Cyber security, data sovereignty, digital participation and digital services, complex topics that cannot be solved overnight. But the new government of Amsterdam is committed to dealing with these challenges. In contrast to the idea of the smart city, the aim is to develop new policies...

Cities with above-average knowledge economies and below-average levels of social vulnerability are better placed to cope with the dual challenges of technological change and social inequality. Photo: Public Domain Pictures

Four years after the first wave of municipalist governments in Spain, many of the so-called cities of change have failed to renew the results obtained in the elections that placed them in power. While the Catalan independence movement has radically changed the political landscape, thus...

Gianpaolo Baiocchi offers a historical overview of what he terms Radical Cities in Latin America and draws out some lessons from the past 30 years. Comparing these experiences to municipal politics in Europe and  elsewhere, he highlights the distinctive features and charts the ups and...

Horní Jiřetín, a small town in the Czech Republic, was set to be wiped off the map and replaced by a brown coal mine. The end of Communist rule and the privatisation of the coal company was not going to change the town’s fate. But...

There is no war today, just politicians who love comparing their roles to those of their blitz counterparts. But every crisis is an opportunity. What might emerge from coronavirus that is on a par with Beveridge? We need local testing centres, local food supplies, local...

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...

Concerned by the transition their cities out of the crisis caused by COVID-19 looking for a social and solidarity way out, the mayors of Amsterdam, Milan, Barcelona and Paris speak out and share their considerations with the European institutions. Photo: Jp Valery

While Scotland has blazed a new trail, much of England seems to have stuck to politics as usual. In fact, under the media radar, a growing number of self-styled independents are trying to kick out the big parties and take over the parts of government...

This article identifies three new municipalisms – platform, autonomist, managed – whose characteristics, contradictions, interconnections and potentials are explored in terms of state-space restructuring, urban-capitalist crisis and cycles of contention. Photo: Sharon McCutcheo

As part of the introductory speech made by activist and academic Elisabeth Dau in the Open Eyes Economy Summit held in Krakow on the 20th of November 2018, she explores the relationship between municipalism and cultural policies as “democratic culture.” Photo: Stephan Müller

Barcelona has been hard-hit by the pandemic, in terms of both health and the economy. But this impact hasn’t been evenly distributed across the city: the poorest residents of Barcelona have been hardest hit by the coronavirus. The city’s response to the COVID-19 has focused...