Miasto Jest Nasze

Miasto Jest Nasze (Polish for The City Is Ours, styled as MJN) is an independent citizen platform launched in 2013 in Warsaw, as of 2014 registered as a non-profit civic association. Miasto Jest Nasze is considered to be one of the major urban movements in Poland. In 2018 Polish local elections coalition formed by Miasto Jest Nasze took 22 seats in Warsaw district councils.

Miasto Jest Nasze
The City Is Ours
MottoLudzie, którym się chce
People who want to act
Established2013
HeadJan Mencwel
Members140 members
Addressul. Boduena 4, Warszawa
Location
Warsaw, Poland
Websitewww.miastojestnasze.org
Miasto Jest Nasze members, 2018
Map of reprivatisation 2.0.
"Cigarettes for children" campaign
Election campaign

Organization

Miasto Jest Nasze counts more than 140 members (January 2019) and is led by board headed by Jan Mencwel. The association is present in 10 of 18 Warsaw districts.[1]

Activity

Since its beginning Miasto Jest Nasze focuses on exposing and publicizing malfunctions of Warsaw authorities. It supports transparency across all city functions as well as civic participation through participatory budgets and public consultations. As part of its activity, it monitors the work of politicians and city officials by publicizing irregularities in Warsaw's management and pressing on the importance of accountability. MJN uses tools typical to bottom-up organization (e.g. throwing up a street dance party)[2][3] political party (e.g. running in elections) and think tanks (organizing conferences[4] and publishing expert reports presenting alternative solutions[5]).

Among its scope of interests are such issues as: sustainable transport in the city, community rights, environment (especially smog and preserving green areas in the city), land management,[6] reprivatisation of Warsaw properties,[7] participatory democracy.[8]

Miasto Jest Nasze activity has been focusing on identifying and addressing critical issues, inter alia including following:

  • Urban development: promoting the long-term urban policy for a compact and functionally diverse city, the need of applying an active landscape policy for Warsaw and fighting visual advertisement chaos, example being the campaign “Żegnamy Reklamy” (“We say goodbye to advertisements”).[9]
  • Sustainable transport: supporting good practices in the further development of public transport and bicycle road infrastructure, promoting pedestrian-friendly space within the framework of the “Pedestrian Critical Mass”.[10]
  • Environment: recognizing the need for well-thought-out and environment-friendly solutions in the city, effective green area management and the urgency to fight smog.[11] In 2017 MJN opened a temporary shop with “cigarettes for children”, in fact being a "Smog Information Center"– social campaign which met with a wide interest from nationwide media.[12][13]
  • Reprivatisation of Warsaw properties: Miasto Jest Nasze contributed to revealing the chaos and ambiguities around the process of real estate reprivatisation in Warsaw taking place in the capital intensely in the 1990s and 2000s (i.e. the handing back of properties to pre-communist owners due to change of political system).[14] Broad publicity received maps revealing connections between politicians, including the mayor of Warsaw, lawyers, business people, and real estate companies.[15] Miasto Jest Nasze was sued by some of individuals showed on the maps but won all cases.[16]

Over the past years the activity of Miasto Jest Nasze has also been commented on in various foreign non-English press articles (including Frankfurter Rundschau,[17] Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk,[18] Le Monde,[19] as well as Czech[20][21] or Slovak[22][23] media).

Warsaw municipal elections

2014

In local elections in 2014 Miasto Jest Nasze won 7 seats in Warsaw 3 district councils (Śródmieście, Praga-Północ, Żoliborz).[24]

2018

In 2018 local elections the coalition of local urban movements led by MJN received 5,72% of votes, winning 22 seats in 7 district councils (Mokotów, Ochota, Rembertów, Wawer, Wesoła, Wola, Żoliborz). Justyna Glusman, MJN candidate for mayor of Warsaw, received 2,32% of votes.[25] After the election she became member of the Warsaw mayor board as the Warsaw City Hall coordinator responsible for sustainable development, green area management and fighting smog.[26]

In the local elections of 2018, Miasto Jest Nasza launched an informative campaign to encourage EU citizens living in Warsaw to register and vote in the elections. The site allowed to generate a fast and user-friendly registration application, an innovative solution aiming at promoting the participation of the wide group of foreigners living in the capital.[27]

International cooperation

Miasto jest Nasze is a member of the federation "Urban Movement Congress", which groups 40 organizations from around 20 Polish cities.[28]

