4 Touristification and awakening civil society in post-socialist Prague

Michaela Pixová and Jan Sládek

 

 

Soon after the fall of communism in 1989, the Czech capital started to rank among Europe’s top tourist destinations, attracting visitors from all over the world with its beautiful architecture, historical atmosphere and dark yet appealing totalitarian legacies. The number of people visiting the city of 1.2 million has substantially grown, reaching a record of almost 6.1 million visitors and 14.8 million overnight stays in 2014 (CSO 2015a). Despite multiplying complaints about the ‘touristification’ of Prague’s historic city centre, the authorities have welcomed the increase in tourist flows for its economic benefits. The implications of the touristification process are most tangible in certain parts of the Prague Monument Preserve (PMP), an 8.6 km² area in Prague’s historic core (covering the districts of Prague 1 and part of Prague 2), whose valuable assets are being exploited and residents pushed out. Between 1900 and 2001, the number of permanent residents in the PMP decreased from 170,000 to 53,000 (Polívková 2001).

The existence of a ‘tourist’ and ‘non-tourist’ Prague is affecting the city’s socio-spatial structure and human ecology (Hoffman and Musil 2009). Despite early warnings from academic commentators (Cooper and Morpeth 1998; Hoffman and Musil 1999; Simpson 1999), these detrimental effects were long ignored. Only recently have various citizen initiatives and Prague’s planning institutions started to react to those negative effects. So far, however, little academic attention has been paid to how the city’s residents respond to the impacts of mass tourism, particularly by means of protest and resistance. This chapter is based on research that aims to fill this gap. First, Prague’s historic core and its development in a changing political-economic context will be introduced. Then the area’s touristification, depopulation and the post-socialist laissez-faire approach to urban transformation will be discussed. Subsequently, bottom-up social mobilizations in post-socialist Prague will be introduced. The last section will provide insight into the focus, modes of action and claims of contemporary urban social mobilizations around urban issues related to the historic core of Prague.¹

Prague’s historic core in a changing political-economic context

Until the Second World War, Prague’s urban development patterns mirrored other developed European cities (Musil 2001). Prague’s core was the heart of the city’s life, distinguished by a high concentration of historic buildings, heritage sites, as well as diverse functions linked with key administrative and economic activities and people’s everyday life. The central district of Prague 1 was a zone of residence for a considerable population – in 1880, the 116,000 residents of Prague 1 formed one third of Prague’s population. As the city grew, in 1921 the 112,000 residents of Prague 1 formed just over 15 per cent of Prague’s population (Ouředníček and Temelová 2008). The proportion of residents living in Prague 1 decreased throughout the entire twentieth century, falling to around 50,000 (approximately 5 per cent of the entire city’s population) in the 1980s (Ouředníček and Temelová 2008). However, in comparison with most Western European capitalist cities, the city centres of many socialist cities underwent a slower depopulation, retaining their cultural, political and social life (Sýkora 2009). Due to the flaws of the centrally planned economy, housing was scarce, and most of the limited capital investment was drained away to the construction of huge peripheral housing estates (Smith 1996). In Prague, the historic core suffered dilapidation, but the absence of major investments and large-scale redevelopment saved its historic fabric (Musil 2001). In 1971, the Czechoslovak government designated 8.6 square kilometres of the historic core as the PMP, where redevelopment and reconstruction was to be controlled by the historic preservation authorities (Horak 2007: 102–3). Even under socialism Prague attracted about half a million foreign tourists per year (Horak 2007).

In socialist Czechoslovakia, where most dwellings were under state or cooperative ownership, centrally located housing had no special economic value arising from its location. Housing was provided to people by means of the socialist system of housing allocation (Sýkora 2009), creating a new form of ideologically driven socio-spatial inequality: ‘old people, low income households and Romani people were concentrated (or forced to stay) in decaying city centres’, while newly built housing in peripheral estates was typically allocated to younger workers and families (Musil 2001: 292). Despite the low quality of housing in the historic core, the area remained a relatively populated, socially and functionally mixed area (Musil 2001).

