“Who owns the ground?” is a question central to all societies, because space is as vital a resource as air and water. The Property Issue takes the film 0199 The Property Drama as its point of departure and aims to help change how we view urban land and encourage land law reform to return land governance to the local level. In collaboration with Arno Brandlhuber, Olaf Grawert, and station+ (ETH Zurich), ARCH+ claims that there is no alternative but to politicize land. This means first developing a political economy of the city and showing that the current state of “Ownership and Access,” as the first section is called, is anything but “natural.” This situation is illustrated by the lead article, “The Ground-Rent of Art and Exclusion from the City” by the philosopher Wolfgang Scheppe, who uses the example of Venice to describe current urban development from a broad historical perspective.
Another realm whose order has always been presented as natural is the domestic sphere. To this day, the work of reproduction—meaning all activities in the domestic sphere such as raising children, care, cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping, which are still largely done by women—falls outside of the economic equation. This blind spot is revealed with the help of feminist theory in the second section on “Production and Reproduction.” Dolores Hayden, Silvia Federici, and Dogma/Realism Working Group examine the domestic sphere as a genuinely political place. Ultimately, the question of land ownership cannot be discussed without mentioning the housing question—the two are closely intertwined. A main theme in this issue is empowerment, as people form new solidarity networks to defend existing rights of access while simultaneously negotiating new ones. The third section thus examines the notions of “Right and Solidarity.” In addition to authors such as Raquel Rolnik and Naomi Klein, who view the question of landownership from a colonial perspective, Joseph Nevins calls for a “right to the world.” The many contributions on politics and economics reveal not only prevailing lines of conflict, but also the potential to redefine policy with the long-term aim of establishing land, and thus the city, as a commons.