With the People: A Documentary Featuring Cities Reimagining Democracy
By Suki Capobianco, Chief Strategy Officer, Better Politics Foundation
and Svetlana Tesic, Cofounder, Mayors of Europe
Across Europe, cities are quietly but decisively renewing the foundations of democracy by moving closer to the people they represent. Participation today is no longer symbolic, nor limited to isolated tools such as participatory budgeting. Instead, it is becoming an essential part of how cities govern, respond to complex challenges, and rebuild trust at a time of growing political disillusionment.
This shift inspired With the People, a documentary that explores how European cities are embedding democratic innovation into everyday governance. The film follows three cities – Stockholm, Bologna, and Poznań – diverse in political culture, geography, and scale, yet united by a shared commitment: governing with people, not merely for them.
Why cities are reimagining democracy
Across the continent, a quiet transformation is unfolding. Cities are rethinking how decisions are made and how residents are invited into public life. We see political leaders embracing a more human-centred approach to governing, one that starts with listening and treats participation not as a one-off exercise, but as a continuous democratic practice.
New participatory structures are emerging as recurring spaces where residents, civil society, institutions, universities, and experts collaborate. This shift reflects a growing recognition that legitimacy today is built through proximity, openness, and shared responsibility. For many city leaders, democratic innovation has become a practical response to declining trust: a way to reconnect institutions with lived realities and to govern in closer relationship with communities.
Why cities matter for democratic renewal
Focusing on cities is not incidental. In the 21st century, cities have become critical arenas for democratic renewal. They are where political decisions are felt most immediately, where trust can be built, or lost, quickly and where leadership is tested daily against real social complexity.
Mayors of Europe highlights the strategic importance of local leadership in this context. By working closely with mayors and municipal teams, it brings attention to how cities are responding to challenges such as social cohesion, climate resilience, migration, and digital transformation, often faster and more experimentally than national systems allow.
The Better Politics Foundation approaches this space through a leadership lens. Its work focuses on how political leaders across contexts can exercise power responsibly, navigate complexity, and rebuild trust in democratic institutions. With the People reflects an interest in understanding how these leadership challenges play out at the local level, where governance is relational, visible, and deeply human.
Democracy through lived experience
With the People captures democratic renewal not through theory, but through lived experience, through the voices of those governing, shaping, and inhabiting cities every day.
Stockholm: Innovation rooted in social reality
In Stockholm, democratic innovation begins with confronting difficult truths: rising criminality, neighborhoods under strain, and the urgent need to rebuild trust, particularly with young people. The city’s approach to social innovation is grounded in concrete interventions. The documentary highlights initiatives ranging from community-led safe walks to the summer jobs programme, which offers young people their first employment opportunity.
These initiatives may appear modest, but they carry deep political significance. They signal presence, care, and long-term commitment. Stockholm shows that democratic innovation is less about grand designs and more about listening closely and shaping policy around lived realities. Here, democracy is practiced through empathy, continuity, and shared responsibility.
Bologna: Participation as institutional practice
Bologna demonstrates what happens when participation is fully institutionalized and genuinely inclusive. The city recognizes all who live, study, or work there as part of its civic community, long-term residents, migrants, students, and newcomers alike. Citizenship, for Bologna’s leadership, is not defined by paperwork, but by belonging.
This principle comes to life in initiatives such as climate shelters designed to protect vulnerable groups during heatwaves while remaining open to all. More broadly, Bologna has embedded participation into its governance architecture through assemblies, co-creation processes, and civic imagination spaces that welcome diverse voices. Inclusion here is not a slogan; it is a daily governance practice.
Poznań: Experimentation through the Smart City Lab
Poznań represents an experimental approach to democratic innovation. Through its Smart City Lab, the municipality has created a space where residents, startups, researchers, and city officials can test solutions in real urban environments. From mobility to digital services and participatory tools, ideas are piloted, evaluated, and refined before being scaled into longer-term policy.
What distinguishes Poznań is not only the solutions themselves, but the method: an openness to experimentation, evidence, and co-creation. By replacing fear of failure with curiosity and learning, the city shows how innovation can flourish when institutions create room to test, adapt, and improve.
”Making the documentary WITH THE PEOPLE was more than a usual job. It was an inspiration and privilege to witness the dedication of local politicians and citizens to shape their society together. Most of of all it gave hope that an inclusive and progressive way of governance is possible – and this across the whole political spectrum.” Loraine Blumenthal, Documentary Filmmaker
Key takeaways for cities
Across all three cities, clear lessons emerge and each depends on political will. Meaningful participation does not happen by accident; it requires intention, structure, and continuity from city leadership. Innovation must be grounded in the real social challenges people face, not abstract strategies.
Trust grows through proximity, transparency, and collaboration, and it is strengthened every time institutions choose to work with communities rather than speak for them. Experimentation gives cities the flexibility to test ideas, learn quickly, and improve public services. Ultimately, cities thrive when political leaders choose to govern alongside their people, recognizing that legitimacy is built through shared responsibility and openness to change.
What comes next
In a time characterized by disillusionment and declining trust in politics, trust has become one of the most important currencies political leaders have. It cannot be assumed or demanded; it must be built through everyday governing choices.
With the People offers examples of leaders who are using democratic innovation as a way to rebuild trust by listening more closely, sharing responsibility, and governing with greater openness. These stories are not blueprints to be copied, but sources of inspiration for other leaders navigating similar challenges.
The film will be screened alongside the Berlinale in 2026, as well as in other spaces and forums to be announced, creating opportunities for dialogue among political leaders, practitioners, and wider audiences.
Through the Political Leadership Entrepreneur Network (PLEN), the Better Politics Foundation will help spotlight political leaders and innovators around the world who are experimenting with new ways of governing in response to this trust deficit. By making these efforts more visible, the PLEN supports reflection, peer exchange, and learning across diverse contexts.
With the People adds to this broader conversation by showing that better politics becomes possible when leaders treat trust not as a by-product of power, but as something they actively work to build—alongside the people they serve.
