URBAN DEMOCRACY AND PARTICIPATION

RAS BARAKA, MATTEO LEPORE, JOAN SUBIRATS, KAREN McCARTHY

Coordinator: GIOVANNI ALLEGRETTI

Cortile Guido Fanti, Piazza Maggiore, 6, open to the public

Giovanni Allegretti is an architect, planner and senior researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the Coimbra University, Portugal. Here he is among the directors of the Ph.D "Democracy in the XXI century" and he coordinates the "PEOPLEs' Observatory: Participation, Innovation and Local Powers". He is a member of the Working Group "DECIDe" at CES, being part of the coordination board. Since 2001, he has been assistant professor in Town Management at the University of Florence, where he got his Ph.D in Town,Territorial and Environmental Planning. He studied in Brazil, Danmark and Japan with scholarships of the Ministry of Foreign affairs. Expert of the European Commission for the URBACT Programme, he deals with Participatory Budgets and Interactive Planning since 1998.

Ras Baraka is an American educator, author, and politician who is the 40th and current Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He was previously a member of the Municipal Council of Newark and the principal of the city's Central High School[3] until he took an indefinite leave of absence to run for the 2014 Newark mayoral election, which he won on May 13, 2014.

Matteo Lepore is Municipal Councilor of the City of Bologna with the assignments for tourism, culture, digital agenda, relations with the University and “civic imagination”. He graduated in political science and holds Masters in “International Relations”, “Construction and Urban Planning” and “Cooperation Economics”.

Joan Subirats is a Spanish political scientist, full professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a specialist in governance, public management and the analysis of public policy, and has also worked on social exclusion, democratic innovation and civil society. He was founding director of the Institute of Government and Public Policy (IGOP). He frequently writes for Spanish media, such as El País, Público, Eldiario.es and the Cadena SER. He was PhD advisor of researcher Mayo Fuster Morell. He was co-founder and spokesperson of the citizen platform Barcelona En Comú, currently governing the Barcelona municipality.

Councillor Karen McCarthy, Cabinet Adviser on Localisation/Chair of Planning Committee. Having worked in public and third sectors for most of her career, in general management and social care, she was elected to Birmingham City Council in 2012.  Under the administration's devolution aims, she was District Chair for Selly Oak, covering a tenth of the city, and chair of District Chairs, leading on devolving services and decision making.  Budget pressures led to a rethink on how the city could deliver this, and she now brings her experience to advising the Cabinet members on how the city can achieve localisation and a new way of working.