It Takes A City

Episode 8 takes us to Mexico. We look at what it really takes to make participatory programs work in practice, and ask whether their success is less about design and more about discipline.Dino Cantú-Pedraza, Founder and Director of Aceleradora de Ciudades, shares her experience from working inside a municipality and now supporting local governments to implement participatory programs.She talks about the realities inside government, about the tools, and which ones work best for which goals. But in her experience, discipline matters more.The program does not stop at design. It depends on how teams are organized, whether they get the needed support from political leadership, on champions who are not always the ones with the biggest titles, and on making sure the work is sustainable for public servants. She shares a story when they received so many participatory budgeting proposals that meeting their own deadlines became nearly impossible.—We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working.It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy, hosted by Stefania Kapronczay, a human rights advocate working on resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur focused on public administration from Rome, Italy.Through conversations with practitioners, we explore lesser-known stories of participation, often from communities with limited resources. Each episode unpacks real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical insights.Visit https://takesacity.com/ or get in touch at ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠.

Episode 7 takes us to Lisbon, Portugal.We look at what is probably the best-known participatory tool, participatory budgeting, and discuss how it helped transform Lisbon from a city in crisis into one that attracts people. For instance, the idea of co-working spaces came through participatory budgeting and proved to be key for Lisbon becoming a hub for digital nomads. Graça Fonseca, former Minister of Culture of Portugal and former Deputy Mayor of the City of Lisbon, shares how participatory budgeting helped transform the city.The program did not stop with voting on projects, it continued through shared problem-solving, through implementation, and through building a sense of collective ownership between citizens and public servants.This episode is about what happens when participation becomes a continuous process, not a one-off decision.---We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working.It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy, hosted by Stefania Kapronczay, a human rights advocate working on resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur focused on public administration from Rome, Italy.Through conversations with practitioners, we explore lesser-known stories of participation, often from communities with limited resources. Each episode unpacks real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical insights.Visit https://takesacity.com/ or get in touch at ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠.

Episode Six takes us to Delhi, India. In 2001, in the low-income neighbourhoods of east Delhi, residents used India's new Right to Information Act to audit the Public Distribution System — the government programme meant to deliver subsidised food to the poor. The method, the jan sunwai or public hearing, brought citizens, officials, and an independent panel into the same room to compare what the state claimed it had done with what people had actually received.Sowmya Kidambi and Suchi Pande take us through the long arc of that practice: from grassroots campaigning in Delhi, to the first government-backed social audit unit in Andhra Pradesh, to the sixteen pieces of Indian legislation where social audits are now mandatory. They also tell us what the law alone cannot do — and why the room itself, with low-income residents and officials reading the same page, remains the radical part.—We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working.It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy, hosted by Stefania Kapronczay, a human rights advocate working on resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur focused on public administration from Rome, Italy.Through conversations with practitioners, we explore lesser-known stories of participation, often from communities with limited resources. Each episode unpacks real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical insights.Visit https://takesacity.com/ or get in touch at ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠.

Episode Five takes us to Lezhë, Albania. In conversation with Vasilika Laska, Director of Strategic Projects for the Municipality, we explore how the city is rethinking its foundations after a severe debt crisis. How should we spend the entire budget? By opening up this rarely asked question, the municipality invites local stakeholders, including residents, businesses, and civil society, not just to decide on a small portion, but to shape priorities for the whole. In doing so, Lezhë is experimenting with a more radical approach to participation and beginning to redefine how local governance works.---We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working.It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy, hosted by Stefania Kapronczay, a human rights advocate working on resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur focused on public administration from Rome, Italy.Through conversations with practitioners, we explore lesser-known stories of participation, often from communities with limited resources. Each episode unpacks real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical insights.Visit https://takesacity.com/ or get in touch at ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠.