After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the country’s democratization and national market reforms led to profound changes in Prague’s physical and social structure. In the city centre, many buildings were privatized (Sládek 2013) and restituted to their pre-war owners (Lux and Mikeszová 2012). Some properties were transferred to municipal ownership. Many long-term residents lost housing security due to new, often unclear ownership relationships and rent deregulation. Fuelled by a non-existent social housing policy, many people faced a precarious housing situation (see Lux 2004). Prague was also hit by a huge influx of foreign investment and visitor flows. The historic core gained a prime position in the newly emerging urban economy, and its decaying buildings and streets were quickly restored and upgraded. In 1992, the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) agreed to put 866 hectares of Prague’s historic centre on its World Heritage List. The pressure for commercial development and the ever-increasing number of international tourists were now the determining forces in the historic core, which has been said to have undergone a process of ‘touristification’ and turned into a ‘tourism ghetto’, according to some authors (Kadlecová and Fialová 2010; Dumbrovská and Fialová 2014), as described in the next section.

Touristification, depopulation and the laissez-faire approach

While the population of the Prague 1 district has kept decreasing (with 30,561 permanent residents in 2011 – four times less than a century before – i.e. only 2.4 per cent of Prague’s population (CSO 2014)), the number of tourists in Prague has kept growing, reaching 6.1 million tourists in 2014 (more than double compared to 2000). Official statistics only include visitors staying in Prague’s official accommodation facilities; the estimate of actual visitors is thus likely to be much higher. Although smaller in size and population, Prague has ranked among top European destinations for urban tourism such as London, Paris, Rome, Madrid or Berlin. One of the first studies on the impact of tourism in the historic core of Prague was conducted by Simpson (1999), who concluded:

The relatively non-regulative approach to development, particularly where it is considered of economic benefit, has already brought about considerable land-use change in the area. Land use is being rapidly transformed (often from residential to commercial uses), the traditional resident population is being displaced and the overall atmosphere and congestion of the streets is being negatively influenced by the city’s visitors. The research, therefore, illustrates a clear need to manage tourism-related activity within the historic core of Prague, if its quality of life for residents and the very character which attracted tourists in the first place are not to be eroded substantially.

(p. 182)

Simpson pointed to the city officials’ laissez-faire approach, which allowed commercial uses to rapidly squeeze out the core’s residential function and displace the resident population, making space for unregulated and unmanaged booming tourism-related uses (Simpson 1999). Depopulation was further accelerated by an extreme rise in property prices instigated via privatization auctions, triggering a dramatic increase in the functions serving upmarket needs, such as hotels, restaurants and shops for tourists and high-income groups (Sýkora 1993, 1999).

The process of depopulation itself was also socially unequal. Some residents were able to buy their apartments and resell them at significantly higher market rates. The less lucky ones did not obtain ownership of their apartments due to house restitution regulations, or obstacles imposed by local authorities (increasingly aware of the value of centrally located dwellings under municipal ownership). Many residents were then gradually pushed out owing to rising rents or evictions. According to Cooper and Morpeth (1998), some of the new landlords used various dubious tactics to evict lower-income and elderly populations in order to replace them with higher-income tenants or more profitable functions. The private sector generated unprecedented pressure for commercial development, due to which not only residential functions, but also everyday services, such as shops used by permanent residents, were being gradually pushed out of the historic core (Sýkora 1999).

In her study, Simpson (1999) warned against the deterioration of the local atmosphere, the unique sense of place and identity of the historic core, and their replacement with globalized consumption practices and a standardized tourist experience. Insensitive and unregulated approaches towards tourism in Prague’s historic core led to street congestion, ‘internationalization, creeping homogeneity and a shift away from a “true” history towards a more sanitized and popularized identity’, as well as ‘a substantial erosion of the sense of place and identity of the historic core’ (p. 182) (Figure 4.1). A decade later, a detailed study of the impact of tourism on the most exposed parts of Prague’s historic core was undertaken by Kadlecová and Fialová (2010), who observed the attributes of a ‘tourism ghetto’, ‘a compact part of urban area where common city functions have gradually been pushed away, or suppressed by the commercial function, namely by a one-track offer of tourist industry services’ (Kadlecová and Fialová 2010: 3). Another recent study conducted by Dumbrovská and Fialová (2014) came to a similar conclusion as Simpson fifteen years ago:

The Royal Path and the entire Old City and Lesser Town are losing their original values of residential area and transforming into a tourism ghetto. The development of tourism in Prague is not sustainable in the long term and if this negative development continuous without proper regulation, Prague will sooner or later be faced with the effect of a tourism trap.

(p. 23)

Three studies conducted over fifteen years (Simpson 1999; Kadlecová and Fialová 2010; Dumbrovská and Fialová 2014) consequently illustrate the uninterrupted process of the touristification of Prague’s historic core throughout the post-socialist history of the city. They all point out that, to date, efforts to put a halt to this unsustainable development have been non-existent or inefficient.

