ocal politics is no longer local. Urban bureaucracies have become important global players, at times challenging, at other time adopting the behaviors of nation-states, building international alliances and independently pursuing large-scale aims. Municipalism—as this movement has come to be known—relies on radical politics to justify this usurpation, perhaps best captured in Barcelona mayor Ada Colau’s call for “fearless cities,” for a “renewed municipalist movement… standing up to defend human rights, radical democracy and the common good.”
But taking a slightly longer view, what precisely makes this kind of urban diplomacy new?
Municipal movements today find more than a few echoes in earlier moments. Beginning in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, urban networks proved indispensable in the governance of large empires. The colonial-era Singapore Improvement Trust, for instance, deliberately nurtured relationships with parallel governments in Hong Kong, Calcutta, and Nairobi, and they aspired to set up research exchanges with other city leaders outside British empire in the first half of the twentieth century. Municipal exchanges were in equal parts a search for efficient governance and a claim to power independent of the metropole—in this case, networks occurring outside Westminster. Local leaders in Singapore also articulated common bonds with other cities as part of an imagined regional (“tropical”) urbanism. According to their logic, cities in the “tropics” merited unique expertise justifying some degree of autonomy.
And during the Cold War, the U.S. Department of State funded organized urban tours of U.S. cities by municipal officials from around the world—an effort to showcase American democracy that unwittingly exposed racial segregation and American poverty to shocked guests, but that also built personal relationships between city officials around the world, and led to direct exchanges between cities and city officials long after State Department funding ended. In other words, city leaders continued talking after international diplomats lost interest. These city-to-city networks grew over time as mayors and other local leaders realized the connections between their parallel struggles with adequate shelter, provision of municipal services, and more recently, climate change.
There are precedents, too, for the radicalism at the core of twenty-first century municipal movements. Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley eloquently argued for city leaders to take the helm in a 1985 speech to the National League of Cities Congress of Cities: “I submit to you,” he stated gravely, “that cities have the right—indeed, even the obligation—to be part of the great national debate on weighty issues: from foreign trade policies to opposing South African apartheid, from immigration policies to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.” Two days later, Father Luis Olivares declared La Placita church in Los Angeles a sanctuary for Central American refugees, defying federal law and setting in motion the urban sanctuary movement.
The origins of current-day municipalism, then, are found—not in the most recent rejection of authoritarian regimes by urban-centered protest movements—but in the longer history of city-making. While cities have arguably always served as nodes in larger systems, mid- to late-twentieth century urbanization brought a new kind of radical politics to cities expanding at a scale not seen before. Mass migration and explosive growth both in urban population and in number of cities meant that global political concerns would necessarily include urban ones, while increasingly globalized economic and political networks meant that a single city’s actions could directly contradict state policies. Some scholars have detailed the growing economic power of key “global cities” and their dominance in the financial sector. The rise of municipalism, however, is more fundamentally connected to the power of mass movement—of individuals and families choosing to make long voyages, often repeatedly, and living in transnational circuits of space and resources. More than the elite globe-trotting class, it is the working classes that have articulated radical demands for more just, equitable, and sustainable cities and whose language now permeates the municipalist movement.
It is this history that makes the municipalist movement so powerful today. While drawing on longer trajectories of human rights movements, municipalism is embedded in a renewed demand for the rights of citizenship—this time guaranteed by local governments instead of by nation-states. The idea that individuals have a right to the city, that these rights are guaranteed by their residence rather than by membership in a nation, took shape over half a century as a response to political and physical dislocation, and implicitly, as a critique of the state’s failure to protect—indeed, at times, of its assault on—basic rights.
The role of property rights in this story is a peculiar one. At the conclusion of World War II, many urban dwellers in decolonizing areas occupied and used lands without title. Vast tracts remained outside the purview of state control or knowledge. States pursued formalization in earnest during the 1960s, with the unintended consequence of drawing a bright line between landowning and landless classes in fast-growing cities around the world. In the Philippines, for instance, the majority of families living in greater Manila occupied vacant or marginal land without title for the first three decades of independence. The National Housing Authority attempted to relocate and “rehabilitate” the urban poor in the early 1970s, fueling mass political organizing by informal dwellers. One of the most powerful groups, the Zone One Tondo Organization (ZOTO), proved particularly savvy at working with international bodies (charities, church organizations) and utilizing indirect pressure on the World Bank. In their words, they sought to “economically and politically empower the urban poor… [by] organizing and strengthening citizenship in communities.” When the Marcos regime failed to provide real citizenship, ZOTO filled the void.
ZOTO was not alone in this sort of activism, but part of a growing chorus of urban social movements structured by organizations like the National Slum Dwellers Federation in India (1975), the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (1988, joined with South African counterparts in 1992), and culminating in the creation of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (1996). This transnational organization brought together federations of global urban poor residents and highlighted the importance of local knowledge, local solutions, and women’s participation and leadership. This articulation of a different kind of citizenship, belonging, and rights—along with the work of other grassroots activists in cities around the world—helped reshape the way the UN, World Bank, and other global actors, viewed the legal position of the urban poor.
