In order to tackle such an ambitious climate agenda as that which the European Union proposes with its Green Deal, cities must be taken into account. It would not be realistic to go ahead with the plan for zero emissions by 2050 without including cities....

On January 18–19, 2020 the first gathering of free municipalities and municipal initiatives took place in the city of madeleines, situated in eastern France and organised by the Citizens’ Assembly of Commercy.  This first-person piece exposes what’s at stake behind the democratic citizen movements active...

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...

The recently published Global Urban Competitiveness Report argues that advanced cities have driven the world’s progress and even led to changes in the world’s development patterns since the first industrial revolution of the 18th century. The article contents a competitive ranking of 1,006 of the...

Mississippi is the poorest state in the U.S. with the highest percentage of Black people and a history of vicious racial terror. The concurrent Black resistance is the backdrop and context for the drama captured in the collection of essays that is Jackson Rising: The...

How did France, a pioneer of water privatisation, become a hotbed for remunicipalisation? Cities like Paris and Grenoble not only ended the domination of corporate heavyweights like Veolia and Suez over the sector, but also played a key role in inventing a new generation of...

The conditions that brought about the “Greek crisis” are prevalent in many parts of the world and represent a new normality that threatens to shake the very foundations of social coexistence. Departing from the statement that the urban space is always a crystallization of broader...

Venezuela’s communes bring together communal councils—local units of direct democratic self-government—with productive units known as social production enterprises. As Chávez himself often put it, the choice on the table is increasingly between la comuna o nada, the commune or nothing. Photo: Amber Lamoreaux

The paper examines the successes, limitations and possibilities of citizen platforms after their first months in power in cities across Spain. Photo: Pixabay

In this podcast there’s a discussion of the work of Murray Bookchin, relating it to the experiences and debates around municipalism and wider left political practices and theory. The guests focus the discussion on the recent edited collection of Bookchin’s work: The Next Revolution: Popular...

Although Germany has failed to meet its climate objectives, and energy companies are still clinging to coal, a small district North of Berlin is showing the way. Commitments made by both local authorities and citizens to renewable energy have paid off, with renewable energy sources...

For some activists on the Labour left, municipal politics may now offer a constructive outlet and an opportunity to play a useful political role by using town halls as a base for action and agitation, linking up with trade unions, tenants’ unions, social movements and...