What has caused this situation? In their study of tourism-induced gentrification in Prague, Cooper and Morpeth mention that early post-socialist politicians were highly determined to support accelerated ‘compatibility with neo-liberal accumulation regimes’ (1998: 2253). In Prague, the desire to achieve the urban model of Western capitalist societies triggered an accelerated introduction of free-market principles and a laissez-faire approach to urban development. Horak’s study of Prague’s post-communist institutions and democratic development suggests that this approach allowed the creation of a widespread system of corruption in Prague’s development, owing to which local politicians have tended to strongly support extensive private capital investments and avoid establishing any long-term planning strategies (Horak 2007). In addition, Cooper and Morpeth refer to the neglect of ‘the broader social and environmental objectives of minimizing social exclusion and protecting the nation’s cultural heritage’ in the post-socialist Czech Republic (1998: 2253), which led to various inappropriate and ill-considered cases of handling historic property and sites (Bečková 2005; Biegel 2005; Horak 2007).

Figure 4.1 Prague’s Old Town Square as a ‘theme park’? Congestion, touristification and loss of functions for local residents, 2015.

Source: Author.

The emergence of bottom-up social mobilizations surrounding urban issues in post-communist Prague

In post-communist countries, civil society and its forms of mobilisation and action strategies often differ from those in established democracies (Jacobsson and Saxonberg 2013). Czech civil society has a long tradition and has played an important role in the nation’s history; however, it was negatively affected by the repressive and restrictive socialist rule. Some forms of civil activism nonetheless existed even during that era (e.g. Vaněk 2002; Jehlička 2005), most notably in the form of the dissident movement, eventually enabling the fall of Communism (Flam 2001; Buden 2013). Nevertheless, the enthusiasm of the Velvet Revolution quickly disappeared and civil society in post-communist Czechoslovakia again became passive (Císař 2008). Thus far, the legacies of the former regime continue, such as the remaining strong role of the state, the public’s belief in the state’s paternalistic role, the absence of a strong middle class and the interrupted tradition of charitable donations and volunteering, among other factors (Vajdová 2005: 21). Additionally, surveys of social and political involvement show declining public trust in political institutions (except for local municipalities) and a decline in party membership (Kunštát 2014).

Contemporary Czech political activism is characterized by low individual participation. It is quite diversified, including cases of radical activism, self-organization and episodic mass mobilizations, and is dominated by post-materialist demands, mainly concerning the environment and human rights (Císař 2013). With the exception of radical activism, Czech political activism mostly relies on pressuring and lobbying public authorities, and less on collective public protest. The most active of the new social movements are represented mostly by small professionalized advocacy groups with a substantial transactional capacity, i.e. the ability to cooperate with other activist organizations in pursuing their interests, and with an agenda largely influenced by foreign donors (Císař et al., 2011).

With the exception of Klub Za starou Prahu [The Club for Old Prague] (KZSP), a long-existing interest group which has defended Prague’s heritage since 1900, forms of activism explicitly concerned with urban issues (including tourism, as will be discussed later) did not fully develop until 2010. In the 2010 municipal elections many voters expressed a clear ‘no!’ to twenty years of ODS (Civic Democratic Party) politics in Prague, which were characterised by the lack of inclusion of ‘a broad range of interest communities in decision-making processes’ (Cooper and Morpeth 1998: 2273) – which typically took place behind closed doors (Horak 2007) – and resistance against formulating ‘any systematic policy for guiding decision-making’ in relation to conservation and development in Prague’s historic core (Horak 2007: 201). In 2010 many people therefore voted for a newly created right-wing party, TOP 09. ODS nonetheless created a coalition with the third most voted party (the Czech Social Democrats), side-lining TOP 09 and ostensibly attempting to ensure the continuation of the existing politics and entrenched processes, including constraints on bottom-up, grassroots activities.

Around 2010, members of the public started to increasingly organize in order to protect the city’s urban and social fabric, as well as the interests of ordinary residents. With an increasing frequency, active citizens began to criticize urban governance patterns driven by a laissez-faire approach and corruption, and the concomitant touristification, commercialization and depopulation of the inner city. Such issues, initially criticized only by local residents affected by the impacts of touristification on their everyday life, gradually began to be addressed by other activists, and the historic core became a contested area for different groups. Contemporary demands to improve the situation in the historic core, as well as action strategies towards achieving them, are quite complex and diverse. In the following section dealing with the spread of civic engagement and the opening of the municipal government to public input after 2010, we will see that part of the public authorities eventually began to acknowledge the need to reform the ways in which the city’s development is managed and have started to engage in a dialogue with activists and urban advocacy professionals.

