Cyber security, data sovereignty, digital participation and digital services, complex topics that cannot be solved overnight. But the new government of Amsterdam is committed to dealing with these challenges. In contrast to the idea of the smart city, the aim is to develop new policies...

The cities of Barcelona, Freetown, Mexico, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo have co-founded a network focused on gender equity, with mayors warning that the Covid-19 pandemic risks widening inequalities. Through ‘CHANGE’ (City Hub and Network for Gender Equity), the cities will share best practices, policies...

PENGON-FoE  was established as an umbrella organization to coordinate among various Palestinian non-governmental organizations tackling issues of environmental sustainability in Palestine. It remains the only Palestinian environmental organization’s network that works in both the West Bank and Gaza, with fourteen organizational members within it. PENGON...

Did Barcelona en Comú preserve a decentralizated structure or adopted a conventional centralized organization during the 2015 Barcelona City Council election? In this article, the authors analyze the Twitter networks of the parties that ran for this election by measuring their hierarchical structure, information efficiency...

While city and state government could do more to keep hospitals stable, by combining the latest practice and theory, we have the potential to develop a functional health system that serves the community and values healthcare workers. Yet this requires a reconstructive and radically democratic...

In the US, Minneapolis is not the only city asking the question of how to approach public safety and emergency response after national unrest following the death of George Floyd. The calls to redirect money away from the police come as cities face steep budget...

The global movements of 2011 reconfigured urban space as a new interface of collective action and policy creation. The new political narrative of cities is serving to counteract prevailing neoliberal narratives.More than a phrase, “the Cities of the Commons vs. global neoliberalism” could be understood...

In Spain, as in other countries, the electricity sector remains dominated by a handful of large companies, powerful enough to impose their interests and hinder the energy transition. Movements against energy poverty and green cooperatives show a path towards greater energy democracy, but a third...

Selection of ROAR’s coverage over the past years of the Rojava Revolution, a struggle for autonomy in northern Syria initiated in July 2012. Photo: Miriam Espacio

The political Left, especially in its anti-authoritarian strains, has a long history of supporting welfare and even rights for nonhuman animals. Anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy and Elisée Reclus were vegetarian and drew explicit links between violence against humans and other species. Similar views were...

Since the beginning of the UK coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, tens of thousands of people have lost their lives. But the coronavirus crisis is not only a health crisis, it has had far reaching effects on people’s lives and livelihoods. Across the UK, communities have come...

Universal healthcare, a green economy, affordable and sustainable housing, and much more: for many people, the Green New Deal sounds too good to be true at a time when trust in politicians has been eroded by too many empty promises. This is why locally organised, democratic movements are not just crucial to...