ABSTRACT
New forms of public space can be defined and produced in urban struggles, as representations of space acquire a performative character. The way people project their desires in urban struggles moulds the way they envisage space as a defining aspect of the kind of common life they try to protect or establish. Most of contemporary urban struggles seem to confront an array of dominant policies which converge in the process of gentrification. Gentrification is characterized by differing acts of recuperation of the urban centres by the middle class. Urban struggles which develop in opposition to gentrification policies have thus to face the dilemmas and opportunities raised in the prospect of combining identity supporting claims with demands for access. Urban porosity can be approached as a potential characteristic of spatial arrangements as well as those spatial practices which constitute the inhabiting experience. The idea of urban osmosis has strong roots in the collective memories and experiences of the Prosfygica inhabitants.
