Universal healthcare, a green economy, affordable and sustainable housing, and much more: for many people, the Green New Deal sounds too good to be true at a time when trust in politicians has been eroded by too many empty promises. Aaron Vansintjan argues that the...

This  article is an homage to, and review of: The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship by Murray Bookchin. In Bookchin’s writing we can see that in his account is a pioneer effort that challenges misleading images of modern industrial achievement and triumphant western democracy....

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...

Given “new municipalist’s” aspirations towards the transformation of the municipal state, how might state theory inform research and practice on new municipalism going forward? This is the question with which Bertie Russell concludes his paper which focuses on municipalist initiative Barcelona En Comú’s endeavours towards...

In many German cities, efforts are underway to shift focus away from cars. These include a ban on old diesel cars and a push for more cycling infrastructure. In a country where carmakers sit at the throne of the economy and have a major political...

A radical change is taking place. Cities around Europe – through platforms, movements and international networks – are creating paths for citizens to participate in and influence politics directly. Joan Subirats, one of the founders of Barcelona’s municipalist platform Barcelona en Comú, discusses how cities...

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 paper examines the successes, limitations and possibilities of citizen platforms after their first months in power in cities across Spain. Photo: Pixabay

For many people in Santiago de Chile, October 18, 2019 marked the beginning of a new reality, one which required adapting to the emerging culture of rebellion. In a time when even the most peaceful of marches are broken up with tear gas and water...

For a long weekend in September, 29 2019 organizations dedicated to participatory democracy and the solidarity economy gathered in Detroit for Symbiosis, a “Congress of Municipal Movements.” Despite working on similar projects, it was the first time that many participants had the opportunity to meet...

Until relatively recently, the status quo in the cities of the Global South vacillated between neglect and persecution of the poor. In the past decade, however, we have seen a paradigm shift in urban policy, and cities in Brazil, Colombia and elsewhere are pioneering new...

Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power to force the sale of empty properties. The city’s housing department wrote to a number companies that collectively own 194 empty apartments, warning that if they haven’t...