u/feddozzo

I’ll try to keep the question short and clear. Today, urban planning in a state (I’m speaking from a European perspective) is effectively hierarchical: first the nation-state, then the capital, then regions, provinces, regional capitals, cities, and finally districts and neighborhoods.

Now, how could urban planning be reorganized in a less hierarchical way? It’s undeniable that the current hierarchical organization works fairly well (although there are discrepancies in resource distribution between regions and provinces). That said, how could something like this be made less hierarchical? Would each municipality be independent, without regions or a state?

And for transport or infrastructure that spans large territories, how could that be managed? (For example, railways and transportation systems in general.)

Finally, for decisions that would affect large areas (such as routing a train line through one municipality rather than another), how would assemblies be organized? Calling together the population of an entire region would be very complicated. Would each municipality send some representatives? That might be one idea.

Thanks to anyone who contributes to the discussion.

Hey y'all, I wrote a short story imagining how an anarchist society might hypothetically function, using coffee as a narrative device. Since I’ve recently started studying anarchism, I’d like to understand—together with you—whether the concept of an anarchist society that I have in mind is even vaguely accurate. Feel free to correct me or add clarifications or details.

First you start reading, the story is invented, I'm not from Chicago and I'm not searching to build really an anarchist coffee business, it's just a story I've created to simplify the theory of an anarchist economy and check if I really understood the pattern, thanks y'all.

Let’s say Chicago has become an anarchist community. Let’s say I really want to make coffee for the community—I genuinely enjoy making coffee, and I’m also good at it, but I need resources.

So I call the “list office,” which keeps track of what the community needs each month and then publishes it on a website, where others can indicate that they also need something or that they can provide for that need.

After 15 days, the list office calls me: “Frank has built a coffee machine for you since you needed one. He saw on the site ‘thingschicagoneeds.com’ that someone needed a coffee maker.”

I go pick it up; Richard helps me, since he has a car. Now I have a coffee machine, but I still need coffee.

I call the manager of the community warehouse and ask if we have sacks of coffee in the city. He replies no, but he can have them brought from Philadelphia.

After 3 days, he informs me that the coffee has arrived.

Now I need a place to make coffee, so I call the office that manages the city’s buildings and tell them I need a space to make coffee.

Three days later, they inform me that on W Fulton Street there is an empty property suitable for my needs.

With the help of my friend Frank, I move the sacks of coffee and the industrial coffee machine from my house to the designated location.

Now I can make coffee for everyone. I post on thingschicagoneeds.com that I need a sign reading “John’s Coffee.” Two days later, Lucas, the city’s carpenter, lets me know he has made it, and I go pick it up.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been informed that there’s a shipment of unused cups in the warehouse, so I won’t have to use paper ones anymore.

So, after having freely benefited from Frank’s coffee machine, Richard’s car, the help of the offices, the coffee from Philadelphia, Lucas’s sign, and the cups from the warehouse,

I can finally give back to society a value equal to what I received by serving free coffee to the community in my new shop.