In June 2017 Miasto Jest Nasze members participated in the Fearless Cities Summit in Barcelona, organized by Barcelona en Comú within the global municipalist movement “Fearless Cities network”.[29] In July 2018, Miasto Jest Nasze hosted the Fearless Cities CEE International Municipalist Summit in Warsaw. The first such conference to be held, it was a platform to exchange experiences on urban activism in the region, regrouping more than a hundred participants from Central and Eastern European municipalist movement organizations (including Spasi Sofia from Sofia,[30] Ne Davimo Beograd from Belgrade, Praha sobě from Prague and Iare Pekhit from Tbilisi).[4][31]

Election Results

Warsaw District Councils
Election Seats Change
2014
7 / 443
 n/a
2018
22 / 445
 15


References
  1. "Poznaj nas". Miasto Jest Nasze.
  2. "Dziękujemy za wspaniałą Żoliborską Potańcówkę!". Miasto Jest Nasze. 26 June 2017.
  3. "Międzypokoleniowa potańcówka na Żoliborzu". Miasto Jest Nasze. 8 June 2015.
  4. "Fearless Cities CEE: 13-15 of July, Warsaw".
  5. "#buspasyDlaWarszawy". Miasto Jest Nasze. 5 April 2018.
  6. "Warsaw mayor in corruption probe: report". Radio Poland. 8 February 2017.
  7. Berendt, Joanna (2018-06-10). "In Poland, 'a Narrow Window to Do Justice' for Those Robbed by Nazis". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-12-03.
  8. Rushton, Steve (26 September 2018). "In Warsaw, Right to the City Means Clean Air and Affordable Homes". Resilience.
  9. "Żegnamy Reklamy!". www.zegnamyreklamy.pl. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  10. "Piesza Polska: koalicja – dołącz do nas! – Piesza Masa Krytyczna" (in Polish). Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  11. Perry, Francesca (2017-02-16). "'You can taste it in the air': your stories of life in polluted cities". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  12. "Sklep z papierosami dla dzieci. Już wiadomo, o co chodzi". www.fakt.pl. 2017-02-27. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  13. "Controversial anti-smog campaign sparks debate in Poland - Xinhua | English.news.cn". www.xinhuanet.com. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  14. Davies, Christian (2017-12-18). "'They stole the soul of the city': how Warsaw's reprivatisation is causing chaos". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  15. Wasik, Zosia (26 September 2017). "Polish activists turn to digital democracy". Financial Times.
  16. Dymek, Jakub (29 August 2016). "Your house is now ours". Krytyka Polityczna & European Alternatives.
  17. Opielka, Jan (2016-07-25). "Chmielna-Fall: Dubiose Eigentümer". www.fr.de (in German). Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  18. "Anti-Smog-Kampagne: Zigarettenladen für Kinder | MDR.DE". www.mdr.de (in German). 2017-03-03. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  19. Iwaniuk, Jakub (2018-10-19). "La bataille de Varsovie, enjeu-clé des élections locales en Pologne" (in French). Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  20. "Církev si ve Varšavě na nejdražším polském pozemku postaví "dvojčata" – mrakodrapy". Novinky.cz. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  21. "Všechny nás neupálíte". A2larm (in Czech). Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  22. "Vyraziť do Poľska na nákupy nemusí byť lacná záležitosť. Vláda zvažuje zavedenie mýta". www.noviny.sk. 2018-04-01. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  23. "Ekológovia chystajú sťažnosť na poľskú vládu. Dôvodom je smog". Pravda.sk (in Slovak). 2017-02-10. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  24. "Wyniki wyborów". Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza (National Electoral Commission). 2014. Archived from the original on 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-11-24.
  25. "Wyniki wyborów Prezydenta i do Rady m.st. Warszawy". Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza (National Electoral Commission). 2018.
  26. "Justyna Glusman w zespole Rafała Trzaskowskiego w ratuszu". www.rp.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  27. "Foreigners living in Warsaw encouraged to vote in local elections | Polska Agencja Prasowa SA". www.pap.pl. 2018-10-08. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  28. "Kongres Ruchów Miejskich (Urban Movement Congress)".
  29. "MJN na światowym kongresie ruchów miejskich w Barcelonie". Miasto Jest Nasze. 11 June 2017.
  30. ""To pozostałości linii tramwajowej". Spasi Sofia odpowiada Jakiemu". TVN Warszawa. 23 August 2018.
  31. "Fearless Cities Municipalist Manual" (PDF). 2019.
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