Most forms of civil engagement analysed in our research are not directly aimed at tourism, but rather at the general deterioration of Prague’s historic core (of which the tourism industry is a cause). Both older and younger forms of engagement were identified. Early forms predominantly consisted of individual (or small groups of) residents fighting against displacement, e.g. the defunct Sdružení nájemníků Prahy [Prague 1 Tenants’ Association]; individuals and civic groups concerned with historic preservation (most notably the above mentioned KZSP); and various associations focused on cultural and communal life in centrally located neighbourhoods (Sdružení občanů a přátel Malé Strany a Hradčan – SOPMSH [Association of Citizens and Friends of the Lesser Town and Castle District]; the somewhat younger Komunitní centrum Kampa [Kampa Community Centre] and Sdružení občanů a přátel čtvrti Na Františku [Association of Citizens and Friends of the Na Františku Neighbourhood]), which occasionally engage in protest activities.

Newer forms of engagement since 2010 have mostly consisted of initiatives, associations, NGOs and campaigns led by individual activists. They include Prague’s well established, although still relatively young advocacy NGO, Auto*Mat, which concerns itself with cycling and public space. It has lobbied for a permanent closure of automobile traffic on Smetanovo nábřeží, a street along the banks of the Vltava River in the historic core. Other groups formed since 2010 include Praguewatch, an activist civic association engaged in watchdog activities in the field of urban planning; Pražské Fórum, a voluntary civic association pressing for a more transparent and open municipal government; Buskerville, a civic initiative founded for the purpose of supporting and promoting busking in Prague; Piána na ulici [Pianos in the Street], a project enlivening Prague’s public space with pianos; Pragulic, a social enterprise employing homeless people as alternative tour guides; Corrupt Tour, a satiric project for tourists interested in Prague corruption; and Pražská služba, an artist group making art interventions to point out various issues in public space. To this list can be added the new association Pro Jedničku [For Prague 1] (later renamed Pro1), founded by discontented residents of Prague 1 in 2014, whose critique of the situation in the historic core resulted in their candidacy in municipal elections. Pro1 is the only group which has explicitly targeted tourism-related problems such as ‘alcohol tourism’ – the so-called pub crawls – and Segway tours (Figure 4.1). Also indicative of an increase in bottom-up activism, and therefore included in our research, are the initiators of petitions aimed at saving the following venues and businesses threatened with eviction in the historic core: U Černého Vola pub, La Casa Blů bar, a traditional hardware shop on 28 Října Street, and a public library in the Castle District. In addition, we included the activities of Prague’s squatters and anarchists, a relatively small group making radical claims in the fields of housing and social justice which, over the past few years, have concentrated some of their activities on the historic city centre.

Focus, modes of action and claims of the new urban social mobilizations in the historic centre of Prague

From housing insecurity to collective action: evolution and popular forms of activism in the historic core of post-1989 Prague

Amid the post-socialist euphoria of the 1990s, the first cases of civil activism were initiated by KZSP and local residents dealing with issues connected to the processes of housing privatization and restitution. Through this activity, local residents gained their first political experience and laid the foundations of local civic and political life in the historic core. Eventually, the early core of active citizens who challenged the situation in the historic core evolved into a heterogeneous group of people with different levels of political experience – ranging from activists to professional politicians – and with different domiciles – ranging from historic core dwellers to residents of other parts of Prague, and even to people residing outside the city. Some of them pursue their activities to defend personal interests (e.g. Sdružení nájemníků fighting against rent deregulation), while others seek to protect the quality of life in the historic core more broadly (e.g. petition initiatives to defend small businesses used by locals), engage in building local communities and cultural life (e.g. events organized by SOPMSH) or improve public space and the historic core’s management and planning (e.g. activities of Auto*Mat).

As previously mentioned, Czechs generally prefer non-violent individual strategies, such as interpellations at city council assemblies, contact with politicians and institutions, publicity in the media or awareness-raising activities (e.g. one active resident, a member of Pro1, fought pub crawls and pedestrian-threatening Segway tourism by filming them and sending the videos to relevant institutions). Contested issues that concern larger collectives often involve petitioning. Petition initiatives have mostly been concerned with the use and management of public space and municipal property (e.g. a petition against the use of the Lesser Town Square as a car park; various petitions against expelling traditional and popular enterprises from municipal premises) or activities deemed insensitive to the area of historic preservation and negatively impacting its quality of life (e.g. noisy pub crawls).

