How cities are leading the fight against climate change
City governments were an important source of environmental protection in the United States from the 1800s until well into the 1900s. However, since Congress passed a series of landmark environmental statutes in the 1970s, scholars have primarily equated environmental law with federal law. NYU Law…
Flatpack Democracy 2.0
As faith in political systems and politicians continues to plummet and climate change escalates, an alternative that empowers local people to rescue their own communities is vital. How can politics be reclaimed by the people? Fed up with seeing their valued local services crumble over…
Social ecology and the right to the city: Towards ecological and democratic cities
Cities are increasingly a major cause of, but also a potential solution for, environmental and social crises. Across the world, a new wave of urban social movements are arising: movements building economic, social, and political alternatives based on solidarity, equality, and participation. At the forefront…
One cheer — more or less — for the Green New Deal
There is no “magic button” that will cause the state to instantaneously disappear, and it has currently preempted the avenues and channels (to paraphrase Paul Goodman) for carrying out many necessary social functions. So long as the state continues to be a thing, I prefer…
Cool people’s movements
As the effects of climate change start to become more obvious year after year, we are faced with a conundrum. Today, progressives need to address both climate change and its effects, like heat waves and flooding. What we need is a political movement that links…
Animal liberation from below: toward a radical interspecies municipalism
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…
The revolution will be ecologised: social change in the 21st century
The climate crisis today demands nothing less than a worldwide social and political transformation. Piecemeal reforms, technocratic schemes, and state-driven ‘climate resilience’ have proven not only ineffective at stymying the effects of climate change, but also utterly incapable of combating its underlying cause: a capitalist…
How radical municipalism can go beyond the local
The rise of loneliness worldwide, the centrality of real estate speculation for global economic growth, and the breakdown of many large-scale factories that helped to bring workers together mean that we have to rethink the ways we demand change. We can build community and force…
How to build a new world in the shell of the old
If we want real change, should we draw up a sketch of a just society and then simply march towards it? We think it’s better to look around and find the seeds of a better future—perhaps dormant—in the present, and nurture them into a viable…