by Alessandra Pirera | Jul 31, 2018 | The Urban Media Lab
Urban commons studies and policies are increasingly acquiring public interest, giving a stronger transformative potential to the concept of the governance of the city as a commons.
This potential also relies on our ability as a community of urban commons researchers, practitioners, social innovators, public authorities, institutions and representatives to communicate the shared vision to advocate for a just and democratic city by generating new urban storytelling from the common work we are committed to.
The Co-City approach – consolidated in Europe and North America and experimented in cities of the Global South – enhancing local authorities’ capacity and leveraging value of collaboration within local communities, represents an original and proactive approach to implement the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.
LabGov, in this moment of transformation and evolution, found strategical to put a special effort in communication to have a stronger voice in contributing to the common goals of promoting shared, collaborative and polycentric urban governance.
www.labgov.city
www.commoning.city
Renewed and redesigned, the websites will become platforms to coordinate all LabGovs’ works, insights and news form partners and best practices we are involved in as well as latest theoretical and academic publications.
Discover new sections and features like:
To be consistent with its evolution, LabGov also renewed its visual identity and created new communications tools.
Find the guidelines here and download the new brochure here.
For us each step represents a new start, built on the past but with all challenges and opportunities to come. Confident in our partners willingness to join us in spreading urban commons messages, more tools, media buzz and networking activities will follow to the launch of today, so, please keep connected and stay tuned!
LabGov Comms Team
![Italian Municipalities gathered to rethink the civic participation and urban commons]()
by Alessandra Pirera | Jul 24, 2018 | The Urban Media Lab
Today, cities are increasingly becoming the place where to experiment civic participation and the dialogue between administrators and local authorities, and the urban community. The effort of Italian Municipalities in engaging citizens has a long history enhanced by the participation to EU Programs like Urbact, Urban, and Innovative Actions. For these reasons the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI) organized a meeting, gathering the most compelling local experiences on the field, to rethink and discuss about civic engagement and democracy in the city.
On the 24th of July, at ANCI headquarters in Rome, the working group meeting on Civic Participation and Urban Commons will take place. Mayors, assessors, other local government and ANCI officials from over 40 cities will debate together with urban experts, professionals, civil society representatives, active citizens and social innovators about how to enhance participation to the urban governance, analysing opportunities and challenges as well as learning from local best practices starting from the ones of the Urbact network.
Main speakers of the day event: Veronica Nicotra, ANCI Secretary-General, launching the works; and Professors Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione, LabGov, introducing the concept of the city as a commons, a policy making strategy to connect and enhance participatory approaches to the management of urban commons towards a more complex and inclusive urban governance. Paolo Testa, Head of Research and Study – ANCI, will be debating with Rosalba Picerno, LUISS, about the evolution of civic engagement and participation regulations and the role of ANCI. Simone D’Antonio and Annalisa Gramigna, ANCI, will give an overview on local best practices about participatory governance scheme and legislation; and Tiziana Caponi and Valentina Piersanti, will talk about capacity building in local authorities to enable civic participation processes.
Finally, the meeting will end with greetings and speeches of Virginio Merola, Mayor of Bologna and Urban Agenda Delegate, and Antonio De Caro, Mayor of Bari and ANCI President.
The full programme here.
![Italian Municipalities gathered to rethink the civic participation and urban commons]()
by Alessandra Pirera | Jun 18, 2018 | The Urban Media Lab
From Wednesday 20 to Sunday 24 June Pakhuis de Zwijger (Amsterdam Metropolitan Area) will host the We Make The City Festival. Five days celebrating the urban living by collectively debate the challenge of making better cities. This huge event will erupt in the streets of Amsterdam with 30 urban talks, 50 workshops, 30 city expeditions, 15 special events, and 10 exhibitions bringing together 600 local, national and international speakers, and 30.000 participants including municipal workers, inhabitants, active citizens, commuters, and visitors to talk about the most urgent urban issues like climate, safety, affordable housing, and health.
LabGov will participate in the session – on Thursday 21 June – about Co-Creating the City contributing to answering the question “How does co-creation work in the urban practice?”. The notion of co-creation evokes and resonates the one of co-governance in raising awareness and addressing the need of a collaborative city-making approach able to include different type of urban stakeholders (knowledge institutions, businesses, start-ups, SMEs, welfare organizations, social innovators and the government) for a more inclusive, innovative and sustainable urban development.
In the context of a full day debate with representative of European municipalities, foundations, citizens and civil society associations – including Amsterdam, Athens, Ghent, Groningen, Lisbon, Madrid, Nantes, Reykjavik, Rotterdam, and Vienna – a well as researchers from worldwide knowledge institutions – like Harvard University, LabGov São Paulo and San José State University – and international networks like the Project for Public Spaces; LabGov will share the added value of the Co-City approach leading a panel to discuss “Infrastructure and the Co-City: How Might We Make Urban Infrastructure Work for Everyone?”.
Christian Iaione (Professor of Urban Law and Policy at LUISS University, and LabGov Co-Director), Sheila Foster (Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of Georgetown), Simone D’Antonio (URBACT), Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes (New Orleans Business Alliance), Marcella Arruda (Instituto A Cidade Precisa de Você, LabGov São Paulo) and Joachim Meerkerk (PhD researcher, Amsterdam University of Applied Science) – in a break-out session facilitated by Alicia Bonner Ness – will address the issue of how the Co-City approach can help city leaders and city-makers in serving collective needs leveraging public-community cooperation.
