Citizen-led micro-regeneration. Case studies of civic crowdfunding in London and Milan

This chapter interrogates alternative forms of participation, urban development, and governance, generated through collaborative actions and interactions between a range of local community groups, with the support of local government agencies. This study draws on qualitative research carried out in London and Milan from 2015 to 2017 to investigate the growing phenomenon of civic crowdfunding projects in contributing to the making of future cities. The project involved fieldwork activities conducted in London and Milan consisting of semi-structured interviews with policy makers, walking interviews with local grassroots organisations, and workshops with civic crowdfunding platforms (based in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Italy) and local authorities (from London and Milan). While reflecting on the specificities of the case studies and their associated constellations of actors through translocal and transdisciplinary dialogues, this chapter also seeks to pose questions that need answering. What are the affordances of urban spaces produced in alternative ways and with the endorsement and support of local governments? What are the openings created by the shifting roles played by all the actors involved, working together in an oscillating dance that bypasses the conventional dichotomies of bottom-up/ top-down, public/private, and individual/collective to create a third space of alternative urban life?