One-on-one conversation with Professor Sheila Foster about the Co-Cities book

by benedictaquarcoo | May 3, 2023 | Commons Press

Welcome to our CO-Cities book blog, readers. 

This post features a one-on-one conversation with Professor Sheila Foster, co-author of the Co-Cities book and co-director of LabGov, a scientific and applied research laboratory in multiple cities.

Let’s get started.

1. What inspired you to write this book about co-cities? 

Foster stated that the inspiration to write Co-cities arose from working with Professor Christian Iaione, co-director of LabGov, as they investigated the idea of the city as a “shared infrastructure” or a commons. She stated: “Working with LabGov in Bologna, seeing how they regulated and developed the city, inspired me. We then went on to host a gathering in Bologna and later in Bellagio at the Rockefeller Foundation. In Bellagio, we invited various representatives from cities across America and Europe to workshop the co-city framework. Clearly, this framework could be effectively used to motivate other cities. I then was inspired to bring it to the U.S.”

2. How do you balance being a mother, a mentor, a researcher, and a writer?

When asked how she copes and balances her life being a lecturer, a mother, a researcher, a writer, a community builder, and a mentor to many, she smiled and happily responded that service is something that she enjoys doing. She also explained that she is currently involved in applying the co-city framework in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

“As part of a co-city project in Baton Rouge in the U.S. South, I’m usually not on the ground but meet with the local actors on Zoom. We have a project manager that travels to Baton Rouge and is on the ground. I make time for travel, conferences, research, papers, articles, and writing during breaks because we do not teach all year round. As well as being a member of the New York City Mayor panel on Climate Change, I also advise and support grassroots community groups.” She stresses that the co-city model is highly practical and poses the question of how to assist vulnerable communities with becoming net-zero and making a successful transition. This framework provides a pathway towards climate neutrality, sustainability, and just transitions, as well as reducing energy costs. She says that no institution alone can make this happen, yet it is possible by implementing larger policies from higher levels of government. For example, the US’s Inflation Reduction Act means incentives are available at an individual and household level, as well as at the community, local, and state government levels. It is necessary to consider how to facilitate these funds reaching those who need them most – through solar panel installation, creative community solar projects, or networked microgrids.

3. How does the co-city paradigm differ from traditional conceptions of cities (give me an example)?

Urban theorists have come up with various models and frameworks to guide cities in the desired direction. The Co-city book discusses “Creative Cities”, “Smart Cities”, and “Right to the City” approaches, among others. Foster elaborates on Richard Florida’s model wherein cities should be a hub for educated and innovative minds in the tech, knowledge, and healthcare domains; an idea that is similar to what former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said, “capital follows talent”. Urban Agglomeration is one result of people’s movement into cities as per economic theory which entails the concentration of knowledge actors learning from each other. The book also discusses the Smart City concept which sees the city as a platform for the greatest technologies meant to improve every area of city functioning. The Co-city paradigm takes it further by focusing on “The Right to the City” idea – redirecting these innovations to help disadvantaged regions/communities become empowered.

The co-city concept is also rooted more in the “right to the city” and Owen Hatherley’s “Rebel City”. These concepts have grown in popularity in Latin America and Europe. In this framework, everyone has a right to physically participate in the governance of their city—especially those who are usually left out. The difference between the two stages of the conceptualization is that the “right to the city” has been challenged in its implementation in Latin America, in particular, due to rising land prices. The co-city, on the contrary, offers responsive prototypes and tools like community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, and wireless energy networks that can create an environment allowing residents to co-govern their neighborhoods while attending to rising land values. It is this practicality that distinguishes it from other conceptualizations.

