Interactive Maps

From the onset, CMMM was designed such that the research, analyses, and maps could be used to create nuanced[1] critical maps and visualizations with the potential to serve and contribute to the endeavors of our city team members and the broader scenes of municipalist activists in which they are embedded. When developing the initial ideas into programable proposals, the teams weighed the informative and interactive aspects and deliberated on how these activities could engage communities in the broader mobilizations toward tangible political change regarding housing justice and the promotion of housing as a right.

The three maps were created based on the discussions in the conceptualization and design workshops described in the Workshops chapter, as well as numerous informal bi- and multi-lateral conservations between 2020 and 2022. By spring 2023, we concluded the fine-tuning and testing phases. Each of the maps required customized programming and a data management system, which was a complex task that was completed by the Visual Intelligence (VI) team.

The Belgrade map “How (un)affordable is housing in Belgrade?” helps visitors understand the scope of the problem. It is based on data scraping of housing rental and purchase offers in Belgrade (conducted by the VI in May 2022 and again in March 2023) and is designed such that it is easy to personalize and use the visual results in social media campaigns on the topic.

The Berlin map “Buy Back Berlin!” and the Barcelona map “Stop Evictions!” are based on acquired datasets and include crowdsourcing options, with structures that allow them to function as informative platforms for civic initiatives to resist capitalist dispossession by pushing for the application of the right of preemption in Berlin (in the three layers of Need Information?, Take Action!, and Offer Support) or by fighting evictions in Barcelona (via one map that serves as an alert system feeding from activists in real time and a second map providing an archive of recorded cases and revealing the magnitude of dispossession).

While the Berlin map is in English, the Barcelona map is in Catalan and the Belgrade map is bilingual in Serbian and English. Each map includes an information section, which outlines the concept behind the prototype, the dataset, and the contributors in various languages.

These three maps were designed so as to serve as active tools of communication and mobilization for the movements in the short run and as archival sources in the long run. The programing of the Berlin and Barcelona maps allows for collaborative work and is such that it would be possible for them to remain active tools for several years with minimal effort. 

Each map features a direct link to a complementary poster that was developed in conjunction with the respective map to explain one of the legislative procedures or instruments of focus for each team, as well as an index of selected involved actors that were mapped as part of the analysis activities. The posters were designed as advocacy and communication tools that connect to the interactive online maps through a different medium, in real spaces beyond the virtual. Click here to view the three posters.

[1]  K.  Melchor  Quick  Hall  argues  for  “nuanced  mapping”  to  disentangle  from  hegemonic perspectives and ways of seeing our lifeworlds. By  employing  any  feasible  set  of  techniques  and  mediums,  nuanced  mapping involves  bringing  (non-/inter-)connected happenings into conversation with each other and  tracing   human   actions   and   behaviors   and   portraying   the   building   up   of   (transborder)   momentum,   paths   of   progression, and/or signs  of regression. See: Quick Hall, K. Melchor. “Darkness All Around Me: Black Waters, Land, Animals, and Sky.” In Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and beyond Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism, edited by K. Melchor Quick Hall and Gwyn Kirk, 17–32. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2021.