Formally sanctioned interim uses have become increasingly popular in European cities. They have also become linked more closely to debates on (in-)security, however, giving rise to specialized scholarly and practitioner literatures on that linkage. In this journal article, Thomas Betschart and I map out and then critically interrogate the directions of this emergent knowledge base. We situate the literatures and ponder the clarity with which they define their core concepts, i.e., ‘security’ and ‘interim space’. We then reflect on the ways the literatures apprehend the governance of such spaces, and on the impact of temporality and termination on the security politics of such places. In the article, we argue that the emergent knowledge base highlights an increasingly popular phenomenon—but also that its conceptual precision requires further sharpening still, and that it ought to be developed into a considerably more holistic, empirical and critical perspective more generally.

Thomas Betschart; Jonas Hagmann (2026). Interim urban uses and the politics of safety: Interrogating the emergent scholarly and practitioner knowledge base. Urban Studies. OnlineFirst. PDF