Municipalism is evolving strongly in Spain and across Europe, as shown by the examples portrayed during the Fearless Cities encounter in Barcelona. While there is a need for democratic reform in New Zealand, the possibility of embracing municipalism as a tool for change would require...

Acts 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...

Tourism accounts for about an eighth of GDP in Spain and Italy, which were both badly hit by the coronavirus. Desperate not to lose the summer, Italy cautiously reopened its borders and Spain it set to follow. But no one expects mass tourism to resume...

A set of intersecting crises has made urban life increasingly difficult for all but the wealthy. Housing has become unaffordable and insecure. Work has become casualised and wages have stagnated, leaving many workers unable to sustain an adequate standard of living. Despite pretensions towards multiculturalism,...

Today the forces of Municipalism and Culture are interdependent and merged to create a profound and sustainable shift in policy and politics and, most critically, in lived experience for the many and not the few in the journey towards a new democracy. This short paper...

An understanding of Spain’s 15M movement’s mutation into what has been termed an “institutional takeover”. Focusing in particular on the potential ties and limitations of municipal politics, discussing the open possibilities of “Radical Municipalism” in changing political power relations in the city. It will also...

Since the summer of 2019, Commons Network has been working with a team of civil servants and activists, supported by the municipality. The Fearless team uses the name ‘The 99 of Amsterdam’ for this new movement, referring to the 99 neighbourhoods of Amsterdam while also...

Madrid, Barcelona and other major Spanish cities are now governed by independent citizen fronts called “confluences.” Ahora Madrid, Barcelona en Comú, Zaragoza en Común and La Marea Atlántica (A Coruña) are confluences weaved together by the M15-Indignados social ecosystem. Other political parties, like Podemos and...

One of the main challenges that strategies for social-ecological transformation are facing today is the fact that a majority of the world population lives in cities, which can be considered structurally unsustainable spaces. It is thus crucial to discuss how cities can be transformed from...

The Covid-19 crisis has made clear the disastrous effects of years of austerity, social security cuts, and public service privatisation. But it has also demonstrated that public services and the people who operate them are truly the foundation of healthy and resilient societies. As privatisation...

For people living in cities during the lockdown, space was a major concern, both in and outside the home. The pandemic has reconfigured the way we use and think about urban space. Will it be sufficient for a fairer, healthier city to emerge? Paola Hernández...

How can new municipalism develop a progressive localism and forge translocal solidarities? This article considers municipalism as a form of progressive localism, which on the one hand connects the local and the global through translocal solidarity, and on the other scales-up and becomes an alternative...