Urban Social Forum II Declaration: Defending the common goods for the future of
cities and territories
Source: Urban Social Forum Organizing Committee
09-06-2012
Naples, Italy, 6th September 2012
Over 250 local, national and international inhabitants’
organisations and networks for rights related to habitat,
engaged in the struggle for decent living conditions in cities
and territories, participated in 42 initiatives which were
organized as part of the 2nd Urban Social Forum (USF) in Naples, Italy, from 3-7
September 2012. The USF is completely independent, self-managed, self-financed and
presents an alternative to UN-Habitat’s sixth World Urban Forum (WUF 6). The USF
is collectively responsible and committed to defending the right to the city, land and
common goods.
We hereby denounce:
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The failure of neoliberal policies which have led authorities to violate legally
recognized human rights, to land-grabbing, to the violation of natural
resources and common goods, resulting in a systemic, environmental, food
and urban crisis affecting more than 1.2 billion people around the world left
without housing and without a decent, safe environment; a crisis which is
becoming dramatically worse with more than 60 million people facing
eviction;
The threat on the rights to a future of inhabitants, all living beings and the
ecosystem, inflicted by financial globalization which is trying to eradicate
democracy in order to get their hands on social and natural common goods, an
inalienable inheritance of the land and the people which has turned the city
into a commodity;
The role of UN Habitat which, through their "Manifesto for Cities”, wants to
assume leadership for non-democratic and pro-developmental Urban Planning,
proposing a partnership which hands over authority from the State and Local
Authorities to the private sector, handing over the keys of the city and land to
whoever wants to use it to speculate with the false promise of offering
necessary financial resources for getting out of the Debt Crisis;
The waste of public funds for WUF Naples, which represents a backward step
regarding the Habitat Agenda and the WUF Rio 2010, with the exclusion of
many important topics from the official agenda like evictions, the right to the
city based on the social functions of property and of the land and on the
principle of democratic management;
The stigmatisation of the victims of the crisis, who have become indebted by
their mortgages and high rents who, with precarious work or no jobs, also lose
their homes, migrants, Roma community, the poor;
The criminalization of the homeless, who fight for their right to housing, to
land and for common goods and we demand the immediate release of the 2
activists, Tim Sak Mony (Borei Keila) and Yorm Bopha (Boeung Kake)
imprisoned this week in Phnom Penh (Cambodia).
We want to contribute through solidarity to the rebuilding of beautiful and
inhabitable cities and lands open to all inhabitants, designed based on the principal of
"good living” and on the Global Charter for the Rights to the city.
We underline our commitment to participatory and direct participation, the defence
and participative management of common goods, the rebalancing of the citycountryside relationship, the social functions of property and food sovereignty,
claiming the right to their defence through responsible resistance.
We demand urban and social housing policies based on a social, urban pact which is
an alternative to the neoliberal paradigms, i.e. their individual and collective rights
and the rights of inhabitants to be creators of a community which respects diversity, a
basic condition for a future living in harmony with nature, non client-users of the
land.
We demand the recovery of the necessary resources for implementing these policies
for social and anti-speculative use of public property, in support of self-management
and the know-how of inhabitants, for progressive taxation of the real-estate markets,
in particular of vacant property, to be released from the stranglehold of sovereign
debt.
We propose a policy against the commoditization of cities, for the rights of their
inhabitants to participate in their social production and for equitable distribution of
wealth.
We fight for democratic management of the city, direct participation from its
inhabitants in the design, implementation and control of policies and of the public
budget.
We demand that the projects which have a negative impact on the lives of inhabitants
be preceded by, compulsory and binding, social and environmental impact studies,
and based on participation.
We take on as our own the struggles for the right to housing and to the city of Naples
inhabitants organisations, in particular against evictions of tenants and those with
mortgages, against expulsions of Roma, for the demolition of the Vele building and
the social and urban recovery of the Scampia neighbourhoods, to make water services
public again, as shown by the 27 million Yes votes in the 2011 referendum, for the
public management and against assigning social housing to the real-estate company
Romeo, for the defence of beaches for all, all these being key factors for freeing the
city from the mafia and corruption.
We support the struggle for the rights to housing, to the city and to land of common
goods in Italy and across the world, launching a call to mobilize through solidarity
and bringing together of organizations and inhabitants’ networks and for the right to
habitat and to the city at the local and international level, inviting the local authorities
and other bodies which share the USF principles to commit to this topic, contributing
to the elaboration of an open agenda:
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World Habitat Day – for the right to habitat (October)
Gathering of 1million signatures for Public Management of common goods
(European Citizens Initiative)
Africa Social Forum (Kinshasa, 17-20 January 2013)
World Inhabitants Assembly (WSF Tunisia, 23-28 March 2013)
For further information:
USF organizing committee: www.forumsocialeurbanonapoli.org/en
HIC: www.hic-net.org – gs@hic-net.org
IAI: www.habitants.org - info@habitants.org