Reinventing Urban Citizenship

Abstract

The rise of the nation-state has meant a disempowerment of cities as autonomous polities. This paper argues that urban citizenship should be freed from constraints imposed by national and state-centered conceptions of political community. The focus of the argument is on constitutional politics that would strengthen local self-government by redefining boundaries, membership and rights at the level of municipal polities. Reforms along these lines would strive to reunite cities with their peripheries in common jurisdictions; to mitigate the political impact of residential segregation through representation of urban districts in citywide decision-making bodies; to challenge national monopolies in immigration, trade and foreign policy; to establish a formal status of local citizenship that is based on residence and disconnected from nationality; and would allow for multiple local citizenship and voting rights within and across national borders. The conclusion suggests that an urban citizenship that has been emancipated from imperatives of national sovereignty and homogeneity may become a homebase for cosmopolitan democracy.

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