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The coronavirus recovery must be bottom-up, not top-down
18th May 2020What this crisis has demonstrated is that grassroots, bottom-up organising can be so much more effective and so much more responsive to local needs than top-down government programmes. The principles of spontaneous, participatory, open organising are the foundation of groups such as those closing a...
Organising for the right to housing in London
17th July 2019Housing in London is a miserable experience for many, and it is most miserable of all for private renters. But London Renters’ Union has arrived! The article explains how the union works to transform individual difficulties into a collective struggle, which are the strategies, how...
Why the green new deal needs local action to succeed
22nd April 2020Universal healthcare, a green economy, affordable and sustainable housing, and much more: for many people, the Green New Deal sounds too good to be true at a time when trust in politicians has been eroded by too many empty promises. This is why locally organised, democratic movements are not just crucial to...
Cities versus multinationals: who will win our post-COVID future?
25th June 2020The importance of care and collective services and its often poorly treated workers has been visible to all during the confinement periods. The virus has often struck harder in poorer neighbourhoods, where living conditions in cramped apartments did not allow for social distancing, and where...
Radical cities in Latin America: Past and present
6th December 2019Even before Hugo Chávez and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rose to national power and kicked off discussions of a Pink Tide, scholars and activists celebrated the municipal alternative in Latin America, where Porto Alegre’s participatory budgeting and El Alto’s cooperatives set the horizon of...
Pacifying the neighborhood
21st July 2017Until 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...
The communalist project
2nd November 2002Whether the twenty-first century will be the most radical of times or the most reactionary will depend overwhelmingly upon the kind of social movement and program that social radicals create out of the theoretical, organizational, and political wealth that has accumulated during the past two...
How can a civic movement set the agenda in city hall?
31st July 2019An interview with Rui Franco – Deputy City Councilor of Lisbon at the Our Common City conference in Budapest (February 22 & 23, 2019). Part one: Part two: Part three: Photo: Luisa Azevedo
The Fight Against the Belgrade Waterfront Project [Interview with Dobrica Veselinović]
2nd May 2017The movement Ne da(vi)mo Beograd (Don’t let Belgrade d(r)own) opposes the Belgrade Waterfront project, designed to generate private gain and by means of non-transparent procedures. The movement has fostered massive participation, thus becoming successful in promoting the involvement of citizens in the municipal politics. Photo:...
As big cities get even bigger, some residents are being left behind
6th February 2020Cities 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
Cities for a social and solidarity way out of the crisis caused by COVID-19
20th April 2020Concerned 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
Solidarity cities
13th December 2016With nationalist parties resurgent throughout Europe, more and more European nationals are vesting their political hopes in national governments. But for those new migrants without increasingly-coveted EU citizenship, the institutions most likely to come to their aid are not nation states, but local and city...