"At times I had an ironic feeling that we managed to spoil the whole good thing, leading it towards traditional form. If its a bit on the side of the track, it falls back to the track... towards the House of Citizens(Kansalaistalo)."

The brief quotation is captured from an interview with an executive city official of Joensuu. He is looking back to the conflict between the city officials and squatters from the summer of 2009 that lead to big demonstrations in town space, police actions and compromise via negotiations.

The case study is based on interviews and action research conducted among squatters and the city administration during 2009. Local movement combined anarchistic actions to an effective production of counter-knowledge when occupying one of the oldest buildings in Joensuu. The place was named Väentalo (the House of Multitude) and it became popular among the citizens because of strategic use of media.

By producing an autonomous space and utopistic community the activists were criticising the conditions of living in the neo-liberal town. More importantly, the actions reached beyond the scope of movement and mimiced the society in general. In other words the squatters were challenging the terms of public governance.

Finally, the compromise forced the activists to abandon their original agenda to receive a compensating space for their actions. By very exceptional negotiatons the governance managed to introduce its own goals and norms for the squatter group. The governance captured the counter-democratic group.

In this paper I capture a case where a new social movement applies singular knowledges and contests the status-quo of neo-liberal town, but also a case that reveals the adaptability of social governance.