Urban Creative Resilience in Times of Global Polycrisis

Urban Creative Resilience in Times of Global Polycrisis: Berlin's Craft Makers Navigating Systemic Urban Challenges

Urban areas worldwide confront converging crises that challenge conventional development models and governance frameworks. This study examines Berlin’s craft makers as critical cases of “quiet sustainability” -localized practices that address multiple urban challenges without explicit political engagement. Drawing on six months of ethnographic fieldwork with 30 practitioners across diverse craft disciplines, the research demonstrates how micro-enterprises navigate "polycrisis urbanism”, referring to the condition where housing, economic, environmental, and social crises intersect and amplify in urban space. Makers respond through hybrid spatial strategies, alternative livelihood models, and community-centred production practices that simultaneously counter displacement pressures, environmental degradation, and social atomization. These practices illustrate forms of "regenerative urbanism" approaches that build community capacity while addressing systemic challenges through integrated responses that prioritize well-being over growth. Yet makers remain vulnerable to market forces and policy neglect that privilege growth-oriented development over community resilience. The analysis reveals tensions between scaling alternative practices and maintaining their locally-embedded, relationship-based characteristics essential for addressing interconnected urban challenges. The findings suggest cities need governance innovations that support practices providing multiple urban benefits simultaneously, moving beyond sectoral policies toward regenerative urban development models. 

Held by Süheyla Schroeder (Berlin International University of Applied Sciences)

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