Mary Dellenbaugh-Losse from the Urban Research Group is back with a follow-up publication to “Urban Commons: Moving beyond State and Market.” The Urban Commons Cookbook will combine the theoretical framework set out in the 2015 publication with real-world insights, usable tips, and tested methods for creating and maintaining commons from real urban commons projects. The result will be a practical handbook which can inform actors from the civil society and politics alike.
A successful Kickstarter campaign has been online from February 18 to March 9th: 56 backers supported it, so the Cookbook is going to be a reality! (For more information: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/883826659/the-urban-commons-cookbook )
The core of the cookbook will be made up of interviews with commons projects across a broad spectrum of resource types and locations. The interviews will focus on the projects’ experiences – which ingredients and structures made their commons project possible? What challenges arose and how did they deal with them? What was critical to success and which lessons would they pass on to projects just starting out?
These real-world experiences will be supplemented with a clear and reader-friendly introduction to commons theory and a range of practical methods for starting a project, dealing with internal & external challenges, creating visibility and impact, and building trust and community.
Once completed, a barrier-free PDF of the book will be freely available for download; hard copies will be available for a nominal fee to offset printing costs via print-on-demand. We expect the book to be about 100 A5 pages. It will be written in English with a journalistic writing style which is accessible for people of different backgrounds and a large number of graphic elements (infographics, diagrams, photos) in order to be visually interesting. The intended audience includes activists, policy makers, district managers, and educators. The publication is expected to be released in fall 2018.