How can we strengthen municipal agendas with international networks?
An interview with Florian Schmidt, District councilor for building, planning and facility management in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Berlin at the Our Common City conference in Budapest (February 22 & 23, 2019). Part one: Part two: Part three: Photo: bady qb
How can activists change politics with limited means?
An interview with David Bravo (Barcelona en Comú) at the Our Common City conference in Budapest (February 22 & 23, 2019). Part one: Part two:
Beyond the local trap: New municipalism and the rise of the Fearless Cities
Rather than essentialising cities as inherently progressive or democratic, the municipal is instead becoming framed as a “strategic front” for developing a transformative politics of scale. Given this critical awareness, this nascent movement demonstrates how local loyalties can be mobilised as part of a progressive…
Berlin builds an arsenal of ideas to stage a housing revolution
Berlin inhabitants are discussing a series of radical measures to limit private interests and reverse the housing crisis. The struggle, led by citizens and supported by the municipal government, could be on the cusp of a housing revolution. However, this revolution could founder due to…
The nation state must be overcome
The tension between right-wing tenets and progressive policies is raising across Europe. If victorious in the 2019 European elections, the right-wing forces would undermine the transnationalist basis of the Union, thus jeopardizing the whole EU project. Overcoming the nation-state approach, both downwards (internally) and upwards…
‘A rebirth of municipal socialism’ in Birmingham? The Council’s policy of ‘local wealth building’ through new municipal services and local procurement
With amazing creativity in the toughest of times, in 2018 in the UK, they were seeing the first shoots of the renaissance of local government for the many, not the few—the rebirth of municipal socialisme. With the objective to seize every opportunity to develop and…
Scaling out: Translocal solidarity and the new municipalism
The new municipalist agenda is shaping up worldwide. The requirement for successful municipalist experiences to exceed the local level and enter the regional or national agenda might jeopardize their existence, since it challenges the very bases of their conception. The notion of growth by “scaling…
How to navigate the disorientation of a seismic world
Even as revolutionary new technologies appear—with the potential to free our lives from drudgery and connect us to one another in ways we had never imagined possible—our undemocratic economy has deployed them as tools of disruption. Dreams of a post-scarcity technological future darken into one…
Social ecology: Communalism against climate chaos
Social ecology, as understood by Murray Bookchin and others, can offer a response to the challenges of climate change. The author describes the philosophy of social ecology and also its political strategy in order to reflect about its ability to overcome the limits of local…