This book examines the active role of urban citizens in constructing alternative urban spaces as tangible resistance towards capitalist production of urban spaces that continue to encroach various neighborhoods, lanes, commons, public land and other spaces of community life and livelihoods. The collection of narratives presented here brings together research from ten different Asian cities and re-theorises the city from the perspective of ordinary people facing moments of crisis, contestations, and cooperative quests to create alternative spaces to those being produced under prevailing urban processes. The chapters accent the exercise of human agency through daily practices in the production of urban space and the intention is not one of creating a romantic or utopian vision of what a city "by and for the people" ought to be. Rather, it is to place people in the centre as mediators of city-making with discontents about current conditions and desires for a better life.

Yves Cabannes is an Urban Planner and activist, Emeritus Professor of Development Planning and former Chair (2006-2015) of the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London, UK. He holds a Ph.D. in Development Planning from Paris Sorbonne University.Mike Douglass is Emeritus Professor and former Chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawai’i where he was also Director of the Globalization Research Center. He holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from UCLA.Rita Padawangi is Senior Lecturer at the Singapore University of Social Sciences and Regional Coordinator of the Southeast Asia Neighborhoods Network (SEANNET) program, International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Loyola University Chicago.

Cities by and for the PeopleTable of ContentsChapter 1 Cities by and for the PeopleYves Cabannes, Mike Douglass, Rita PadawangiChapter 2How to Prove You are Not a Squatter: Appropriating Space and Marking Presence in JakartaJörgen HellmanChapter 3Inhabitants of Spontaneous Settlements in Bangkok: Networks and Actions Changing the Contemporary MetropolisFanny Gerbeaud Chapter 4Collaborating Urban Farming Networks in Bangkok: To Promote Collective Gardens and Alternative Markets as Theatres of Social ActionPiyapong BoossabongChapter 5The Struggle to Create Alternative Urban Spaces: An Attempt by a Theatre Group in Hong KongNgai Ming YipChapter 6Making the Music Scene in the Making of Singapore: Jumping Spatio-Sonic Scales in a Southeast Asian City-StateSteve FerzaccaChapter 7Connect with Society and People through "Art Projects" in an Era of PersonalizationMotohiro KoizumiChapter 8Challenging Form Follows Capital: The Resilience of Urban Fresh Food Provisioning in Baguio City, PhilippinesB. Lynne Milgram Chapter 9From Street Hawkers to Public Markets: Modernity and Sanitization Made in Hong KongMaurizio MarinelliChapter 10Street Vending from the Right to the City Approach: The Appropriation of the Bhadra Plaza Lila Oriard ColinChapter 11Surviving Existence through a Built Form: The Advent of the Daseng SarioCynthia R. Susilo and Bruno De MeulderChapter 12Ethnic Place-Making in Cosmopolis: The Case of Yeonbeon Village in SeoulMyung-Rae Cho