Fearless Cities: the movement grows in 2018

Over the coming months, the international municipalist movement will publish a global map, a book in four languages, and hold decentralized Fearless Cities summits around the world.

In June 2017, the international municipalist movement met for the first time for the Fearless Cities Summit in Barcelona, organized by the citizen platform, Barcelona En Comú. The Summit saw over 700 mayors, local councilors and activists from every continent share experiences and take the first steps to working as a global network.

On the eve of the anniversary of the Summit, the movement is going from strength to strength. The past twelve months have seen important milestones, including the victory of Project Montreal in Montreal and Bill de Blasio holding on to the mayoralty of the ‘sanctuary city’ of New York City.

Now the movement is presenting three new initiatives that are the result of the collaborative work of municipalist platforms around the world: the Fearless Cities global map, the Fearless cities book and regional Fearless Cities Summits.

1) The Fearless Cities global map: an open source resource created by and for the municipalist movement. It aims to highlight the global reach of the movement, put useful information about municipalist platforms in the public domain and enable decentralized collaboration among them: www.fearlesscities.com/en/about-municipalist-map

As of publication, the map includes over 80 organizations, including municipalist platforms that are in government (such as Barcelona En Comú, Project Montreal and Valparíaso Ciudadano), in opposition (like Coalizione Civica per Bologna and Ciudad Futura), standing for election for the first time (Ne Davimo Beograd, and working outside the institutions (such as Massa Critica and the Portland Assembly).

The map is a work in progress open to submissions and does not represent any formal organization or political affiliation.

2) Fearless Cities: A guide to the global municipalist movement: this book will be published in Spanish and Catalan by Icaria at the end of May 2018 and in English by New Internationalist in early 2019. It will also be published in French by the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation (date to be confirmed).

Written collaboratively by more than 140 people from 19 countries, the Fearless Cities guide is made up of four parts:

Essays explaining municipalism and its role in tackling the challenges of our time.

explaining municipalism and its role in tackling the challenges of our time. Organizing toolkits about how to set up a municipalist platform, draw up a participatory manifesto to how to crowdsource funding and win elections.

about how to set up a municipalist platform, draw up a participatory manifesto to how to crowdsource funding and win elections. Policy toolkits with examples of transformative policies being implemented in towns and cities across the world.

with examples of transformative policies being implemented in towns and cities across the world. Profiles of 50 pioneering municipalist platforms from every continent.

The book also includes an epilogue by the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau.

3) Regional Fearless Cities Events: a series of decentralized municipalist summits will be held in