4. Can you give me some examples of co-cities in action? 

Foster mentioned Baton Rouge as the second largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana- a racially and economically stratified city populated by blacks, Latinos, and many living in poverty. The area of the city LabGov is working in is predominantly black and poor and is an “infrastructure desert”, lacking good sidewalks, traffic lights, green space, adequate housing, and small businesses. It is filled with vacant lots. At the same time, it is near “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, a stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge with a heavy concentration of petrochemical facilities.  Foster was invited into Baton Rouge to apply the co-city model to bring together, and pool resources, from a wide network of stakeholders such as local redevelopment authorities, local innovators and entrepreneurs, civic groups, private industries, foundations, both local and national, and others. “Co-City Baton Rouge” (CCBR) is focused on a 4-mile area of the city which, as described above, is in dire need of innovative approaches to urban revitalization. JPMorgan Chase Bank has provided funding to CCBR, which is part of a larger collaborative working in the area, including the local redevelopment agency, community and civic organizations, and community development financial institutions. CCBR has co-designed and is implementing prototypes that will provide goods and services—such as entrepreneurial spaces, high-speed internet, green space, and housing— tailored specifically for that community. A notable prototype is an eco-park that could address flooding issues while providing green space. It was co-designed with local authorities, residents, and a design studio at a local university.  The park, using vacant lots, will provide residents with safe spaces to recreate, a place to put a new bus stop, and offers a green infrastructure to ensure climate resiliency. The eco-park will be managed and paid for by the city’s park agency but will be held by the Community Land Bank and Trust (CLBT) which Foster created for the project and which will hold properties until they are redeveloped. Eventually, the CLBT will contain a food incubator cooperative helping people from food trucks create sustainable businesses as well. A number of other projects have been launched in other parts of the world, including Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, and Costa Rica. Understanding the context is crucial if the co-city framework is to function in a city, as it isn’t a cut-and-paste operation, and what worked in one city might not work in the other due to a variety of factors including location, culture, and governance model.

5. What can be done to adapt co-city models to different cultures and contexts? 

In her opinion, the co-city model must be tailored to the place, the politics, and the culture of the area. The principles of the co-cities have been designed to allow actors to come together, map out resources, and prototype. Only democratic cultures and governance systems may be able to implement the co-city model, which is experimental and adaptive.

6. Which lessons can be learned from successful cases or examples around the world? 

In an answer to this question, Foster proposed that much can be learned from specific applications of the co-city approach. These examples require local residents, officials, and different sectors to contemplate how the approach can be rooted in a specific place and context. One of the things that Foster and LabGov researchers and practitioners are exploring now is whether the co-city approach can help promote energy democracy, energy justice, or even climate justice in places like the U.S., Sub-Saharan Africa, or Latin America. Further research needs to be conducted to determine its suitability for various cities. It will be a great advantage if some cities begin employing the co-city governance model ensuring consistency. This can act as a learning experience and enable experimental-based exploration by everyone involved.

7. What elements of the Co-cities book did you think received more attention for you to win the Prose 2023 award? 

Foster believes that the Co-cities book’s nomination for the 2023 Prose Award was a result of its combination of theoretical background, practical illustrations, and empirical research. She revealed that it took 550 examples from 200 cities to create their co-city survey, believing that it is a novel approach within academic literature. Another aspect contributing to its practicality was the collaborations and dialogues of various players involved. She expressed great joy with the number of positive reactions she has been receiving, highlighting how the process was a long yet affectionate endeavour.

Author: Benedicta Quarcoo

Re-thinking the City    

by benedictaquarcoo | Mar 22, 2023 | Commons Press

What key principles underpin a Co-city model of urban governance, and how can they be applied to promote more collaborative and inclusive approaches to urban planning and development?  

Following our previous discussion which introduced the book, this session brings us to comprehend the first chapter. Entitled “Rethinking the City”, the chapter capitalizes on Polycentrism and the Quintuple Helix Approach for approaching governance issues (public, community, civic, knowledge, and private). It sets the stage for the book’s exploration of how cities can become more collaborative and inclusive in their governance structures. In response, the writers advocate for a new model of urban governance that is more participatory, bottom-up, and collaborative.   

First off, the chapter outlines immersion and provides examples of the various synergies by residents of communities, emphasizing the efforts and challenges they put into co-create, co-produce, and co-share a common good or resource. This is done by the application of innovative, skillful techniques and mechanisms leading to a total transformation of the common good. The created resource is not left as a stand-alone project but then each member who contributed towards it, one way or the other feels a sense of belonging. This is where the concept of stewardship is introduced “Resident transformation of previously vacant lots into community gardens represents a form of local environmental stewardship” (pg.34). Building on the concept of environmental stewardship as provided by the Aarhus Convention, the section explains local environmental stewardship as a course of action taken by individuals, groups, or networks of actors, with various motivations, to protect, care for, or responsibly use valuable or scarce resources in pursuit of environmental and/or social outcomes. This brings to light one benefit of stewardship, that it strengthens collective capacity and resilience for urbanization. 

