Urban Commonwealth (AfterCorona #10)

On the basis of the book The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth, we discuss with Margaret Kohn her resuscitation of the early 20th century solidarist ideas and the links to the Lefebvrian notion of the right to the city. We challenge her on the question of scale and the role of the state in solidarist thinking, how all of this may enlighten the response to the Covid-19 moment, and recommend that you listen to her smart and thoughtful reflections.

Margaret Kohn is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. She received her MA and PhD from Cornell University. Her most recent book The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth was published by Oxford University Press (2016). It won the David Easton Award for Best Book in Political Theory and the Judd Award for Best Book in Urban and Local Politics. She is the author of Radical Space: Building the House of the People (Cornell University Press 2003), and Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space (Routledge 2004) and Political Theories of Decolonization (with Keally McBride, Oxford University Press, 2011). She has been a Fulbright Fellow and a Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. She has also served as Acting Director of the Centre for Ethics and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, Scarborough.