The role of local authorities in improving amenities was a matter of importance and some controversy before 1914 in England. A Medical Officer of Health was first appointed in Liverpool in 1847 but other cities did not do so until the 1860s, for example Manchester...

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)...

Since the beginning of the UK coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, tens of thousands of people have lost their lives. But the coronavirus crisis is not only a health crisis, it has had far reaching effects on people’s lives and livelihoods. Across the UK, communities have come...

New municipalism uses local government procurement as a powerful tool for reshaping local economies. The municipalist approach is seen by many as more affordable, sustainable and socially beneficial. Photo: Lewis Burrows

How can we make our organisations more democratic? How can we make our work and activism more inclusive in practice? How can we, as activists, practitioners, educators, citizens, members of movements and organisations ensure that we implement feminist values at work and in our everyday...

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 article analyses the results of the 2019 municipal elections in Spain in different cities. According to the author, in order to understand the situation it is useful to pay attention to what happened to “the three souls of the movement”: traditional “left” forces, grassroots...

The Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative, a network of various Bronx community groups, has four main components underway; the Innovation Factory, to develop new production and innovation capacity with digital manufacturing technology. The BronXchange, to get major local institutions such as Fordham University and Montefiore Medical...

In an extraordinary move, the Asheville City Council apologized for the North Carolina city’s historic role in slavery, discrimination and denial of basic liberties to Black residents and voted to provide reparations to them and their descendants. This resolution called on the city to create...

Portland’s city council has set a new bar for North American housing reform by legalizing up to four homes on almost any residential lot. It’s the most pro-housing reform to low-density zones in US history. Portland’s new rules will also offer a “deeper affordability” option:...

Gala Pin, Barcelona City councillor from 2015 to 2019, reflects on her experience at the front row of the municipalist transformation of the city during the first government of Ada Colau. Photo:

Social change and systems change go hand-in-hand. Movements for democracy and human rights are most effective when they aim to transform unjust, unequitable economic systems. In this episode, Laura Flanders travels to Spain to learn how people in two of the regions most brutally repressed...