Democratising cities: introduction

Abstract

The world’s cities are plagued by serious ills of injustice, inequality and uneven development. Through hard-fought struggles against these urban inequalities and injustices, cities remain important breeding grounds for forms of democratic action that have the potential to reinvigorate the practice and potential of democracy itself. Contemporary struggles over rights to the city generate new answers to questions at the heart of the democratic ideal. In the everyday battles that take place over the institutions and infrastructures that will shape their everyday lives, urban inhabitants frequently resist the ossification of democracy in its inherited forms. Their struggles not only demand new solutions to the pressing urban challenges they face, they also challenge democracy as it is and make claims about democracy as it should be. As such, the historical geography of democracy maintains a close association with the city. This Special Feature on Democratising Cities brings together a survey of city-scaled possibility, canvassing diverse democratisation strategies across a variety of places. We treat democratisation as a process of extending and enacting a logic of equality as the foundation for legitimate authority in the face of specific problems and injustices. Our focus is on the doing of democratisation, exploring a set of innovative democratic practices that people in cities are employing in their efforts to make a better urban life—from alliances, networks, issue-based movements and citizen platforms to digital strategies, political contracts, participatory budgeting, occupations and alternative lifestyles and communities. We show how these practices of democratisation generate new understandings of the who, what, where, when and how of democracy itself.