Key in the discussion will be the focus on infrastructures. Not only because urban infrastructures are the main resources in becoming urban commons if collaborative managed and collectively shared; but especially because this multi-stakeholder and democratic management of common goods is itself co-creating new infrastructure of urban governance. According with the Co-City methodology, in fact, the creation of a collaborative social and economic ecosystem will be transitioning urban governance from urban commons projects to the City as a Commons.
Another interesting highlight of the week will be the participation of Professor Christian Iaione in the EMMA experts event in The Hague on Wednesday 20 June that will also be focused on collaborative partnership between local public authorities, social innovators and civil society in the co-creation of the city that is the basis of the quintuple helix theory of the Co-City approach.
Find the complete program of the Festival on the official website: https://wemakethe.city/nl/programma
Dal 20 al 24 giugno Pakhuis de Zwijger (Amsterdam) ospiterà il We Make The City Festival: cinque giorni dedicati alla celebrazione dell’urban living attraverso un dibattito collettivo su come migliorare le nostre città. LabGov terrà, nella sessione “Co-Creating the City” un panel sull’approccio Co-Cities dal titolo “Infrastructure and the Co-City: How Might We Make Urban Infrastructure Work for Everyone” e una break-out session facilitata da Alicia Bonner Ness.
by Alessandra Pirera | May 2, 2018 | The Urban Media Lab
The Heritage Walk through the neighbourhoods in the South-East suburbs of Rome during a one day event to enjoy the city experiencing civic collaboration practices
The EDU@LabGov academic year 2017-2018 – the LUISS Educational Lab is the urban clinic for students to experiment on the field the urban commons theories and collaboration practices – is coming to an end and, for the third year, the labgovers will be committed to a one day experience of civic collaboration and cultural and environmental heritage regeneration of urban commons in the South-East of the city of Rome.
On Saturday, 5th May 2018, the Third Civic Collaboration Day and the RomaSudfEst will represent a unique opportunity to meet, discuss and spread a message of environmental, economic and social sustainability.
A programme full of activities – open to participants of all ages – will engage a variety of local actors and urban stakeholders in living different places and public spaces of the entire district, experiencing new practices of civic collaboration, and pushing forward the local public debate.
The Civic Collaboration Day will start at 9 a.m. in the Degli Acquedotti Park (Don Bosco neighbourhood) and from there will cross through the neighbourhoods of Torre Spaccata, Tor Sapienza, Centocelle and Alessandrino; in each of them are scheduled different activities and events organized by associations and active citizens in collaboration with public and knowledge institutions, as Municipio V, Rome Municipality, ENEA and LUISS University.
The initiative is one of the outputs of the work carried on by EDU@LabGov in different urban experimentation sites in the framework of Co-Roma, a project aimed at building an integrated model of urban smart district based on the development of new co-economies: economies with a circular, social, supportive and collaborative nature and on an active and cohesive citizenship.
Amongst the many activities scheduled during the day:
>> At 10.30 a.m., in the green area next to the Rugantino Library (Torre Spaccata), the labgovers – together with the students of the Master in Landscape Architecture of La Sapienza University of Rome – will bring the University outside its doors by setting up the third satellite of the University’s community garden #ortoLUISS and leading a horticulture lab for children.
>> At 3 p.m. in the Centocelle Park – which, for the first two years, has been the centre of the Co-Roma project – will take place different activities for kids about urban mobility, together with a series of heritage walks (organized by the Comunità Parco Pubblico di Centocelle Odv), as defined by the Faro Convention framework, to discover together and showcase to all the participants the beauty of several archaeological and cultural resources of the district.
>> The Collaboration Day will close at FusoLab (Centocelle) at 19.30 with the RomaSudfEst where many people from the district and from the whole city will gather to celebrate with the music the conclusion of this important collective moment.
Click here to download the full programme of the event
by Alessandra Pirera | Apr 19, 2018 | The Urban Media Lab
A discussion about Principles and Practices for Urban Commons Law and Regeneration in the framework of URBACT 2nd Chance Network
Today, 19 April 2018, LabGov will participate to the Final Event of the URBACT 2nd Chance – Waking up the “sleeping giants” project in Naples.
The URBACT 2nd Chance project aim at defining actions, strategies and ideas for the reactivation vacant large buildings and building complexes that are in decay, derelict and losing their original purpose, through a participatory urban governance approach, in order to awake their potential to provide space for needed functions in the city and to support a sustainable city and neighbourhood development.
The project created a large European Network of Local group members, local authorities and urban partners that tested and applied, in the last 3 years, a new collaborative approach resulted in the Integrated Action Plans of the 11 cities of Europe that will be presented and discussed with a wider audience of urban professionals, decision-and change-makers from 18 to 20 April in Naples.
https://vimeo.com/258964435
In this framework, Professor Christian Iaione, LabGov Faculty Director and URBACT Expert, will contribute to the discussion by sharing concepts, methodology and experiences of urban governance and economy based on years of researches and practices of applying and adapting Elinor Ostrom principles of collaborative management for economic and environmental sustainability to commons in urban contexts.
Ostrom in the City: Design Principles and Practices for the Urban Commons
The integrated and participatory urban renewal strategies experienced by the URBACT 2nd Chance projects involving cooperatives, builders’ groups, associations or foundations as well as self-organised citizens and communities to give new social and ecological sustainability to vacant large buildings are in line with the thinking and experimentation of LabGov that to achieve social, economic and institutional regeneration of urban areas, it is necessary to experiment “urban co-governance“, according to which public authorities shall enable the collective action of city inhabitants and invest on the creation of collaborative partnerships with and/or between city inhabitants, knowledge institutions, NGOs and businesses.
LabGov will be thus in the event in Naples looking forward to get new inputs, to share knowledge and best practices and to network with active urban actors from all Europe.
More info about the event here:
