housing

Max Chandler-Mather talks about the various ways they have sought to reach out, engage in a dialogue with, and organise people around the housing crisis and more broadly.
Max Chandler-Mather reflects on his experiences in parliament so far as an “outsider”, the strengths and weaknesses of the housing campaign and the challenges involved in pushing for anti-establishment politics from within parliament.
Richard Fidler — How Ontario tenants fought for legal security of tenure, and won.
 

By Dave Holmes

[This is an edited version of a workshop talk given on October 2, 2011, at the World at a Crossroads: Climate Change, Social Change conference in Melbourne. For more material from the conference, click HERE. It first appeared at Dave Holmes' Arguing for Socialism and is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission. See also Are livable cities just a dream? by Dave Holmes.]

I want to give an overview of the crisis of our cities as I see it. The city I focus on is Melbourne, where I live. But I doubt that the broad situation is much different in the other states.

Modern cities are "free-fire" zones for the corporations. And the situation is getting worse. We can't work out what to do without understanding this basic reality.