Proprietors For A Democratic City

Lessons from Bologna on how ordinary people take charge of urban spaces and make their cities more democratic

Proprietors for a Democratic City examines how nonelite individuals politically engage with urban spaces—even when they do not formally own them. Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork throughout Bologna, Italy, Robin M. LeBlanc presents valuable models of democratic community-making through imaginative occupation, curation, and coalition-building projects, with critical implications for the study of cities and democracy.

Once a standard-bearer of progressive governance, contemporary Bologna now faces globally emergent challenges to its democratic functioning, from a lack of affordable housing to the rise of an authoritarian and xenophobic Far Right. But amid this precarity, everyday citizens employ the spaces around them to influence the political life of the city. Through interviews with a wide range of Bolognese, from urban planners and real estate developers to housing office staff, retirees in public gardening plots, and members of immigrant and youth squatter collectives, LeBlanc illuminates the humble origins of coalitional work that can meaningfully address today’s urban economic, environmental, and demographic crises.

Challenging both capitalistic and Marxist conventional wisdom, Proprietors for a Democratic City is a vivid portrait of the urban landscape and an inspiring call to empower regular people to create vibrant democratic spaces.

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