Despite the ongoing violence of deracinated dispossession as it compounds Silicon Valley imperialism, Orientalist fantasy, and presocialist property geographies, the fight against racial banishment endures. Over a decade after the 2010 Coastei Street eviction, residents are still wastelanded in Pata Rât. In December 2021, amid the covid-19 pandemic and increased housing precarity, Căși Sociale acum! convened another of what have become annual commemorations of the Coastei Street eviction—this one specifically highlighting the incongruities of Cluj having been branded a smart city. A banner and light displays were hung from Elisabeta Bridge, spelling out, “I miss social housing,” and “Me too.” An “online march” was also convened entitled, “To whom does the smart city belong?” Tenants and activists w ere encouraged to share photos on social media about the smart city’s failure to address housing. Hundreds participated, displaying photos of signs being held with messages questioning: “To whom does the smart city belong, if public interest is only for profit?” “To whom does the smart city belong, if hundreds of people live without electricity and hot water in Pata Rât (near the landfills)?” “To whom does the smart city belong, if it is allowed to evict the most vulnerable ones?” “To whom does the smart city belong, if in the last five years there have been less than ten social housing units allocated (each year) for several hundred applications?”151 A group of activists gathered next to a new “smart” bus stop on Memorandumului Street, holding a placard questioning, “To whom does the smart city belong, if you need to leave the city, because you cannot afford a home?” Indeed, among the hollowed-out Siliconized city, marked by the tower ing ntt Data tower, new luxury condos, and now even a Wizard of Oz nursery where the Coastei Street home used to be, to whom does the smart city belong?
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