Fairville intends to address embedded urban inequalities and the challenge this poses to democracy in large cities and urban regions. It will do so by intervening in low-income neighbourhoods that face a growing distance from the institutions and processes of representative democracy. Fairville reimagines the long-term impact of various inequalities on democratic participation and will use knowledge co-production and participative democracy as strategies of spatial justice to address urban inequalities affecting cities in Europe, and two other mirror cases in Africa. Eight pilot cases (Fairville Labs), implemented in low-income urban areas, will be launched worldwide to demonstrate the capacity of co-production to tackle inequalities and reduce democratic gaps.

The Fairville Labs will be places of reinvigorated local democratic engagement between four main kinds of partners: 1) civil society organisations, CBO’s and ordinary residents and users 2) academics and researchers; 3) third-party facilitators and advocacy organisations; 4) local authorities.