#46 The democratic city
Seeing public spaces as reflections of our societies
Welcome back, readers!
Our year is off to an energetic start, we hope yours too. But as 2025 kicks off, we’re bringing back a topic we’ve been thinking about a lot lately: democracy. Quite a fitting one as we hold our breath witnessing how Donald Trump prepares to set foot in the White House – again.
But what does democracy have to do with our built environments?
With trends like gated communities and hostile architecture on the rise worldwide, that often seek to render inequalities invisible, urban inhabitants are being deprived from one of the most critical arenas for citizen participation and, ultimately, for democracy to work: public spaces.
“I used to think of democracy as something very positive. But when I started teaching, I encountered 10 year old children who, after a marginalised life at school, at home, and in their neighbourhoods, told me that democracy was unjust”, said Chilean Philosopher Pamela Soto in an interview with Spanish newspaper El País in January last year.
When thought of as an experience, not a theory, democracy has much more to do with the spaces people inhabit, with their everyday lives. How does the way our public spaces look affect our perceptions of the health of our governance systems (or the lack of it)?
And, if we notice cracks in the system, how can we fix them, involve citizens, bring their needs to the front row, and make our built environments reflect and respond to their experiences?
Let’s dive into it. Have a great weekend!
Nuria Ribas Costa
Communications Manager & Researcher
“All the major global challenges – climate change, the economy, inequality, the very future of democracy – will be solved in cities. If nations want to succeed with their policies, we must be counted as serious actors on the global stage.”
— Ada Colau
🌎 From the world.
DemocracyNext is a foundation working globally on the development of citizens’ assemblies. In 2024, they launched the DemocracyNext Cities Programme, focused on the implementation of citizens’ assemblies in three selected cities: Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg; Kerewan, The Gambia and Vilnius, Lithuania. Throughout this year, they will work with each place to broaden and deepen citizen participation and deliberation in urban planning decision-making.
🚲 From the Netherlands.
In 2024, the Rotterdam Architecture Prize was awarded to Het Grondstoffenstation in Afrikaanderplein. The “Raw Materials Station”, commissioned by Afrikaanderwijk Coöperatie, designed by Superuse Studios and realised by Aannemingsbedrijf Mostert, it is a building for collection, separation and reuse of waste in one of the most important squares in Rotterdam Zuid, where the big and crucial Afrikaandermarkt is held twice every week. Aside from waste management, the structure is a place for the neighbourhood –featuring school gardens maintained by the children of the Globetrotter, a counter for food pickup, and other features– it involves different members of the community and increases the socio-economic significance of the market and the square for the neighborhood.
🧡 From Humankind.
Citizen engagement is a fundamental part of our work and a key technique we use to understand and evaluate city strategies and projects. While we have recently seen an increasing interest in the field from both cities and private organisations alike, we often come across a lack of capacity and understanding about the value and key learnings that this type of qualitative research is able to bring forward.
This is why, commissioned by EIT Urban Mobility, we developed Context is King, a training module for civil servants on how to understand the citizens’ experience. We ran the course in 2023, 2024 and will follow up with another edition of it in 2025.
📚 Dive Deeper.
Cayalá, neighbouring with the large and messy Guatemala City, is notorious for its quiet and orderly streets and its Mediterranean allure. “Cayalá began taking shape more than a decade ago and has won multiple international awards for what urban designers view as the openness of its innovative shared spaces. But a fierce debate is flaring about whether Cayalá aggravates problems of inequality and access to urban spaces, instead of alleviating them”, write Simon Romero and Jody García for The New York Times.
Great read! Getting people on bicycles or public transport is also a great fix for democracy, as it leads to a more egalitarian society.