After 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...

Remunicipalisation, i.e. the taking back of privatised assets and services into public ownership at a local level, is growing. Over 1,400 cases have been implemented since the turn of the millennium, in more than 2,400 cities across 58 countries. The article depicts different cases of...

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...

The municipalist movement in the US today is like a seedling. It is small and delicate, fresh and brimming with potential. Although we often look for leftist leadership in big cities like New York City or Chicago, these new municipal leaders are rooted in relatively...

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...

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...

An interview with Debbie Bookchin to discuss how municipalist movements are implementing her father’s ideas and what the potential challenges are for libertarian municipalism. Photo: Pixabay

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...

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...

Even before the coronavirus crisis, a key topic of debate among town planners was how to create a sustainable, healthy urban environment that is easy to get around by either walking or cycling. The idea of the 15-minute city. A concept developed by Sorbonne Professor...

Selection of ROAR’s coverage over the past years of the Rojava Revolution, a struggle for autonomy in northern Syria initiated in July 2012. Photo: Miriam Espacio

Democracy may look like a street protest where anyone leads a chant. It may look like a union meeting voting to strike. It may look like a lengthy speech by an elder explaining the founding values of the community. It may be an “assembly of...