How Are Cities Actually Made? Insights from Dr. Tuna Taşan-Kok on Spatial Governance
In the final webinar of the Housing Commons Research Centre’s inaugural season, we turned to one of the most fundamental questions in urban planning: how are cities actually made?
On May 28, Dr. Tuna Taşan-Kok joined us, along with co-authors Sara Ozogul and Andre Legarza, to introduce key ideas from their new book, Spatial Governance Landscapes: Regulation, Property, and Planning. Drawing on extensive research in the Amsterdam metropolitan region, the conversation offered a rich framework for understanding the forces that shape housing outcomes and urban development.
Beyond Separate Actors: A Systems View of Urban Change
One of the session’s most valuable reframings was its challenge to the idea that planners, developers, governments, and communities operate in isolation. In reality, cities are shaped through ongoing negotiation, adaptation, and sometimes conflict between deeply interconnected interests. Understanding those relationships, rather than treating each actor separately, opens up a more honest picture of how urban change actually occurs.
The discussion examined how planning regulation, property markets, investment flows, and governance systems interact in ways often invisible to those seeking to influence outcomes. Making these systems legible, the speakers argued, is itself a precondition for meaningful change.
Power, Policy, and the Practical Path Forward
A recurring theme throughout the conversation was the question of power: where it resides, how decisions get made, and where opportunities exist to shift the relationship between markets, governance, and the public interest. For researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and communities working toward more equitable and collective housing futures, this framing offers both a more complete diagnosis and a more realistic foundation for action.
Closing a Season of Conversations
This webinar brought the Housing Commons Research Centre’s first full season of programming to a close. Over the past year, the HCRC has hosted conversations exploring housing through the lenses of land, governance, stewardship, design, community ownership, Indigenous planning, international learning, and collective futures, from Reimagining Housing as Commons to Loyal to the Soil to Held Together. All recordings are available to watch.
- “True to This, Not New to This” — Webinar on Black Land Stewardship
- Exchanging Futures: International Perspectives on Housing Commons
- Held Together: Research Perspectives on Community Land Trusts Around the World
- Loyal to the Soil: Eco-villages and Eco-communities in Canada
- On Bricks, Bonds, and Belonging: Material and Relational Theories of the Commons
- How Are Cities Actually Made? Insights from Dr. Tuna Taşan-Kok on Spatial Governance
The HCRC will be taking a short summer hiatus before returning in the fall with a new season of programming. Upcoming conversations will explore housing precarity and eviction, housing policy reform, Indigenous land rights, land-back initiatives, and community-led development, broadening the lens to spotlight research and initiatives from across the wider New Housing Alternatives (NHA) partnership.
More programming is on the way for fall 2026. Stay tuned.
