On 1 July, the Chief Representative of our office attended the conference “Universities and the City” organized by the City of Frankfurt and the Goethe University, where he participated in a discussion and a joint declaration was formulated during the political panel.
“Under the theme of “Democratic Innovation and Citizen Participation”, the Chief Representative of our Yokohama City Office gave a speech and held a discussion on Yokohama’s regional urban planning. Resulting from the discussion, the “Frankfurt Declaration on the Future of Democracy” was compiled.
Representatives from five sister cities attended the political panel discussion in the Emperors’ Hall of Frankfurt’s city hall. Moderated by Brigitte Geißel from Goethe University, the panelists City Councilor Ina Hartwig for Frankfurt, Lyon City Councilor Sonia Zdorovtzoff, City Councilor Chen Arieli from Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the Krakow City President’s Representative for Equality, Nina Gabryś and Takehiro Kuribayashi representing the City of Yokohama discussed their cities’ measures regarding democratic innovations and citizen participation.
The panelists gave an overview on how local democracy works in the sister cities, described successful models for involving citizens in the political decision-making process in the face of serious challenges to representative democracy, such as declining party loyalty and increasing demands for direct participation, and how this topic shall be fostered in the future.