Then, the chapter proceeds with six sections: “Who owns the city”, “The city as a Commons”, “Constructing Urban Commons”, “Urban Pooling Economies” and “Enabling a polycentric system of Urban Co-governance”.  

The first one is introduced by a provocative question: “Who owns the city?” Answering is difficult, considering the numerous characters living within a city and the circumstances or occurrences of a city’s past and present. These do not make room for a definite answer but this part of the book highlights that a city is also owned by its inhabitants. A definite answer cannot be given to the above question posed due to factors such as decisions made by public authorities regarding resources, their allocation, and distribution.  Another factor is the issue of capture agglomeration benefits, security, and trust.  

“The city as a Commons”, the second section, presents the opportunities for shared stewardship of cities assets by urban communities. In this case, the well-renowned theories by the scholar Elinor Ostrom are recalled as a starting point. She advanced criticism of the powerful account of the tragedy of commons given by Garett Hardin. The dominant view of the “tragedy of the commons” emphasizes that free use of open-access resources that are unregulated by private property mechanisms will result in its destruction. Ostrom opposed this saying that “the choice between central government regulation and private property rights does not capture the full range of approaches to managing or governing the commons” (pg.42). The Co-cities book builds on Ostrom’s urban commons insights and methodology, but it is more adapted to urban environments. It is based on progressive observations of the authors, Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione, on the dynamics and challenges specific to those environments. The section further gives examples of the “city as a commons” in existence such as Neighborhood commons, place-based institutions, and many more.    

“Constructing Urban Commons” emanates from the concept “Comedy of the Commons” which involves granting access to resources that the community values and that increases the solidarity between urban residents. Carol Rose (1986) first brought up this concept and stated that the more people come together to do something, the merrier and better, especially in the construction of the Urban Commons. There is collective action and stewardship as people interact, communicate, and integrate. Therefore, the definition of constructing the urban commons came up and is defined as “a result from a process of bringing together a spectrum of actors that work together to co-design and co-produce shared, common goods and services at different scales from existing shared urban infrastructure”. An example of constructed urban commons is community land trusts (CLTs). These are flourishing worldwide as a vehicle to allow community control of land toward stabilizing communities vulnerable to being displaced by market forces. CLTs come with numerous benefits such as a form of stewardship for preserving to promote growth without displacing people and to keep housing and other land uses as inexpensive and accessible for future generations. It is also utilized to acquire and develop existing urban land and buildings to provide underdeveloped urban areas with affordable housing, commercial space, and green and recreational amenities, just to mention a few. Other examples of constructed urban commons include wireless mesh or broadband networks, energy microgrids, and other essential social infrastructure as well as community-created and user-managed mesh networks.    

The last but one section framed as “Urban pooling economies” focuses on diverse means, strategies, and mechanisms to pool and gather resources (financial, human, knowledge) to scale initiatives across a city and improve collective control of shared urban resources. Relying solely on State funds to finance development activities has proven futile and weak in most cases due to corruption and lack of resources (pg.53). Iaione & De Nictolis 2017 delineate that “pooling economies” are a vital feature of a networked economy and of urban commons. The process is known by other scholars and writers as “solidarity economy” or “collective economy”. The concept is used to capture how new economies and assets are being collectively created in the city, that are unique from a sharing economy point of view, which too frequently relies on the commodification of shared goods. In fact, local authorities, private sector institutions, regulatory bodies, and other urban stakeholders have various roles to play. Pooling economies are usually done through the central government’s effort by reducing costs of cooperation and relevant actors to leverage their efforts to achieve high economic and social payoffs from their collective action. Other means to pool resources are through incentivization, increasing the capacity of communities and other stakeholders by the local government as well as the transfer of financing or physical resources to community land trusts, notably, to engage in co-design activities and co-governance projects.    

The final section, “Enabling a Polycentric system of urban co-governance”, elucidates the concept of “polycentrism”, which is a response to the criticism of top-down or command and control public governance approaches that exercise monopolies on power and decision-making in complex resource contexts. In many instances, this top-down method of governance has been seen to be less effective and democratic since it limits the “opportunity for ordinary residents to join in local problem-solving.” (pg. 57). Therefore, polycentrism comes up where co-cities are not only more effective at addressing complex urban challenges but reveals that the idea of the state as a facilitator of pooling economies and collective resource stewardship is part of the move from a centralized system of government to a system of urban governance that redistributes decision-making power and influence away from the center and toward independent and autonomous self-organized units of resource management.  Also, a more democratic and inclusive system is viewed by involving a range of stakeholders in the decision-making process. In an ideal model of a Co-city, decision-making is shared among citizens, community groups, and local businesses. This can lead to more equitable outcomes and a stronger sense of community ownership over urban projects and allows for a more diverse range of perspectives which is essential in decision-making, leading to more innovative and effective solutions. For instance, in a study of local school districts in Chicago, the local participants in education-related polycentric governance, “devised the specific means for cooperation and the details of implementation (. . .), the state at the higher city level provided support, monitoring, and sanctioning for defection” as well as “information sharing across the several local sites” (pg. 56). 

