Tag: Municipalism
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Episode 47 – Housing Expropriation Referendum in Berlin: How it was won and what comes next?
On the 26th of September over million Berliners voted to expropriate and return to public ownership over 200,000 homes in the city. Deutsche Wohnen und Co Enteignen targeted a number of large real estate companies in Berlin that had control of what had previously been social housing stock. The referendum is not legally binding, requiring…
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Episode 45 – Housing Commons & Collectives: European & US Perspectives
After discussing expropriation efforts in Berlin recently, this episode will widen the discussion of housing commons to perspectives, differences, and potentials in Europe and the US. Housing was and remains one of the crucial social issues of our time. From Friedrich Engels discussion of the housing question to the idea of ‘commons’ gaining more traction…
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Episode 42 – Housing struggles in Berlin: Part II Grassroots Expropriation Activism
On April 15, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court overturned Berlin’s rent cap. This immediately led to a massive spontaneous protest with 15,000 people voicing their concerns and proclaiming their right to the city. Moreover, within a week after the court’s decision the number of signatures for the grassroots campaign ‘Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen’ increased tremendously…
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Episode 34 – Radical Municipal Politics in Latin America since the 1990s
Gianpaolo Baiocchi offers us an 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 downs of these urban movements. Massive suburbanization, metropolitan fragmentation…
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Episode 32 – Murray Bookchin, Municipalism, Popular Democracy and Left Politics
In this podcast we discuss the work of Murray Bookchin, relating it to the experiences and debates around municipalism and wider left political practices and theory. With our guests (Blair, Hilary and Kate) we focus the discussion on the recent edited collection of Bookchin’s work: The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct…
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Episode 18 – The New Municipalism (part 2)
In the second part of the New Municipalism series, Ross talks to Barcelona-based scholar-activist Laura Roth. She talks about the Spanish experience, particularly in relation to Barcelona en Comú, the movement party, which has been in minority government since 2014. Laura talked about a range of issues, including the importance of feminism to new municipalism,…
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Episode 16 – The Urbanization of COVID-19
Three prominent urban researchers with a focus on infectious diseases explain why political responses to the current coronavirus outbreak require an understanding of urban dynamics. Looking back at the last coronavirus pandemic, the SARS outbreak in 2002/3, they highlight what affected cities have learned from that experience for handling the ongoing crisis. Exploring the political…
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Episode 14 – Chile Despertó! Social Uprisings in Santiago
Chile despertó – Chile woke up – is a key slogan oft he ongoing uprisings in Chile that began in the capital Santiago in October 2019. Since then, heavy confrontations happened with the regime of president Piñera. For the first time since the dictatorship that ended in 1990, the army was deployed and curfews were…
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Episode 12 – Editorial Talk
Having successfully completed its initial test-phase, our podcast steps into higher gear. A good time for us to reflect on our experience so far and to plan for the next couple of months. Join us in our 15 mins editorial talk!