Urbanisation has radically transformed the way that people live, but a corresponding legal and political shift has not taken place. In North America and most of Europe, the power of cities is derived from the sovereignty of the state. Many cities do not have access to the revenue needed to provide for the social welfare and infrastructure requirements of residents.
Contrary to what Warren Magnusson suggests, Luicy Pedroza finds that non-citizen local enfranchisement is highly important.
The urban citizenship discussed in this Forum is not at all new in the Western world; it has a history of at least a thousand years, and when we include Ancient Athens, even much more. This history is relevant because it suggests the scope, as well as the limitations of such alternatives.
In this contribution Johanna Hase highlights two aspects: First, she argues that the framing in terms of urban rather than local citizenship is not helpful, and possibly even counter-productive, for the purpose of constructing the new citizenship narrative. And second, she questions the relation between emancipating urban citizenship from nationality, on the one hand, and the growing competences of local polities, on the other hand.
Stadtluft macht frei, or city air makes you free, was a proverb in the Middle Ages. It referred to a legal principle according to which runaway serfs were to become free after living one year in a city. Today, many scholars suggest that urban citizenship still has powerful emancipatory effects.
I will take Rainer Bauböck's closing words as my point of departure and offer an answer that is less predictive and normative, and more empirical. I agree with his assertion that we need a robust urban citizenship. I would suggest that we already have some important examples of urban citizenship that challenge and complement national citizenship in crucial ways and it is important to shine a light on those examples to chart a course forward.
How can ‘staged urbanism’ provide spaces of urban citizenship? Under what conditions can urban citizenship “contribute to overall democratic integration within and beyond nation-states”?
Earlier commentaries in this online symposium highlighted various aspects of urban citizenship, such as the exclusion of non-urban populations (Lenard) or the conundrum of multilevel frames of legal authority (van Zeben). Harald Bauder suggests that urban citizenship can be an important mechanism to create inclusive communities.
In a way, the question of urban citizenship is easy. If a state were to give non-citizens citizenship rights with respect to local elections or urban affairs more generally, it would be fully within its powers to do so. As Rainer Bauböck and others have argued, there are many good reasons why a state might want to do so – and just as many reasons to protect the state’s authority to uphold the system of rights as a whole. That said, many issues remain. There is no consensus, and perhaps there never can be on the key terms at issue: state, nation, urban, and citizenship.
Josephine van Zeben's response to Bauböck’s reflections on urban citizenship considers some legal implications of the postnational view that Bauböck finds most promising. Specifically, it questions how suited citizenship is – as a legal instrument – for accommodating the concerns raised in Bauböck’s contribution.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters