Municipalism

Expanding The Possible, From Below

November 19, 2024 Alexandria Shaner, Resilience. Strategize! climate crisis, Green New Deal, Local Economy, Municipalism

Less than one week after a self-proclaimed dictator, climate change denier, and big oil-funded billionaire (among other equally impressive accolades) took the single most powerful political office in the world, it seems like a horrible time to release a book about the Green New Deal. Thinking back to 2018, not so long ago in time but perhaps much longer in space, to when the Green New Deal was launched into public attention as a bold proposal for transformative national legislation, is frankly, beyond depressing. Loss, grief and rage compete with numbness and shock, easily overwhelming any effort to fathom where we were then, and where we find ourselves now.

Richmond’s Progressive Alliance Has Made City Hall Better For Twenty Years

October 14, 2024 Steve Early, Social Policy. Strategize! California, City Hall, Elections, Municipalism, Progressives

Richmond, California - On a Saturday evening last spring, Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) co-chair Claudia Jimenez hosted a high-spirited rally and party with 200 supporters of her re-election campaign for the Richmond City Council. Jimenez is a 46-year-old immigrant from Columbia, who worked as an architect and community organizer before seeking elected office four years ago in her diverse, blue-collar city of 114,000, that’s 80-percent non-white. On the 7-member council, which includes an RPA majority, she has immersed herself in municipal finance questions, public safety issues, and the longstanding challenge of making Chevron, the city’s largest employer, more responsive to community concerns about its environmental impact.

Radical Municipalism Is Paving The Way For Direct Democracy In LA

August 24, 2024 Justin A. Davis, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! California, Class Struggle, Democracy, Grassroots, Homelessness, Housing, Los Angeles, Municipalism

Home to almost 10 million residents in 2022, Los Angeles County can sometimes seem like a vast political paradox. Known as a quintessential example of urban sprawl, it is also the most overcrowded county in America. Over the past 20 years, robust grassroots organizing built multiracial movements for organized labor, immigrant rights and housing justice while electing multiple self-identified leftists to L.A. City Council. At the same time, brutal overpolicing, ethics scandals and rising gentrification have been constant challenges for organizers and activists there. This summer, L.A.’s controversial efforts to reduce homelessness have reentered the national spotlight.

Social And Solidarity Economy: Views From US, Spain And Latin America

July 24, 2023 Latin American and Iberian Institute, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Latin America, Municipalism, Solidarity Economy, Spain

The Latin American and Iberian Institute was pleased to host this virtual panel, The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) Movement: Perspectives from the U.S., Spain and Latin America. Topics covered include: The Barcelona Experience with Local Economic Democracy by Dr. Santiago Eizaguirre Anglada; Latin American Solidarity Economic Circuits and SSE Networks by Euclides Mance and the Social and Solidarity Economy in the United States: Progress and Challenges by Yvonne Yen Liu.

Scotland’s Red Council

February 8, 2021 Joe Cullinane, Tribune Magazine. Create! Governance, Municipalism, Scotland, Socialism

As roads to socialism close nationally, the need for a municipal road to socialism is borne by those of us on the Labour left who are privileged to hold power at a local level. We may be few, but our impact is big. From Matthew Brown and the ‘Preston Model’, Paul Dennett’s ‘Sensible Socialism’ in Salford, and Rohksana Fiaz’s ‘People Power’ participation in Newham, through to Jamie Driscoll’s green agenda in the North of Tyne, the Left is demonstrating that we have the ideas to drive change. In Scotland, my North Ayrshire minority administration bears the responsibility for driving a socialist agenda in Scottish politics.

The Liberatory Potential Of Local Action

September 23, 2019 Brian Tokar, The Great Transition Initiative Strategize! Ecology, Localism, Municipalism

We are seeing an inspiring resurgence of progressive action at the local level, even as reactionary nationalist movements in Europe and beyond seek to position themselves as the true voices of a renewed localism. What are the prospects for such locally centered political engagement in a time of rising political polarization and conflict? How can local action help advance personal liberation and social justice? More broadly, how can it further our goals for global transformation? The current upsurge of local action by both progressives and radical municipalists is fueled by several complementary impulses.

Fearless Cities: A Guide To The Global Municipalist Movement

June 18, 2019 By Steve Early, Popular Resistance Educate! Ada-Colau, Barcelona, Municipalism, New Economy

Fearless Cities describes municipal reform campaigns in fifty cities and 19 countries. Its contributors include activists and elected officials in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, England, Chile, Argentina, Serbia, Germany, Kurdish-controlled northern Syria, Canada, and the U.S. It contains a series of “organizing tool-kits,” which offer practical advice about rooting out political corruption, reducing pollution, protecting tenants and immigrants and creating opportunities for citizen engagement like "participatory budgeting."

Municipalism In Venezuela Path To A Bottom-Up Economy

November 4, 2018 Steve Rushton, Occupy.com Create! Municipalism, New Economy, Venezuela

The solution to the economic crises in Venezuela can be found at the very origins of the revolution: in bottom-up communalism. Venezuela has more than 1,000 communes: geographical areas bonded by their historical identity, and in many cases comprising indigenous communities. It seems fitting that before his death, Hugo Chavez said, "La comuna o nada", "the commune or nothing," to describe the future of the country. He created a rallying call for bottom-up leftists against the elites of Venezuela, be they capitalists or party officials. The contradiction goes a long way to sum up Venezuelan politics – for Chavez's call could also help stop the collapse of Venezuelan society itself.

How Woke Is The Left?

September 9, 2018 Jonathan Feldman, Counterpunch. Create! Municipalism, New Economy, Occupy, Solidarity Network

Is the left today “woke,” i.e. is it self-consciously learning from the limits of the path it has been on to design a new systemic architecture based on alternative, networked institutions to challenge the status quo? New institutions are needed because in the past farms, labor unions, progressive churches as well as universities provided the institutional base for powerful social movements. Today, each of these institutional spaces is severely challenged or has reduced in size. As Gar Alperovitz explains...

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