Demonstrations are, on the other hand, less commonly used. In 2004 and 2005, there were a few small demonstrations against a new act facilitating further rent deregulation. Attendance was low, since many residents affected by the deregulation did not believe in their ability to affect change. According to a former member of Sdružení nájemníků Prahy 1 and a lifelong Prague 1 resident who lost his dwelling due to privatization, tenants also tended to be afraid of their landlords. In addition, demonstrators lacked the support of the general public, which was affected by rent deregulation to a lesser extent, or not at all. The demonstrations were ineffective, and many people’s housing situation worsened. Somewhat more successful were demonstrations against scandals surrounding heritage protection. Between 2011 and 2013, hundreds of mostly middle-class intellectuals and heritage lovers repeatedly demonstrated against the planned demolition of a house on the corner of Wenceslas Square and Opletalova Street and the intention to replace the undamaged 100-year-old building with a new shopping mall. The protest comprised various other strategies, such as petitions, letter-writing, interpellations and awareness-raising via the media. At the time of writing, the building was still standing, but its fate remained unclear.

The most substantial public mobilizations thus far seem to have been aimed at protecting spaces embodying the city’s memory, not surprising in a city where most citizens are proud of the local history and where relatively few face severe material deprivation. Citizens have become increasingly engaged in protecting the way the city was built and used by previous generations, and have fought to preserve specific areas with a distinct genius loci, comprising not just heritage sites, but also famous and traditional businesses. These are the causes which have attracted a relatively higher participation in demonstrations against certain demolitions within the PMP, or behind the success of the petition aimed at saving the traditional pub U Černého Vola (signed by 4,600 people within the first two days of being launched).

The spread of civic engagement and the opening of the municipal government to public input after 2010

As explained above, an important turning point in relation to citizens’ engagement in urban matters was the municipal election of October 2010. In November 2010, citizens’ disillusion with Prague politics culminated in two demonstrations against the new city government. Prague then saw an unprecedented development of new citizen initiatives and civic associations concerned with various urban issues. Significantly, these events had important implications in terms of the attitude of the city government towards public input into policy-making. After the 2010 election, the political opposition decided to respond to the public critiques of Prague’s management, planning and development. As a result of turbulent turnovers in the municipal government (i.e. several changes of coalition partners), the TOP 09 member Tomáš Hudeček became Prague’s councillor for urban planning. In 2012, a platform called Metropolitní ozvučná deska [Metropolitan Sounding Board] (MOZD) was established to allow representatives of civil society, professionals, academics and politicians to discuss ways of improving the much criticized urban management of the city, including its historic core. In 2013, Hudeček won the post of mayor, and instituted a transformation of the City Development Authority of Prague [Útvar rozvoje města – URM] into the Prague Institute of Planning and Development [Institut plánování a rozvoje hl. m. Prahy – IPR], initiating the preparation of Prague’s new land-use plan and new strategic plan, both of which would have implications for the historic core.

Several activists representing civil society organizations concerned with urban issues (most notably Auto*Mat, KZSP), including some of the newer ones (Praguewatch and Pražské Fórum), were invited to join MOZD to discuss the city’s future and new planning documents. Public discussions were also dedicated to the situation in the historic core. A debate on 16 June 2014 was also joined by the Prague City Tourism office, and all MOZD participants agreed that the city centre’s touristification process has many drawbacks. However, the prevailing solution proposed has been to advocate the provision of better quality services and the promotion of Prague to a more discerning tourist clientele, i.e. people with higher purchasing power. So far, these discussions have not led to any policy change. The dominant rhetoric of the municipal authorities and other professionals seems to remain focused on the financial gains from tourism, and does not tackle the decreasing liveability of the city centre. Despite the improved attitude of the city government towards public input, incentives for social mobilizations thus remain numerous. Our research identified three broad types and forms of mobilization concerning the historic core of Prague, which differ in terms of their members, methods of action and agenda. These three types, and tensions between them, are analysed in the following sections.

