Dominant debates concerning the current crisis in Europe focused primarily on its national and international economic dimensions and on the issue of debt. Yet, the experience of the crisis is also strongly felt at the local level, on the everyday lives of all those who must cope with the effects of both crisis and implemented austerity measures. The focus on the local scale is not something novel; rather the local has often been considered as privileged terrain for socio-political mobilizations. Nevertheless, limitations of the local scale were also debated especially regarding its potential for broader transformations and its limitations. This paper discusses potentialities and challenges of the local as a socio-political arena in the context of the current crisis in Southern European cities, considering both their similarities and their differences regarding the current crisis.