This edited collection explores secular and faith-based grassroots social action in Berlin and London that has evolved as a response to economic policy and expanding needs for basic items such as food and more complex means to move out of poverty. It brings together scholars from different disciplines and practitioners in several areas of social intervention, to explore how the conceptualization and constitutive practices of citizenship and community are now changing because of the retreat of the State, the challenge of meeting social and material needs, and new opportunities for local activism.