The neighborhood in Lisbon where I spend a lot of my time is densely populated. It has undergone many changes, with new cafes and restaurants catering to youngsters as well as a significant influx of immigrants. Increased population and tourism put pressure on infrastructure, and local branches of government have been slow to respond. The bus I take is overcrowded. Garbage collection is falling behind. The local hospital is understaffed and underqualified: almost no one can address those seeking care in English. Immigrants are often met with hostility and frustration. The result is a chaotic neighborhood that feels vibrant and diverse, but also exasperating and hostile.
It’s a striking contrast with the recent history of some areas surrounding this neighborhood, which were part of an innovative project: the SAAL—Serviço de Apoio Ambulatório Local, which was meant to “support, through the municipal council, initiatives by poorly housed populations to collaborate in transforming their own neighbourhoods” (my translation). When it was abruptly terminated in 1976, SAAL counted 41,665 families involved, 2,259 homes that had started to be constructed by October 1976, and 3,125 were to begin to be constructed by December of the same year. Existing records are inspiring: people protested and attended local council meetings, where, together with technical experts, they planned their neighborhoods, at times even co-constructing buildings. SAAL was meant to provide housing and inclusion to people who had relocated from rural areas to cities and had been living in slums for years. These people were stigmatized and marginalized. Through SAAL, they built housing and developed projects for local theatres and movies. Those who participated remember fondly the sense of community it helped create.
Can SAAL help my neighbors and me improve the often hostile and exclusionary atmosphere of our neighborhood? And can it, by extension, change how we think about marginalization within communities more generally? As you might suspect, the answer is yes. But let’s bracket that for a second.
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The example of my neighborhood illustrates a relevant fact of our liberal democracies: pluralism. Democracy requires substantive commitments, including to basic freedoms and access to certain goods. These are requirements for a just and democratic society, where people can participate as equals. But as members of a political community, individuals are also enmeshed in a web of obligations. Consider political obligations, such as a commitment to ‘fair play’ where we obey the laws governing a cooperative scheme, because we benefit from them; economic obligations, where, under certain circumstances, individuals have an obligation to pay taxes, or to work; or the principle of public reason requiring that we appeal to political values, rather than individual comprehensive doctrines, ensuring laws are justifiable to everyone as free and equal people. All of these obligations express a fundamental notion of reciprocity: a commitment to abide by certain rules or norms, provided that others do the same—let’s call this a commitment to civic reciprocity.
The commitment to civic reciprocity helps sustain fair social cooperation. But reciprocity is a relational principle: how and when we reciprocate depends on the relations in which we are cooperating (something anthropology has long discussed). So civic reciprocity has to be grounded on a particular account or the relationship shared by people living in a political community: a relationship of civic friendship. We can give several justifications for grounding civic reciprocity in civic friendship. First, we can argue that fair social cooperation assumes that citizens have what RJ Leland and Han van Wietmarschen call a ‘non-prudential concern for the interest of their fellow citizens’, and that civic friendship provides a basis for a ‘partially shared conception of one another’s good’. Second, according to Sybil A. Schwarzenbach, we can say civic friendship is a precondition for a just society: in a society where a just distribution is implemented, but mistrust and ill will persist, citizens might perceive themselves as unjustly treated.
My view relates to both, but reinforces the point that civic friendship follows from a prior commitment to a specific kind of civic reciprocity: one that can sustain the obligations required for a just and democratic society. Moreover, this can also be read as a concern with stability for the right reasons: insofar civic reciprocity represents a particular disposition, for instance, ‘between our altruistic and self-interested motives’, a specific relationship needs to be fostered and leveraged, for such acts to persist across time.
According to Schwarzenbach, civic friendship includes three necessary traits: reciprocal awareness, goodwill, and practical doing. In the civic realm, these traits are ‘embodied in public institutions and laws’ and the ‘everyday habits of the citizenry’. A comprehensive system of human rights embodies the principles of civic friendship, as well as the mechanisms put in place to reduce inequality and unfair treatment. But civic friendship might also demand deeper awareness of our fellow citizens, for instance, ‘through a universal, public education’ in geography and different cultures as well as a country’s ‘constitution or its rights and duties’. Schwarzenbach also argues for a mandatory civil service, which can contribute towards this end.
