Murray Bookchin: From Urbanization to Cities to Neighborhood Assemblies

Most of us think of cities and urbanization as pretty much interchangeable.

But Murray Bookchin argues that urbanization occured during the Industrial Revolution and it actually ruined preindustrial cities. In his book From Urbanization to Cities, he described how much more directly democratic the Renaissance and Belgium cities were.

He also discusses how today neighborhood assembles, rather than city councils, should be the micro unit of city politics. The discussion, featuring Bookchin’s daughter Debbie, starts about 5 minutes in.