Building Solidarity Cities: From Protest to Policy

The Solidarity City movement that has emerged in Europe over the past few years shows the growing significance of urban policy coalitions for the struggle against the rightward drift and the ever more restrictive border and migration policies at the national and European level. In this context, the notion of urban citizenship has become an important point of reference when it comes to the question of how cities can counter repressive European border regimes and foster access to rights for non-citizens and cultural pluralism on a local level. Drawing from the authors’ empirical research on various European cities, as well as from the literature on global social inequalities, urban citizenship and radical cosmopolitanism, this chapter investigates the Solidarity City networks and the ways they envision new forms of citizenship.