Municipalism and feminism then and now
Hilary Wainwright talks to Jo Littler. Hilary Wainwright discusses municipalism and its relationship to feminism, past and present. She discusses how the women’s liberation movement and in particular its creation of collective childcare produced a form of prefigurative politics which also opened up the possibilities…
Looking beyond electoralism: Radical municipalism in the UK?
Many on the left have laid the blame for defeat at the door of Brexit. It’s imperative that we also examine why Brexit became such a central issue and why the left was incapable of addressing it. This failure to address Brexit in part stems…
Getting privatisation undone puts centre-left in good shape in Hamburg
In September 2013, 51% of the electorate voted to “re-municipalise” the local electricity and district heating networks, as proposed by grassroots initiative “Our Hamburg Our Grid”. And while the energy debate has only played a minor role in this year’s election campaign, it has increased…
As climate risk grows, cities test a tough strategy: Saying ‘No’ to developers
Last year Virginia Beach became one of a small but growing number of communities willing to say no to developers when it rejected a proposal to build a few dozen homes on this soggy parcel of 50 acres. A judge recently ruled that the city…
City problems: A fairly true Barcelona story
Gala Pin, Barcelona City councillor from 2015 to 2019, reflects on her experience at the front row of the municipalist transformation of the city during the first government of Ada Colau. Photo:
The municipalist moment
Movements on the left are increasingly looking to build power at the local level. The question is how we can leverage municipal gains to transform the system at expanding scales. Photo: Hello I’m Nik 🇬🇧
Electoral road to socialism
Democratic socialists rely heavily on electoral strategies to bring about socialism, but elections make a poor venue for radical working-class struggles. Can electoral politics shift us from capitalism to socialism? Photo: Pixabay
Radical cities in Latin America: Past and present
Even before Hugo Chávez and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rose to national power and kicked off discussions of a Pink Tide, scholars and activists celebrated the municipal alternative in Latin America, where Porto Alegre’s participatory budgeting and El Alto’s cooperatives set the horizon of…
Meet the city council at-large candidate endorsed by Elizabeth Warren
Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren recently endorsed Philadelphia City Council contender Kendra Brooks, from the Working Families Party. This interview with K. Brooks deepens her views on politics. Photo: Felipe Ribeiro