## // Basic Idea

Who actually has time to care today? For others or for themselves? Most people don't. Care work is done privately. Often by women*. Often unpaid. Often in addition to wage labour. A feminist response to this is: this work must be brought out of the private sphere. It must become a shared task. That is exactly what *socialisation* means in this context.

## // Key Demands

- Organising housework collectively. For example through communal kitchens.
- Collective childcare.
- Care in public, democratically managed hands.
- A significant reduction in working hours for all.
- Guaranteed subsistence-level basic incomes.
- No longer treating the nuclear family as the central site of care.

Caring Cities are a radically feminist socialisation project. They start exactly where patriarchal and capitalist domination have developed their most effective pacification strategy. In the sphere of reproduction and care work. The prevailing system is based on a liberal subject. It is modelled on the white man. With invisible care support. A subject that imagines itself independent. While others do the bulk of the reproductive work. That makes his "autonomous" life possible in the first place.

Feminist socialisation concretely means: making care relations and strategies visible. Making them discussable. With a new, feminist pleasure in collective theoretical work. It is about collectively capturing: what needs exist? Who does which care work? How can this work be redistributed? Commons – whether as a welfare state or as self-organised structures – must always be fought for. They do not fall from the sky. Caring Cities are therefore both: utopian project and resistant practice. They build alternative structures. At the same time, they sabotage existing patriarchal and capitalist relations.

## // Why Caring Cities Are Radical

Most political and economic models are tailored to a specific figure. The epitome of the "liberal subject": the independent man. For a long time, this concretely meant the white man. Who goes to work in the morning. And comes back in the evening. While someone else does the laundry. Cares for the children. Prepares the meals. Looks after the elderly parents.

This model appears to us as an "autonomous life". In reality, it is a construction. It only works because others do the invisible work. Caring Cities start exactly there. At the point where patriarchal and capitalist structures make themselves particularly invisible. In the private. In the domestic. In the seemingly incidental.

## // What This Means in Practice

Feminist socialisation means: making the invisible visible. This involves three steps.

**Naming care and making it discussable.** What actually happens on an ordinary day? Who cooks? Who comforts? Who listens? Who organises? As long as this work is not recognised as work, it cannot be fairly distributed.

**Thinking care together – with pleasure in theory.** This may sound dry at first. But it is important. Those who want to change relations must understand them. Doing theoretical work together – and enjoying it – is itself a political practice.

**Mapping and redistributing care.** Who in a group or a city has which needs. Who does which care work. Where are the gaps. All this can be concretely captured. Only then does it become visible how care work could be distributed differently.

## // Fought for, Not Given

Caring Cities are not a cosy project. Collectively managed structures – whether state social benefits or self-organised initiatives – were not given from above. They were won in decades of struggles. And must be defended and expanded today.

That is why Caring Cities are two things at once: an idea of how things could be. And a practical resistance to current conditions. They build alternatives. And simultaneously disrupt what exists.

*Key reference: Barbara Fried, Hannah Eyssel, Nilo Holdorff, Elisa Otzelberger, Fanni Stolz & Alex Wischnewski, Care-Arbeit vergesellschaften: Kommunalpolitische Werkzeugkiste für eine "Sorgende Stadt", Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (2024)*

# /1 Public Luxury & Private Sufficiency

We usually imagine luxury as something private. The big house. The expensive car. The exclusive trip. But luxury could also mean something else. Something that belongs to everyone. This is the idea of *public luxury*. High-quality, beautifully designed places and offerings. Every person can use them. Regardless of income or status. Not ownership, but shared enjoyment.

## // What Public Luxury Looks Like

A park so well-maintained that you enjoy spending a whole afternoon there. A library that is inviting, bright and well-equipped. A swimming pool that is fun to be in. A school that is beautifully built – not just functional. Barrier-free streets. Wide pavements. Good seating. Clean public toilets.

The crucial point: these places are so good that even wealthy people want to use them. They don't seek private alternatives. Because there is no reason to.

This is precisely where the democratic potential lies. When public space deteriorates, the privileged retreat. To private clubs. Private pools. Private schools. Society divides itself. Public luxury counteracts this. It brings people together. Instead of separating them.

## // The Counterpart: Private Sufficiency

Public luxury involves a second idea: *sufficiency*. The word sounds cumbersome. But it means something simple. Having enough rather than always more.

The private sphere – what we own as individuals – should be limited to what a good life needs. Not more. "Enough" here is not a modest renunciation. But a battle cry. Because the entire economy operates on the principle of "more". More growth. More consumption. More ownership.

Public luxury reverses this logic. Instead of asking: "How can I have the best for myself alone?" – it asks: "How can we create the best for everyone?" Public space then is not the minimum that just about suffices for everyone. But the maximum that everyone is entitled to.

## // What This Means for Caring Cities

For a Caring City, public luxury is the material foundation. Imagine a city where daycare centres are bright and spacious. Where care facilities look inviting. Not off-putting. Where communal kitchens make you want to eat together. Where squares and meeting spaces are so beautifully designed that you enjoy spending time there.

In such a city, the privatisation of care work becomes superfluous. No one has to retreat into their own living room. Because the public sphere is uncomfortable. The public sphere becomes an invitation.

*Key reference: communia e.V. & BUNDjugend (eds.), Öffentlicher Luxus, Dietz Verlag (2023)*