Episode Four takes us to Athens, Greece. In conversation with Amalia Zepou, former Vice Mayor of the City of Athens, we explore how one citizen’s frustration with the state of her city grew into her running for office and adopting a new model for civic engagement. All this in a context where volunteering often carries negative connotations and trust between citizens and public servants is low. Through the synAthina platform, we see how creating new digital tools can help bridge divides, recognize citizens and public servants as partners, and build more inclusive forms of participation.---We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working. It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy, hosted by Stefania Kapronczay, a human rights advocate working on resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur focused on public administration from Rome, Italy. Through conversations with practitioners, we explore lesser-known stories of participation, often from communities with limited resources. Each episode unpacks real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical insights.Visit https://takesacity.com/ or get in touch at ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠.

Episode Three takes us to Surakarta, Indonesia. In conversation with Nina Asterina and Bima Pratama Putra from the Kota Kita Foundation, we explore what it means to take inclusion seriously. On a single busy street, where children walk past a school, a prison, shops, and constant traffic, they were asked what they needed. One of the first answers was a swimming pool. Instead of dismissing it, the team explored what it really meant, and realized that what was missing was simpler and more possible: trees and green space. By taking their voices seriously, the project shows how inclusion can improve life for everyone who uses the street, including adults, people with disabilities, and even shop owners. ---We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working. It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy, hosted by Stefania Kapronczay, a human rights advocate working on resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur focused on public administration from Rome, Italy. Through conversations with practitioners, we explore lesser-known stories of participation, often from communities with limited resources. Each episode unpacks real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical insights.Visit https://takesacity.com/ or get in touch at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

Episode Two takes us to Chimanimani, Zimbabwe. In conversation with Nyasha Frank Mpahlo from Green Governance Africa, we explore how legislative theatre can transform confrontation into dialogue. Through drama, community members and government officials come together to reflect on local climate challenges in a setting that feels less formal and less threatening than a typical meeting room. ---We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working. It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy, hosted by Stefania Kapronczay, a human rights advocate working on resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur focused on public administration from Rome, Italy. Through conversations with practitioners, we explore lesser-known stories of participation, often from communities with limited resources. Each episode unpacks real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical insights.Visit https://takesacity.com/ or get in touch at [email protected].

Episode One takes us to Budapest, Hungary. In conversation with Tessza Udvarhelyi, Vice Mayor of Budapest’s 8th District, we explore how participatory processes can become a winning edge in local elections, boost voter turnout, and help secure a second mandate in a district where that once seemed unthinkable. All this unfolds under increasingly authoritarian national politics, raising a central question: could participation be part of the antidote?---We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working. It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy, hosted by Stefania Kapronczay, a human rights advocate working on resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur focused on public administration from Rome, Italy. Through conversations with practitioners, we explore lesser-known stories of participation, often from communities with limited resources. Each episode unpacks real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical insights.For more about us, visit https://takesacity.com/ or get in touch at [email protected].

We’re living through a global democratic crisis, and if we’re honest, we don’t really know how to fix it. Elections around the world are sending a clear message: the system isn’t working.It Takes a City is a podcast about participation and democracy. We believe that greater participation is key to making democracy work and to making people feel better about it. Through conversations with practitioners, we explore stories from communities with limited resources, where people are trying to reach beyond the usual voices, tackle difficult challenges, and sometimes fail along the way.We are Stefania Kapronczay, an advocate for human rights and resilient democracies from Budapest, Hungary, and Flavio Proietti Pantosti, a social innovator and entrepreneur working on public administration and government issues from Rome, Italy.Each episode focuses on lesser-known experiences of participation, especially in places where resources are scarce. We unpack real tactics, strategic dilemmas, and honest failures, with the goal of offering practical guidance you can use, whether you’re a local government official, an activist, or a policy student.Special thanks to Amplitudo, especially Fabio di Santo, Daniele Prina, and Marco Romano, for their fantastic editing work. They genuinely care about participation and were an absolute pleasure to collaborate with. Learn more about their work at amplitudo.it.For more about us, visit https://takesacity.com/