The history of grassroots politics must not be lost in current discussions about fearless cities. It was not municipal governments first, but rather individuals, workers, parents, and families residing in places like Manila, Nairobi, and Los Angeles who claimed power as urban citizens—a power that is still claimed today to challenge the strongest states and international bodies.
a global affairs media network
Municipalism Is an Important Global Movement, and Its History Matters
April 21, 2020
L
ocal politics is no longer local. Urban bureaucracies have become important global players, at times challenging, at other time adopting the behaviors of nation-states, building international alliances and independently pursuing large-scale aims. Municipalism—as this movement has come to be known—relies on radical politics to justify this usurpation, perhaps best captured in Barcelona mayor Ada Colau’s call for “fearless cities,” for a “renewed municipalist movement… standing up to defend human rights, radical democracy and the common good.”
But taking a slightly longer view, what precisely makes this kind of urban diplomacy new?
Municipal movements today find more than a few echoes in earlier moments. Beginning in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, urban networks proved indispensable in the governance of large empires. The colonial-era Singapore Improvement Trust, for instance, deliberately nurtured relationships with parallel governments in Hong Kong, Calcutta, and Nairobi, and they aspired to set up research exchanges with other city leaders outside British empire in the first half of the twentieth century. Municipal exchanges were in equal parts a search for efficient governance and a claim to power independent of the metropole—in this case, networks occurring outside Westminster. Local leaders in Singapore also articulated common bonds with other cities as part of an imagined regional (“tropical”) urbanism. According to their logic, cities in the “tropics” merited unique expertise justifying some degree of autonomy.
And during the Cold War, the U.S. Department of State funded organized urban tours of U.S. cities by municipal officials from around the world—an effort to showcase American democracy that unwittingly exposed racial segregation and American poverty to shocked guests, but that also built personal relationships between city officials around the world, and led to direct exchanges between cities and city officials long after State Department funding ended. In other words, city leaders continued talking after international diplomats lost interest. These city-to-city networks grew over time as mayors and other local leaders realized the connections between their parallel struggles with adequate shelter, provision of municipal services, and more recently, climate change.
There are precedents, too, for the radicalism at the core of twenty-first century municipal movements. Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley eloquently argued for city leaders to take the helm in a 1985 speech to the National League of Cities Congress of Cities: “I submit to you,” he stated gravely, “that cities have the right—indeed, even the obligation—to be part of the great national debate on weighty issues: from foreign trade policies to opposing South African apartheid, from immigration policies to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.” Two days later, Father Luis Olivares declared La Placita church in Los Angeles a sanctuary for Central American refugees, defying federal law and setting in motion the urban sanctuary movement.
The origins of current-day municipalism, then, are found—not in the most recent rejection of authoritarian regimes by urban-centered protest movements—but in the longer history of city-making. While cities have arguably always served as nodes in larger systems, mid- to late-twentieth century urbanization brought a new kind of radical politics to cities expanding at a scale not seen before. Mass migration and explosive growth both in urban population and in number of cities meant that global political concerns would necessarily include urban ones, while increasingly globalized economic and political networks meant that a single city’s actions could directly contradict state policies. Some scholars have detailed the growing economic power of key “global cities” and their dominance in the financial sector. The rise of municipalism, however, is more fundamentally connected to the power of mass movement—of individuals and families choosing to make long voyages, often repeatedly, and living in transnational circuits of space and resources. More than the elite globe-trotting class, it is the working classes that have articulated radical demands for more just, equitable, and sustainable cities and whose language now permeates the municipalist movement.
It is this history that makes the municipalist movement so powerful today. While drawing on longer trajectories of human rights movements, municipalism is embedded in a renewed demand for the rights of citizenship—this time guaranteed by local governments instead of by nation-states. The idea that individuals have a right to the city, that these rights are guaranteed by their residence rather than by membership in a nation, took shape over half a century as a response to political and physical dislocation, and implicitly, as a critique of the state’s failure to protect—indeed, at times, of its assault on—basic rights.
The role of property rights in this story is a peculiar one. At the conclusion of World War II, many urban dwellers in decolonizing areas occupied and used lands without title. Vast tracts remained outside the purview of state control or knowledge. States pursued formalization in earnest during the 1960s, with the unintended consequence of drawing a bright line between landowning and landless classes in fast-growing cities around the world. In the Philippines, for instance, the majority of families living in greater Manila occupied vacant or marginal land without title for the first three decades of independence. The National Housing Authority attempted to relocate and “rehabilitate” the urban poor in the early 1970s, fueling mass political organizing by informal dwellers. One of the most powerful groups, the Zone One Tondo Organization (ZOTO), proved particularly savvy at working with international bodies (charities, church organizations) and utilizing indirect pressure on the World Bank. In their words, they sought to “economically and politically empower the urban poor… [by] organizing and strengthening citizenship in communities.” When the Marcos regime failed to provide real citizenship, ZOTO filled the void.
ZOTO was not alone in this sort of activism, but part of a growing chorus of urban social movements structured by organizations like the National Slum Dwellers Federation in India (1975), the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (1988, joined with South African counterparts in 1992), and culminating in the creation of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (1996). This transnational organization brought together federations of global urban poor residents and highlighted the importance of local knowledge, local solutions, and women’s participation and leadership. This articulation of a different kind of citizenship, belonging, and rights—along with the work of other grassroots activists in cities around the world—helped reshape the way the UN, World Bank, and other global actors, viewed the legal position of the urban poor.
The history of grassroots politics must not be lost in current discussions about fearless cities. It was not municipal governments first, but rather individuals, workers, parents, and families residing in places like Manila, Nairobi, and Los Angeles who claimed power as urban citizens—a power that is still claimed today to challenge the strongest states and international bodies.
