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What can we learn from Latin America’s solidarity cities?
20th May 2020Acts of solidarity are trying to prevent migrants – especially those without or with only precarious legal status – from falling through the cracks of government responses to the COVID-19 crisis. These acts are necessary because national governments throughout Latin America have turned a blind...
Flatpack Democracy 2.0
16th September 2019As 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...
Homeless people mustn’t be abandoned to life on the streets again
12th August 2020Coronavirus 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...
Reinventing urban democracy in Barcelona
27th March 2015Discussions about creating an alternative city have tended to focus on grassroots movements, community organising and Jane Jacobs-style passion for creating liveable cities. These are all essential parts of the process, but one avenue of change has remained curiously outside of the discussion – taking...
European cities see life without crowds of tourists – And want to keep it that way
15th June 2020The coronavirus shutdown has had a devastating effect on European city’s economy like Amsterdam, Prague and Barcelona. Tourism is the lifeblood of many of these continent’s historic cities, many hope the pandemic will end up changing tourism for the better. According to Shaul Bassi, director...
Cape Town Together: organizing in a city of islands
8th June 2020After apartheid, Cape Town remained a city of islands: social, cultural and economic divisions are the rule. This has long undermined city-wide collective organizing and solidarity. The severe COVID19 lockdown and the goverment response aggravated the situation for many inhabitants. But an unprecedented community-led response...
One cheer — more or less — for the Green New Deal
8th May 2019There 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...
Why COVID-19 might not change our cities as much as we expect
19th July 2020COVID-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...
Residents on the front line in Berlin’s housing revolution
25th June 2020Faced with skyrocketing rents and powerful real estate empires, the citizens of Berlin are fighting back. They have forced the city’s authorities to take up the issue by freezing rents and protecting apartment blocks from speculators. A referendum campaign is under way that would go...
Let children reclaim the streets for a summer of outdoor play
14th June 2020So far, children have featured in the pandemic discussion mostly in relation to the reopening of schools. Now that we know that public spaces can be rapidly transformed by collective action, we can start giving streets back to children. The author of this article puts...
Will coronavirus kill democratic local government?
1st July 2020If 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...
The new municipalism (part 2)
5th April 2020In the second part of the New Municipalism series, Ross talks to Barcelona-based scholar-activist Laura Roth. She talks about the Spanish experience, particularly in relation to Barcelona en Comú, the movement party, which has been in minority government since 2014. Laura talked about a range...