Claiming the City

For more than a century, municipal socialism has fired the imaginations of workers fighting to make cities livable and democratic. At every turn, propertied elites challenged their right to govern.

Prominent US labour historian, Shelton Stromquist, offers the first global account of the origins of this new trans-local socialist politics. He explains how and why cities after 1890 became crucibles for municipal socialism. Drawing on the colourful stories of local activists and their social-democratic movements in cities as diverse as Broken Hill, Christchurch, Malmö, Bradford, Stuttgart, Vienna, and Hamilton, OH, the book shows how this new urban politics arose.

Long governed by propertied elites, cities in the nineteenth century were transformed by mass migration and industrialisation that tore apart their physical and social fabric. Amidst massive strikes and faced with epidemic disease, fouled streets, unsafe water, decrepit housing, and with little economic security and few public amenities, urban workers invented a local politics that promised to democratise cities they might themselves govern and reclaim the wealth they created. This new politics challenged the class power of urban elites as well as the centralising tendencies of national social-democratic movements. Municipal socialist ideas have continued to inspire activists in their fight for the right of cities to govern themselves.

Claiming the City unveils the enduring legacy of these movements and their continuing relevance in today's political landscape.