Social ecology, as understood by Murray Bookchin and others, can offer a response to the challenges of climate change. The author describes the philosophy of social ecology and also its political strategy in order to reflect about its ability to overcome the limits of local...

One of the common features of the experiences gathered around the notion of Fearless Cities is their will to decentralize power by bringing it closer to the people. More than about policies themselves, new municipalism is concerned about the construction of new forms of organization...

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...

Many on the left have laid the blame for defeat at the door of Brexit. It’s imperative that we also examine why Brexit became such a central issue and why the left was incapable of addressing it. This failure to address Brexit in part stems...

The attitudes of racism and xenophobia, which have fueled the virulent rise of fascism today in places like the United States, must be combated by a radical humanism that celebrates ethnic, cultural and spiritual diversity. With communalism we might remake the world upon humanity’s potential...

The old model of secure livelihood through wages is collapsing at the same time that new technology is destroying the material basis for dependence on corporations and the state. This is to a large extent a transition to a post-capitalist society centered on the commons....

Elected officials and environmental activists mobilised in Grenoble in the 1980s and 1990s to prove that corruption was involved in many deals, and set up an alternative, municipal entity to take back and run the water utility. Remunicipalisation took place in 2001, and opened the...

This piece is an Interview with Camille, spokesperson for the Citizens’ Assembly of Commercy. This platform is an example what democracy can look like when it is not headed by an elite, a demonstration of how self-determined education among the people is capable of bringing...

The new municipalist agenda is proving its capacity to provide effective responses to the demands for greater democracy at the local level. Furthermore, there is another, complementary argument for municipalism: it has the potential to feminize politics in a way that political action at the...

Airbnb hosts, as they are known, are wringing their hands over the collapse of the travel industry and their loss of income, and many city authorities are rubbing theirs at the prospect of thousands of holiday lets returning to the traditional rental market. The Airbnb...

An interview with Bernardo Gutierrez, responsible for the Innovation Laboratories of MediaLab Prado de Madrid at the Our Common City conference held in Budapest (February 22 & 23, 2019). Part one:   Part two:   Photo: Joel Filipe

Faced with skyrocketing rents and powerful real estate empires, the citizens of Berlin are fighting back. They have forced the city’s authorities to take up the issue by freezing rents and protecting apartment blocks from speculators. A referendum campaign is under way that would go...