Chapter 2 presents the theoretical contribution of the argument: Successful organizers rely on an understudied and remarkably effective approach – experiential tools – activities designed to attract participants by offering transformative experiences. Often wielded by politically mobilized creatives, experiential tools come in four types – events, social archives, neighbourhood tours, and performances – with the goal of making the protest site the place to be.The chapter sets experiential tools in the context of the literature on social movements. It also discusses the role of networks and prior protest experience in effective mobilization. The chapter moves on to discuss the second outcome of interest: protest impact. It argues that when protestors have allies in city council and competition between local and higher level executives, mobilization has policy impact. The legal system and the variety of capitalismin each country influences the strategies of protest organizers, with important differences between liberal and coordinate market economies.

Chapter 9 focuses on protest impact. It begins by illustrating the role of partisan dealignment, with a discussion of Buenos Aires and Santiago. Cases in these cities followed different paths to mobilization, yet in both sites protest had high impact because organizers found allies at the national level. The chapter then illustrates the pivotal role of the councillor in single-member districts with two divergent cases in Toronto, in Mimico and Parkdale. These cases also illustrate the co-optation of the creative class by real-estate developers – an important lesson because signs indicate that co-optation will become more common. The chapter then examines impact under right-wing partisan alignment, an adverse setting for protesters. In Seoul, the same set of protest strategies led tosuccess in a leftist district (in the Duriban case), yet they failed in a conservative ward (in the Myeong-dong case). The final part of the chapter continues in Seoul, illustrating the change in protest following a shift from development regime to a progressive regime: In Mullae, cultural producers resisted displacement by infiltrating institutions and obtaining support through insider lobbying.