This book provides an innovative perspective to consider contemporary urban challenges through the lens of urban vacancy. The contributors develop new empirical insights that rethink ruination, urban development and political contestation over the re-use of vacant spaces in post-crisis cities across the globe.

Introduction ~ Cian O’Callaghan and Cesare Di Feliciantonio Part 1 ~ Rethinking Ruination in the Post-Crisis Context Rem(a)inders of Loss: A Lacanian Approach to New Urban Ruins ~ Lucas Pohl Dignifying the Ruins: A Former Jewish Girl’s School in Berlin ~ Karen E. Till Traversing Wastelands: Reflections on an Abandoned Railway Yard ~ Sandra Jasper Building the New Urban Ruin: The Ghost City of Ordos Kangbashi, Inner Mongolia ~ Christina Lee Part 2 ~ The Political Economy of Urban Vacant Space Nullius No More? Valorising Vacancy Through Urban Agriculture in the Settler-Colonial ‘Green City’ ~ Nathan McClintock Conflicting Rationalities and Messy Actualities of Dealing With Vacant Housing in Halle/Saale, East Germany ~ Nina Gribat Post-Disaster Ruins: The Old, the New, and the Temporary ~ Sara Caramaschi and Alessandro Coppola The Post-Crisis Properties of Demolishing Detroit, Michigan ~ Michael R.J. Koscielniak Guarding Presence: Absent Owners and the Labour of Managing Vacancy ~ Lauren Wagner Part 3 ~ Re-Appropriating Urban Vacant Spaces Politicising Vacancy and Commoning Housing in Municipalist Barcelona ~ Mara Ferreri Spatio-Legal World-making in Vacant Buildings: Property Politics and Squatting Movements in the City of São Paulo ~ Matthew Caulkins (Im)material Infrastructures and the Reproduction of Alternative Social Projects in Urban Vacant Spaces ~ Cesare Di Feliciantonio and Cian O’Callaghan Tracing the Role of Material and Immaterial Infrastructures in Imagining Diverse Urban Futures: Dublin’s Bolt Hostel and Apollo House ~ Rachel McArdle Conclusion: Centring Vacancy – Towards a Research Agenda ~ Cian O’Callaghan and Cesare Di Feliciantonio