Advocacy and lobbying in Prague 1 district

The slow opening of Prague’s city government towards public input is not reflected in all Prague districts. Our research revealed increasing citizens’ participation in the assemblies of the Prague 1 District Council, and many individual attempts to contact politicians in order to voice various claims and complaints. However, these are often ineffective. So far the district authorities of Prague 1 have not taken steps towards developing more inclusive forms of decision-making. The fragmentary nature and frequent ineffectiveness of Prague 1 residents’ protest activities has resulted in the formation of a new civic association, Pro1, which was founded by a group of discontented residents of Prague 1 in 2013 and officially registered in 2014. The group was led at the time of writing by Kateřina Klasnová, a former party politician who became popular among local active residents for her willingness to listen to their complaints, unlike most other representatives of the local government. Members of Pro1 have been active regarding various issues – against Segway tourism, disturbances caused by organized but unregulated ‘alcohol tourism’, massive development projects (mainly new shopping malls and hotels), illegal buildings, the expansion of night economy establishments, non-transparent sales and leases of municipal property and other cases of wasteful expenditure by the local government. Klasnová argued, in an interview, that ‘many people think they are alone with their problems’ and that Pro1 can help channel their claims. Individuals can use the group’s social capital and knowledge to help solve their issues, and their individual efforts gain more relevance with the group’s backing. During the municipal election in October 2014, Pro1 representatives joined forces with the local Green Party to form the group Zelená pro Jedničku [Green for One], gaining two councillors on the Prague 1 District Council.

New creative strategies and the fight for public space

Since 2010, issues in the historic core have started to be increasingly addressed by means of ‘creative’ strategies, such as events, performances, festivals, theme tours, etc. They are mostly pursued by a younger generation, representing part of what could be called Prague’s ‘creative class’, comprised of freelancers, artists and people working in NGOs, whose modus vivendi is to network, both online and offline. Their activities and initiatives, often inspired by foreign examples from other European cities, are driven by specific individuals and quickly change. A typical area of interest is public space: the desire to creatively change the spaces of people’s everyday lives and to bring locals (back) into public spaces, especially the historic core, where public space has become dominated by tourists and tourism infrastructure.

Creative strategies in public spaces challenge or highlight contested and controversial issues, sometimes accompanying other forms of protest. An example of this was a human chain created around a block of buildings as a symbolic disagreement with the closure of the Latin bar La Casa Blů – one of the last original establishments in the city centre, popular with both locals and foreigners living in Prague, that has not yet fallen sacrifice to retail gentrification. The event was accompanied by petitioning. Both activities were organized by a regular patron with no previous activist experience. Praguewatch has organized several thematic tours aimed at critiquing various cases of bad urban development in Prague. In cooperation with Pražské Fórum, it organized a parade of activists dressed in medieval costumes and touring around sites epitomizing heritage destruction, reading out loud descriptions of misconduct by authorities, developers and private owners, and criticizing the work of Jan Kněžínek, the then director of the Prague City Hall Heritage Department.

Thematic tours have also been organized by the following groups. Pragulic, a social enterprise, employs homeless people as tour guides with the intention of improving the public perception of homelessness. By bringing their clients to sites that conventional visitors never visit or overlook, Pragulic provides an alternative to the standard tourist experience. The Corrupt Tour is organised by a small organization which seeks to disrupt the dominant glamorizing narratives about the historic core by showing sites that embody the city’s clientelistic politics, and by introducing tourists to the city in a less superficial way. Despite its subversive character, the organizers see their enterprise as yet another form of touristic exploitation of the city, i.e. making profit from the city’s touristic potential. A positive change in public space was achieved by the initiative Buskerville, a small group of musicians who managed to achieve institutional changes leading to the simplification of the system of permits needed by buskers to perform in public spaces – mainly in the historic core. Prior to that, it had been quite rare to encounter live performers in the streets of Prague. Finally, an example of a festival was a series of five street fairs called Nábřeží žije!, organized by Auto*Mat and other local actors. The fairs took place on Smetanovo nábřeží Street, along the banks of the Vltava River, which has spectacular views of Prague Castle and Charles Bridge. The idea of the fairs was to challenge the street’s heavy automobile traffic by turning it temporarily into a space that can be experienced in a pleasant, cultural and sociable way. Obtaining a permit from the authorities to organize such a large-scale event was facilitated by Auto*Mat’s long-term professional advocacy in the planning processes of the City of Prague.

The right to the historic core – small-scale radical and resistance activities

More radical claims and forms of resistance occur through the activities of a group of Prague squatters and their supporters, numbering approximately 100. In the Czech Republic, squatting is highly repressed, and after the eviction of the last famous squat in Prague (Milada) in 2009, the group’s agenda has mainly focused on finding a suitable space for a cultural and social squat. While being spatially unanchored, the hitherto rather self-focused group embarked on a broader critique of the housing market, especially speculative practices, increasing unaffordability and the development of the city’s spaces according to their exchange value instead of their use value, serving mostly the interests of the elites and their consumption patterns. The group started to promote people’s right to the city and attempted to bring attention to particular issues, including a few in Prague’s historic core, where the criticized phenomena are the most tangible. It has organized several rallies, parades and happenings; since 2009, several underused buildings in the city centre have been symbolically occupied, most notably the public baths on Apolinářská Street and the sixteenth-century palace in the Pohořelec, Castle District.