If readers grasp a hold of this and indeed get a bird’s eye view of the new City, they have re-thought and re-imagined, then the second chapter will expose them to the theories of urban co-governance.   

Benedicta Quarcoo 

Bibliography

1. Carol Rose, 1986 (Comedy of the commons) 
2. Mansbridge 2014, (The role of the State in governing the commons) 
3. Lee Anne Fennell, 2011 (Ostrom’s Law: Property Rights in the Commons) 
4. Garett Hardin, 1968 (Tragedy of the commons) 

The Co-cities book. So the story begins

by benedictaquarcoo | Feb 23, 2023 | Commons Press

How can the recognition of the fundamental right to collective action of city inhabitants and local communities foster the sustainable development of cities and urban innovation thereby promoting social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and prosperity?

The book Co-cities. Innovative Transitions toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities, authored by Sheila Foster (Georgetown University) and Christian Iaione (Luiss University), just won the 2023 Prose Awards for Social Sciences Category -Architecture and Urban Planning. (https://publishers.org/news/association-of-american-publishers-announces-finalists-and-category-winners-for-2023-prose-awards/)

The volume walks readers through the new, emerging models of urban governance, such as Community Land Trusts, community coops and pacts of collaboration or civic uses, aimed at ensuring a more equitable and sustainable management of both the city as a complex system and some of its specific essential resources such as parks, abandoned or underused buildings, and basic technological infrastructure such as broadband network and local renewable energy production infrastructure such as energy communities. The contribution seeks to tackle the daunting challenges of 21^st century urbanism from an equity, inclusivity, and justice perspective. By so doing, it has developed a common framework and understanding of recurrent principles and shared methodological tools employed in different contexts and for multiple urban resources and assets.   

The concept of a “co-city” moves from the legal recognition of the right to use, manage, own city assets and infrastructure but calls for a wider range of tools such as innovation policies, new skills of local bureaucracies and new administrative structure, as well as emerging technologies, community-based business models and financing schemes. As a matter of fact, the Co-Cities book adopts an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach to address urban challenges in a more holistic approach. Nonetheless, it is based on very strong theoretical premises rooted in Elinor Ostrom’s work on the governance of the commons and the scholarship on urban commons initiated by scholars such as David Harvey and Stefano Rodotà.

The work is structured into five chapters. The first chapter, “Rethinking a city”, capitalizes on Polycentrism and the Quintuple Helix Approach for approaching governance issues (public, community, civic, knowledge, and private). The second chapter, “Urban Commons”, focuses on Elinor Ostrom’s groundbreaking studies on natural resources commons as they translate to the city level, and it grounds the theory of the Co-city on the rich literature on urban commons. The third chapter, which reflects a more legal approach and is dubbed “City as a Commons”, discusses some examples of urban public policies that enable collaborative and collective actions between private, civic, knowledge and public actors. The fourth chapter, “Urban Co-governance”, reveals an interaction between urban policies, the main private & public actors and community members to co-create and co-govern urban resources. The fifth chapter enucleates from the previous discussion and presents a case study analysis of the five key institutional design principles of a potential Co-City model in detail: collective governance, enabling State, pooling economies, urban experimentalism, and tech justice.  The book ends by presenting challenges that this innovative framework has to face, as well as opportunities for its further development. An empirical appendix is also provided, but for more information on concrete practices, see a previous work here: www.commoning.city

The hope is that the co-cities framework will offer useful insights to cities, civil servants and activists across the globe, despite the contextual differences amongst cities.

The book is available on Open Access here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262539982/co-cities/.  

Find out more information about the projects here:

Commoning.city 

LabGov.City

Stay tuned for next posts. We will go through the book together and with the authors, delving deeper for a better understanding of the Co-cities theory and practice!  

Benedicta Quarcoo