The paper is part of an ethnography, which follows deeply divided and contested urban space from Istanbul to Berlin. The arguments are based on my fieldwork in Kreuzberg-Berlin, previously known as a secluded “Turkish ghetto,” which has turned into one of the hippest and diverse neighborhoods of Berlin since the reunification. Contrary to predominant view that pits Muslim minority groups against the national majority in the European host states, my work shows that the politics of neighborhood in Kreuzberg generates deep splits within both Turkish-descent and German residents. Ironically, these fault lines facilitate, in turn, the formation of new friendships, bonds and alliance that cuts across these migrant-native dichotomy. I illustrate the ways in which urban divides over contested issues, such as rights, freedoms and neighborhood pressure (mahalle baskisi), travel from the homeland, Turkey, to the so-called “Turkish neighborhood” in Berlin. I argue that while these urban contestations concur with controversies within the states of home and host countries, they also (re)generate new alliances between Kreuzbergers that challenge the states and negotiate the terms of democracy. The paper makes two main points about the affinities between contested urban space and liberal democracy. First, my finding on similar urban splits in the neighborhoods of Istanbul and Kreuzberg-Berlin suggests an analysis of the “reach” of democratic struggle – a struggle that is manifested in urban residents’ demands, practices and negotiations for rights and freedoms. Second, by rethinking the widely contested concept of “scale” in the context of democratic struggle, I explore multiple and interconnected levels of democratic contestation-- urban/local, national/institutional and international. Using the Turkish Muslim minority in Kreuzberg as a case study, I conclude that when both government and its political opposition(s) fail to protect and expand rights and freedoms of ordinary Muslims, the interplay between urban space and states –both immigrant-sending- and immigrant-receiving-- takes on an central role. The multi-scalar quality of contestation, in turn, shapes the degree, depth and reach of liberal democracy.