The group has also engaged in helping several tenants affected by their landlords’ speculative practices. In the first case, a new landlord attempted to compel remaining tenants to move out of his building in Prague 1 by providing emergency accommodation to people evicted from Milada. Squatters nonetheless helped the tenants fight off the owner’s contested displacement practices (Pixová 2013). Three years later, a few squatters were asked to help the only remaining tenant in an abandoned residential building in Prague 2, who sought protection from being extorted by his landlords after he had won a lawsuit against their attempt to unlawfully evict him. Having his apartment repeatedly robbed and wrecked, the tenant invited squatters to occupy part of the house in order to gain their protection. In both cases, the landlords eventually managed to enforce their commercial interests by expelling the unwanted dwellers.

The group is still hoping to start a cultural and social squat. Until recently, their marginal position within society and their distrust of authorities inhibited them from turning to professional lobbying or advocacy at the institutional level, and limited their strategies to (mostly unsuccessful) negotiations with private owners of underused property, events and rallies, and raising awareness via the Internet and alternative media. Nonetheless, in 2014 and 2015, some of the squatters joined with other active citizens – mostly young people such as students, artists and activists involved in other mobilizations – and created the initiative Klinika, named after an abandoned state-owned clinic that the initiative has claimed for community purposes. The initiative had relatively far-reaching public support and at the time of writing (June 2015), it had been granted temporary permission to use the building by the government. The clinic is not located in the centre of Prague; nonetheless, successful negotiations with national, municipal and district governments are a precedent which can potentially facilitate similar negotiations for buildings in the historic core.

Lines of divisions between urban social mobilizations

If one considers the objectives and strategies displayed by the various citizens’ groups mobilized about the city’s historic core, a particular distinction emerges, which reflects Prague’s divided nature due to tourism as depicted by Hoffman and Musil (2009). Our analysis of mobilizations related to the historic core has shown that residents of the historic core tend to defend their homes, the historic core’s liveability, or worry about how district governments manage public resources, while the quality of public space, heritage protection, or the way the city at large is planned, regulated and managed, are issues advocated by activists regardless of their place of residence (i.e. including residents from the wider city who do not live in Prague 1). These broader aspirations are typically driven by the desire to develop Prague as a city that is inclusive, vibrant, diverse, liveable, pedestrian friendly, ‘authentic’ and with a sustainable tourism industry, but in some cases these aspirations go against the interests of the local residents of Prague 1.

One example was the attempt to permanently close automobile traffic on Smetanovo nábřeží Street, on the basis of an experiment in which the street was used for a fair, called Nábřeží žije! (Living Waterfront), over five autumn Saturdays in 2013. Preceded by a year-long debate, the event was supported by municipal authorities (especially IPR) as a response to the campaign of several NGOs, particularly Auto*Mat, which were advocating a more comprehensive and inclusive management of particular parts of the city centre. Smetanovo nábřeží Street was denounced as an example of a particularly attractive space ruined by the dominance of automobile traffic, and municipal authorities were criticized for their neglectful approach towards local residents and their alleged interests. However, closing traffic on this particular street clearly had not been discussed with local residents – active citizens from the historic core were actually opposed to it, complaining about traffic getting diverted to other neighbourhoods. Members of SOPMSH especially complained about the Lesser Town, on the other side of the river, being hit the hardest during the five Saturdays when Nábřeží žije! took place.

An inverse example of such antagonism stems from activists’ different understanding of the notions of quality of life and public space. While the Pro1 association has lobbied against the loud and repetitive noise of busking activities, the Buskerville initiative has invested a lot of energy into facilitating live performances in the streets. Live performances are attractive for tourists and residents who live outside of the historic core, but locals find them disturbing. Buskerville nonetheless argues that the authorities have replaced the repression of busking with ill-advised regulations; busking is supported only in a limited number of areas, and buskers therefore fight for those areas, sometimes even by overpowering each other’s music. Non-existing regulations for the length, volume or type of performance further deepen the conflicts. Pro1 members have also been complaining about night disturbances, disorder and untidy streets caused by tourists participating in pub crawls. These are further perpetuated by a lack of policing, the continuous expansion of the night-time economy in the area around Dlouhá Street and by concentrations of taxis. These complaints are often dismissed by citizens from other parts of Prague, who argue that life in the city centre cannot be expected to be calm. Since many Prague citizens avoid the city centre, few of them are aware of the current situation, nor of the fact that pub crawls might gather up to two hundred drunken foreign visitors who cannot be managed by the usual two-person police patrols. The authorities have dealt with the problem by publishing a map demarcating areas where night noise ordinances apply and installing signboards alerting people to these ordinances.

