Choose Your Neighbours: Decentralised Urban Planning at the Borderland with Rosa and Zoe

<p>🔗 The Membership Spring Sale for Borderland 2026 is on <strong>Tuesday March 10 17:00 CET</strong>! More information here: <a href="https://talk.theborderland.se/main/">⁠⁠https://talk.theborderland.se/main/⁠⁠</a></p><p><br></p><p>In this episode, Zoe sits down with Rosa to unpack what it was like co-leading <strong>Placement</strong> at Borderland (the “not-festival” where you buy a membership, not a ticket). They zoom in on a very microsolidarity-flavoured question:</p><p><br></p><p><strong>How do you build trust and coordination in a huge, decentralised event without sliding into top-down control?</strong></p><p>Rosa brings an urban planning lens (citizen engagement, bottom-up design, “desire paths”), and Zoe brings lived experience of arriving to Borderland overwhelmed, then gradually learning how the whole system actually works. </p><p><br></p><p>Together they tell the story of how Placement evolved from “first-come-first-served” into something more human: plazas, neighbourhoods, pre-placement, and now “shepherds” (stewards) to help camps connect more with their neighbours.</p><p><br></p><p>They talk about:</p><ul><li><strong>Realities vs Dreams</strong> at Borderland, and why “LARPing an office” can still be playful</li><li>Why camp conflicts often come down to <strong>neighbours</strong> (sound, vibe, rhythm), not “prime real estate”</li><li>How <strong>pre-placement</strong> shifts the mindset from competing for square meters to co-creating shared areas</li><li>The emotional side of decentralisation: why people say “no” first (overwhelm, control, uncertainty)</li><li>A concrete story of a plaza that only worked once people loosened their grip on “straight lines”</li><li>“Aftermath” drone maps and what they reveal about how people <em>actually</em> move and gather</li><li>Power, roles, and the “GPS Stick of Truth” (and how Borderland lets you play with authority instead of hiding it)If you’re into microsolidarity, this is a practical case study in designing at various scales (plazas, neighbourhoods, local stewardship) that make large-scale self-organisation feel more like a living system.</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Links that were mentioned</strong>:</p><p>Rosa (Instagram): <a href="https://www.instagram.com/streets.stockholm">⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/streets.stockholm⁠⁠</a></p><p><a href="studiodanenberg.com">⁠⁠studiodanenberg.com⁠⁠</a></p><p>Zoe (youtube): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@softaccess">⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@softaccess⁠⁠</a></p><p><a href="https://softaccess.org/about">⁠⁠https://softaccess.org/about⁠⁠</a></p><p>Microsolidarity: <a href="https://www.microsolidarity.cc/">⁠⁠https://www.microsolidarity.cc/⁠⁠</a></p><p><br></p><p>💬 What’s your best (or worst) neighbour story from a co-created event? And what micro-structures have helped you trust strangers faster?</p>