Taking back control: The future of public services
From Barcelona to Grenoble, towns, cities and regions are reclaiming democratic control over vital services like water and healthcare. We spoke to Transnational Institute researcher Lavinia Steinfort about how, contrary to decades of received wisdom, reversing privatisation results in more accessible, accountable and cost-effective public…
A municipalist response to COVID-19
Barcelona has been hard-hit by the pandemic, in terms of both health and the economy. But this impact hasn’t been evenly distributed across the city: the poorest residents of Barcelona have been hardest hit by the coronavirus. The city’s response to the COVID-19 has focused…
Homeless people mustn’t be abandoned to life on the streets again
Coronavirus has exposed the true numbers of those “hidden homeless” who were sofa-surfing and dependent on the generosity of family and friends. As the UK went into lockdown, close on 15,000 people in England who had been sleeping on the streets or in crowded night…
Reclaiming public health: the communalist healthcare model
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…
Why COVID-19 might not change our cities as much as we expect
COVID-19 impacts provide an opportunity for our cities to shift to new ways of urban living. But only if we couple this opportunity with technology and deliberate collective action will sustained and equitable change happen. What is imperative, therefore, is that governments similarly couple technology…
Local responses to a global pandemic: Women mayors lead the way
Even before the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, was declared a pandemic, prominent women mayors in the United States enacted proactive and innovative policies to prevent local outbreaks and soften the social and economic repercussions. Several Black women mayors, in particular, have led the way in local…
After coronavirus, Lisbon is replacing some Airbnbs and turning holiday rentals into homes for key workers
Essential workers and their families have increasingly been forced out as Airbnb-style holiday rentals have taken over a third of Lisbon’s city centre properties, pushing up rental prices, hollowing out communities and threatening its unique character. Now the city wants to bring the people who…
Will coronavirus kill democratic local government?
If there’s one lesson the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, it is that local government plays a vital role in people’s lives – and elected local politicians are better placed to make decisions that affect the communities they serve than distant apparatuses with little understanding…
Pandemic municipalism
Kate Shea Baird talks about her article, Lessons from the pandemic for the municipalists in Spain, on the This is Hell! podcast, commenting on US politics and Spanish municipalism. Beginning with the question of why Trump is so frightened at the movements that question the…