My research focuses on the practices of resistance that current urban social movements, recalling what Lefebvre termed “The right to the city” (1996), perform in the creation of “Free Spaces” in the struggles for the house in Rome. Demanding social actors’ participation in urbanisation processes, these grassroots organisations are, basically, reclaiming decisional power on the production and distribution of the space. In the first part of the work I provide an overview on the housing problems in Italy and on how they have been faced by different actors. Then I will focus my attention on one particular movement, the 'coordinamento cittadino di lotta per la casa' in the paradigmatic years of 2011-2013. The aim is to show how movements for the 'right to the house', with their transversality, are actors more and more important in shaping urban dynamics. The focus on the space results to be fundamental because not just the goal of theses movements but also their conditioning starting point. Paper is part of a broader research and shows results coming from first approaches in the field. Methodology used is both quantitative and qualitative.
