Urban Movements - Network for Building Good Cities

The Congress of Urban Movements is a long-term, grassroots and voluntary agreement of over 50 local social organizations from over twenty Polish cities. We act together for over 10 years.

We have our manifesto – Urban Thesis, our common values and goals (more: https://kongresruchowmiejskich.pl/urban-theses). We are the only association of this type in Poland and one of the few in Europe. We work for the good life in the city, a green, democratically managed and fair city. What our cities are and can be does not depend only on the actions of local authorities and residents. In many areas, it is national legal regulations, policies, functioning institutions that hinder the sustainable development of cities, pro-social and fair. So we organized ourselves to overcome such barriers together.

We want to start a discussion on the creation of a European network of urban movements, which will be a place for the exchange of experiences and good practices, and an organization acting for the sake of urban policies on a transnational scale. We want to conduct an networking event on developing the most important challenges for cities from the perspective of urban activists. We want to start by presenting the history of the Congress, the challenges and problems we encountered. And then, in the form of a workshop, work with the participants of the event to find challenges and ways we can overcome them as a representatives of civil society to different kinds of towns and cities.

We’d like to focus on local (eg. citizens participation in creating urban spaces), national (eg. National Urban Policy) and European level (eg. Cohesion policy). Representatives of member organizations of the Congress of Urban Movements and scientists associated with the Congress will be invited to co-conduct the workshops.