by Chiara Fratalia | Jun 30, 2016 | Commons Press
“The City as a Commons” is an article written by LabGov coordinator, professor Christian Iaione, together with Sheila Foster, and it was published in 2016 on the Yale Law and Policy Review.
As rapid urbanization intensifies around the world, so do contestations over how city space is utilized and for whose benefit urban revitalization is undertaken. The most prominent sites of this contestation are efforts by city residents to claim important urban goods – open squares, parks, abandoned or underutilized buildings, vacant lots, cultural institutions, streets and other urban infrastructure – as collective, or shared, resources of urban communities. The assertion of a common stake or interest in resources shared with others is a way of resisting the privatization and/or commodification of these resources. We situate these claims within an emerging “urban commons” framework embraced by progressive reformers and scholars across multiple disciplines. The urban commons framework has the potential to provide a discourse, and set of tools, for the development of revitalized and inclusive cities. Yet, scholars have failed to fully develop the concept of the “urban commons,” limiting its utility to policymakers. In this article, we offer a pluralistic account of the urban commons, including the idea of the city itself as a commons. We find that, as a descriptive matter, the characteristics of some shared urban resources mimic open-access, depletable resources that require a governance or management regime to protect them in a congested and rivalrous urban environment. For other kinds of resources in dispute, the language and framework of the commons operates as a normative claim to open up access of an otherwise closed or limited access good. This latter claim resonates with the social obligation norm in property law identified by progressive property scholars and reflected in some doctrines which recognize that private ownership rights must sometimes yield to the common good or community interest. Ultimately, however, the urban commons framework is more than a legal tool to make proprietary claims on particular urban goods and resources. Rather, we argue that the utility of the commons framework is to raise the question of how best to manage, or govern, shared or common resources. The literature on the commons suggests alternatives beyond privatization of common resources or monopolistic public regulatory control over them. We propose that the collaborative and polycentric governance strategies already being employed to manage some natural and urban common resources can be scaled up to the city level to guide decisions about how city space and common goods are used, who has access to them, and how they are shared among a diverse population. We explore what it might look like to manage the city as a commons by describing two evolving models of what we call “urban collaborative governance”: the sharing city and the collaborative city.
If you are interested in this subject, please explore the full paper here.
by Chiara Fratalia | Jun 30, 2016 | Commons Press
“The Collaborative and Polycentric Governance of the Urban and Local Commons” is an article written by LabGov coordinator prof. Christian Iaione, together with Paola Cannavò. It was published in 2015 on the Urban Pamphleteer #5.
“Institutions, designed in a historical era in which the government handed out basic services to citizens, are nowadays required to design new types of services in collaboration with citizens. In order to define better forms of urban and local governance, it’s necessary to study and elaborate a new paradigm, to find new theories, policies and development models. A new institutional and economic system based on the model of collaborative/ polycentric urban governance in which citizens, the community, local businesses, knowledge institutions, and civil society organisations take care of and manage the commons together with public institutions could be a solution worth exploration. Trends in global urban theory and policy show that collaborative ways to manage urban and rural space and common/collective goods, might be a valid theoretical and research investment.”
If you are interested in this subject, please explore the full paper here.
by Chiara Fratalia | Jun 30, 2016 | Commons Press
This document is an official CoR opinion that was drafted by LabGov coordinator prof. Christian Iaione, as an expert of the EU Committee of the Regions. It was examinated in the 115th plenary session of 3-4 December 2015.
The opinion contains some policy recommendations to the European Union in the subject of sharing economy, based on an analysis focused on the potential benefits that could spread from the enhancement of sharing economy on a local basis.
If you are interested in this subject, please explore the full document here.
by Chiara Fratalia | Jun 30, 2016 | The Urban Media Lab
The Co-Bologna project made an important step forward last weekend, through the workshop for Piazza dei Colori, coordinated by some of the LabGov staff members.
Piazza dei Colori is one of Co-Bologna “construction sites”, and the aim is to turn it into a collaborative district that could later include different realities from Croce del Biacco and all the migrants that live there. LabGov is serving as a catalyst in this process and, after a few fact-finding meetings, some of our members have arranged this important workshop on a very important theme: collaboration.
The workshop purpose wasn’t that of giving some standard collaboration model: instead, it was a way to find an original, tailored way of collaborating, that could suit perfectly the particular situation and the people involved. In facts, to be effective, collaboration has to be defined and directed from the people that have to deal with everyday issues and effects of the collaboration itself.
To design their very own model of collaboration, the participants (selected from the associations that settle Piazza dei Colori) had to learn to deal with the others as an individual, and later to work as a group. The technique used was that of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, which enables the players to get to know each other and begin to cooperate in a very natural and effective way.
During the two-days workshop, the participants were able to build (both literally and figuratively) the basis of a long-term collaboration pattern, by getting familiar with who they were, what were they able to do, and which was their shared idea on collaboration. The last part of the workshop was devoted to identifying the potentialities and resources of Piazza dei Colori and the needs of its actors, but also the difficulties that may arise in the process of collaboration.
The process of collaboration-building will continue on July 11.
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Nel quadro del progetto Co-Bologna, LabGov ha organizzato una serie di workshop dedicati all’elaborazione di un modello di collaborazione su misura per la valorizzazione dell’area di Piazza dei Colori. Al workshop che si è tenuto il 27-28 giugno, i partecipanti hanno potuto conoscersi e cominciare ad elaborare un pattern di collaborazione attraverso la tecnica LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, individuando successivamente le potenzialità della zona, i bisogni degli attori e le difficoltà che potrebbero emergere nel processo di collaborazione. Il prossimo workshop avrà luogo l’11 luglio.
by Chiara Fratalia | Jun 29, 2016 | Commons Press
“Governing the Urban Commons” is an article written by LabGov coordinator, prof. Christian Iaione, and first published in 2015 in the Italian Journal of Public Law.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a crucial question relating to institutional design in the public sector. After two centuries of Leviathan-like public institutions or Welfare State, do we still need full delegation of every public responsibility and/or exclusive monopoly of the power to manage public affairs? In particular, is there space for a collaborative/polycentric urban governance matrix? In the “sharing”, “peer to peer” “collaborative” age, there might be space for a new design of public institutions? Can urban assets and resources or the city as a whole be transformed into collaborative ecosystems that enable collective action for the commons?”. To investigate this question I chose the city, conceptualized as a commons, as an observation point. A large, developed urban city like Italy is a unique point of study. It is a large community of its own, and it is also developed of individual smaller communities that have their own networks.
If you are interested in this subject, please explore the full article here.
