In 2017, the Transnational Institute launched Transformative Cities, an opportunity for progressive local governments, municipalist coalitions, social movements and civil society organizations to popularize and share their experiences of building solutions to our planet’s systemic economic, social, political and ecological crises. The Atlas of Utopia,...

Barcelona has become one of the key targets – and victims – of the global tourism and property industry, spurred by financial firms such as Blackstone. But inhabitants and social movements are fighting back. Photo: Daniel Von Appen

Nearly four billion meals are dished out every year in France’s school cafeterias and childcare kitchens. Catering companies such as Sodexo currently dominate this market, but, more often than not, the meals have little nutritional value and the companies fail to factor in environmental concerns....

The potential health impacts of COVID-19 are immense in informal settlements, but if control measures are poorly executed these could also have severe negative impacts. Public health interventions must be balanced with social and economic interventions, especially in relation to the informal economy upon which...

In 2015, a new cycle of struggles for democratic governance unfolded at the level of the city. One such municipal movement and platform is Barcelona en Comú. Pioneering new ways and words for approaching the city as common(s), Barcelona en Comú opens possibilities for a...

This book is the first-ever biography of Murray Bookchin, written by his personal collaborator and copyeditor, Janet Biehl. From 1987-2006, Biehl edited every word that Bookchin wrote, and worked with him on numerous articles and books. She tells the story of Bookchin’s life from a...

Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top‐down “closed” spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b)...

This CIDOB Report examines how 12 cities around the world have managed the COVID-19 crisis and provides lessons to help guide future urban action. These include learning to govern complex, uncertain scenarios by placing decentralisation, cooperation and resilience at the heart of public policies; rethinking...

The cities of Barcelona, Freetown, Mexico, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo have co-founded a network focused on gender equity, with mayors warning that the Covid-19 pandemic risks widening inequalities. Through ‘CHANGE’ (City Hub and Network for Gender Equity), the cities will share best practices, policies...

In the Netherlands, as in other parts of the world, municipalist experiences are emerging as a way out to n alternative to the deep crisis in traditional centralist social democratic power parties. New progressive left wing political initiatives have emerged, putting the citizens in cities,...

In this podcast there’s a discussion of the work of Murray Bookchin, relating it to the experiences and debates around municipalism and wider left political practices and theory. The guests focus the discussion on the recent edited collection of Bookchin’s work: The Next Revolution: Popular...

Public-Common Partnerships offer an alternative institutional design to achieve social transformation. The PCP model exceeds the market/state binary while involving co-ownership between state authorities and Commoners Associations, alongside co-combined governance with a third association of project specific relevant parties such as trade unions and relevant...