hands, engaging in self-built housing without official authorization and undertake all sorts of self-help activities outside existing regulatory frameworks. Many scholars hail these efforts as expressions of popular resistance and celebrate them as exemplars of "bottom-up" initiative in the face of repressive state authorities.

A more sanguine assessment suggests that DIY urbanism pulls in two directions. On the one hand, it suggests the possibility of an embryonic kind of grassroots communitarianism, grounded in local participation, mutual aid, and decommodified exchange. On the other hand, DIY urbanism can easily play into a variant of neoliberalism by stealth. By taking a "hands-off" (laissez-faire) approach, municipal authorities relieve themselves of the responsibility for overseeing the necessities of everyday urban life: decent housing, functional infrastructure, and public services. If ordinary residents take the lead in self-help innovation, then public authorities can justify their withdrawal by putting the onus on self-mobilized, localized, grassroots efforts alone to provide for themselves without public involvement.