Proprietors for a Democratic City: Space and Political Voice in Italy

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