These policies are all to be welcomed. But they are all limited in their ability to foster civic friendship because they are impersonal. They don’t bring together people who embody the diversity of our political community, but simply tell us about them. Similarly, these policies simply educate us on the principles of the Constitution and the institutions that govern us. This commitment to impersonal mechanisms makes sense: our societies are too large and complex to allow personal contact between all citizens. If civic friendship requires the latter, it follows that it cannot subsist in contemporary societies. But my concern is that this impersonal approach fails to adequately address two things: civic reciprocity requires transparency, and civic friendship requires personal acts of ‘practical doing’ and common experiences in the public realm.
Let’s return to my neighborhood and the experience of SAAL. They both show the value of promoting opportunities for ‘practical doing’ and shared experiences. To ensure this, a modest proposal would argue for accessible public spaces where people can regularly coexist with others. These have to be opportunities over a complete life: they cannot be restricted to schooling, when we are ill and go to a public hospital, or to a period of civil service. Frequent visits to public spaces offer opportunities for shared experiences that can foster mutual support and trust. They provide space for personal acts, despite the complex nature of our contemporary societies. But spaces need to be plentiful and accessible, as well as enjoyable and appealing. Instead of privatized esplanades and cafes, gated communities, or reductions in sidewalk, we should strive for quality public playgrounds, public squares with infrastructure for enjoyment, vibrant public libraries, beaches, or local gardens. Despite being minimal, this claim is demanding in many contemporary cities. While the minimal view focuses on spaces that provide opportunities for shared experiences, a more ambitious proposal would draw on examples like SAAL, showing that efforts to foster civic friendship are likely more effective when people can rally around a shared goal. The objective would then be to encourage coexistence that strongly pushes for collective engagement. Think of local festivals where people volunteer, school celebrations where parents participate, or initiatives that call on individuals to discuss a new infrastructure for the neighborhood.
Public spaces can also help us overcome the challenge of transparency. While the people in my neighborhood rarely mingle across social groups, the public square in the middle of the neighborhood is a noteworthy exception. There, old men play cards, children of different backgrounds play with their parents, and the small corner café brings everyone together. As Jane Jacobs told us, these local spaces enrich the city and provide opportunities for everyone to embody the ‘everyday habits of the citizenry’ while others watch. And this is important for diverse neighborhoods: each person present in the square can represent the different social groups that make up the community—acting as a proxy. These can create tension and struggle, but might also open up possibilities for challenging stereotypes and perceptions. A neighborhood, through its public spaces, becomes a small representative unit of the larger political community in which it is embedded. Besides encouraging practices of mutual support, it becomes a bedrock of transparency: it allows us to hold each other accountable for our actions. Civic reciprocity without transparency is unaccountable: it is mute. Public spaces offer a step in correcting this.
Two final notes: first, while this view shares many features with arguments in favor of desegregation, I am not arguing for forced diversity. There are strong reasons for protecting spaces where minorities can mingle amongst themselves. Nonetheless, a sufficient number of enjoyable public and shared spaces should be available to all. This is even more important in already diverse contexts. Second, this is not a proposal for solving structural injustice only through more diverse and communitarian cities. Many of the impersonal policies discussed earlier embody civic friendship and are essential for promoting social justice. Therefore, I am not claiming that careful local planning is not required; quite the opposite. SAAL shows the potential of hybrid models, where local authorities, experts, and citizens join forces to plan cities. And while I believe investing in accessible, enjoyable public spaces is itself beneficial for encouraging shared experiences that can foster civic friendship, opportunities for collective civic engagement should also be considered. SAAL shows that individuals who perceive themselves as a community might be more capable and willing to mobilize and demand more from their local governments. Thus, personal and impersonal mechanisms can reinforce each other in ways essential to advancing social justice.
When there was a national power outage in Portugal in 2025, reports from the public square in my neighborhood revealed the power of public spaces. Without electricity, neighbors went to the square for mutual support and company: some had barbecues, others had radios, which they shared to keep everyone informed about the outage. The square became a place for a shared experience that reinforced reciprocal awareness and a practice of doing among residents: the ingredients for civic friendship to flourish.
I would like to thank Joost Wijffels, who read and commented on this blog, and whose valuable comments on the text are very appreciated.
Catarina Neves
Catarina Nevesis a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University, working in the project Visions for the Future. Catarina earned a PhD in Philosophy from University of Minho with a thesis on Unconditional Basic Income. Her research focuses on degrowth, basic income and reciprocity.