Controversy also surrounded the case of the group Pražská služba painting over the famous Lennon Wall mural in the Lesser Town in white and writing in black ‘WALL IS OVER’. Since the 1980s, the wall had been covered by graffiti connected to John Lennon, becoming a symbol of global ideals and young people’s resistance against communism. Pražská služba reacted to the fact that the wall, which the communist regime had kept repainting, had now become a tourist attraction empty of political meaning. The intervention raised both outrage and support.

Conclusion

The citizens of Prague are well aware of the effects of Prague’s touristification. They are nonetheless not against tourism and tourists. From their perspective, tourism itself is not the true cause of problems and conflicts in the historic core. The adverse impacts of tourism, such as commercialization, depopulation and decreasing liveability, are rather seen as the consequence of mismanaged development, mainly blamed on the laissez-faire approach and corruption of the municipal government. To date, explicit opposition against tourism, although small in scale, has been triggered only by the phenomenon of ‘alcohol tourism’ and Segway tours. Other mobilizations have been mostly driven by opposition to various cases of further deterioration of the historic core, i.e. the demolition of historic buildings, the evictions of traditional venues and businesses or new developments in the PMP. Actors involved in these contestations are both residents of the historic core, as well as activists and organizations concerned more broadly with various urban issues in Prague, frequently concerning heritage conservation and the quality of public space. Most contestations are non-violent, mainly based on communication and lobbying of the authorities or creative strategies. Pressure is typically expressed by petitioning, while demonstrations are usually held only if other strategies fail to bring about change.

With the exception of Prague’s squatters, who challenge capitalist urban restructuring by employing direct action in claiming their right to use abandoned buildings, other Czech activists are not making radical claims and are rather ‘reformists’. Their demands are based on the belief that most problems, including those connected with tourism, can be solved by good governance and a more efficient performance of the authorities. From their perspective, this would lead to the harmonious development of the entire city, allowing the historic core to function as a sustainable mixed-use area that satisfies both the needs of tourism and local residents. The municipal government has been under mounting pressure to take good care of public spaces and the city’s heritage and memory, and replace its laissez-faire approach with more regulation and strategic planning.

In comparison with the initial absence of citizen activism in the 1990s, our research has shown a renaissance of bottom-up activities in local political life on various urban issues. The picture of existing mobilizations in Prague is, however, rather scattered, characterized predominantly by isolated events, endeavours and struggles pursued by groups and individuals that scarcely communicate with each other. Due to the prevailing reformist approach and paternalistic attitude of the Czech public and Czech state, many active citizens have attempted to enter the formal realm of municipal politics. Since 2010, many new political groups and parties (mostly labelled ‘independent’) have emerged, and in 2014 the number of people running for municipal elections was the highest since 1989 (234,000 in 2014 compared to 160,000 in 1994) (CSO 2015b). Some of their candidates, including quite a few activists from the movements described in this chapter, were successful. However, tourism and the influx of tourists into the city has not, to date, been a central topic in Prague’s formal political arena, and tangible policy changes in this area do not look likely. The city government might ban Segway tours or regulate pub crawls. There might be more attractive things to do in the city centre for locals or fewer demolitions of historic buildings. But for the moment, the historic core’s touristification process will most likely remain untamed, at least while urban tourism flows are in full bloom.

Note

1 The research is based on long-term observation of developments in Prague’s historic core over the period 2009–15, and on 21 in-depth interviews conducted between April 2014 and July 2015 with active citizens and representatives of initiatives related to various local issues. Respondents varied in age and political experience; eleven respondents resided in the historic core, ten outside. Unstructured interviews were also performed with representatives of relevant institutions (i.e. the Prague Institute of Planning and Development, the municipal council and Prague City Tourism – the institution responsible for the city’s tourism marketing). This research was supported by Grant no. 14-24977P from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic as part of the project ‘Contested Czech Cities: Citizen Participation in Post-Socialist Urban Restructuring’.

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