by Francesca Spigarolo | Apr 29, 2017 | The Urban Media Lab
In the last years, the city of Naples has been the theatre of a series of experimentations and innovations in urban democracy through the commons.
What makes the experience of this city particularly special is that the requests voiced by urban communities are being met by the efforts of a local administration committed to strengthening collective participation and supportive of citizens’ claims to re-appropriate urban commons, in particular the so-called sleeping giants, buildings or complex structures located both in the center and in peripheral neighborhoods. The city of Naples embraced an enabling approach toward the commons. Since 2011, the city has been issuing a set of municipal ordinances that discipline the commons, adopting an approach deeply rooted in empirical reality, based on the practices of self-organization of the communities that co-govern the commons. The city also implemented institutional and organizational innovations to further improve its action in this filed. In 2011, the city of Naples created the Assessor of the Commons and later a Specific Unit internal to the city administration that is committed to fostering and maintaining the dialogue with the civic realities involved and to finding innovative solutions to better deal with the commons. The case of Naples has been object of different studies conducted by experts focusing on the Italian commons. The role of the social movement is been retraced and analyzed in particular by Maria Rosaria Marella [1], Ugo Mattei and Sakei Bailey [2], whom also highlighted the role played by social movements for the commons in the Neapolitan experience and in other Italian cities, that will be analyzed in following articles of the CO-cities series: Rome, Milan, Messina, Palermo, Venice among the others. Interesting insights on the case of Naples can also be found in the work curated by Gabriella Punziano [3].
Naples, Rebel city
In a period in which national and local institutions seem to be growing apart from their citizens, Naples appears to be going in the opposite direction by choosing an alternative and less common path. Refusing to organize political structures as dictated by market logic and adopting instead what David Harvey[4] would define a rebel city approach, the city is bringing citizens at the center of the decision-making process and is strengthening participation in political institutions committed to the care of the commons.
This approach has led to the recognition of several occupations, which are being redefined as “emerging commons” perceived by citizens as “civic development environments”[5]. As of today, the spaces which are officially recognized as commons are the ex Asilo Filangeri, Villa Medusa, the ex Lido Pola in Bagnoli, the ex Opg, the Giardino Liberato in Materdei, the ex Conservatorio di Santa Fede, the Scugnizzo Liberato and the ex Schipa, and in the future more resources will be added to the list and entrusted to public care.
These recognitions, already relevant on their own, are to be read within a much broader framework, which sees the City of Naples firmly engaging in the promotion of normative actions to recognize, support and promote occupations and self-governance of the commons. As explained by Fabio Pascapè, responsible for the Unit on the Commons of the city of Naples, there are in fact several levels on which the local government has been working to achieve this goal.
Civic and collective uses. The model of the “Ex Asilo Filangieri”
The first occupation to be recognized was that of the ex Asilo Filangieri, an historical building located in the heart of Naples, which after decades of abandonment was occupied in 2012 by a group of artists and workers of the cultural sector, together with neighborhoods inhabitants. In the same year, the ex Asilo was recognized by the city as a “place of complex cultural use”.
As explained by Giuseppe Micciarelli, a representative of the ex Asilo Filangeri and a scholar of philosophy of the law and legal theory: “the ex Asilo is experimenting a new form of urban civic use of a commons”[4] which on one side is inspired by the role currently played by civic uses, on the other side it promotes the adoption of a regulation of public uses in which the management board of the good is constituted by assemblies composed by citizens and workers. In this special regime of publicity, citizen participation is able to shape a form of popular administration that redefines the role of public powers” [6]. This entails a transformation of the administration and of its functions, as “active citizens’ participation has the power of modeling a new form of popular administration” which could lead to a “democratic and radical twist in the concept of popular sovereignty”[7].
The ex Asilo Filangieri drafted an internal regulation[8] of civic and collective uses of the commons, adopted in 2015 by the city as an institutionalized system of rules for self-governance of the commons, which will be transferable to similar experiences. An experimentation on the urban civic uses is been implemented also in other Italian cities, such as Messina, with the occupation of the Teatro Pinelli [9], and Palermo, with the experience of the Montevergini Complex. The regulation states general principles and rules for a public goods that is governed directly by the community itself through an “assembly of management” that evaluates the different proposals and coordinates the use of the space, that will remain limited to cultural and general interest activities.
The entrance of the ex Asilo Filangeri
Urban regeneration and development
Besides all the efforts done in terms of recognition of the social value of the urban commons, the Municipality demonstrates to be deeply committed to the development of a new urban paradigm, based on the urban commons and on citizens’ participation, by engaging in several participatory regeneration processes. Through the work of the 2nd Chance network, which the city of Naples is leading within the framework of the URBACT project, the community will be called to participate in a path which aims at bringing back to life urban sleeping giants (abandoned places), and in particular the complex of Santissima Trinità delle Monache. Naples has also recently joined the URBinclusion network, which will work on fighting socioeconomic disparities and social exclusion in different cities. Furthermore, through a process that will be activated in the Borgo Vergini-Sanità area with the support of MiBACT, the city will direct its efforts towards the regeneration of difficult neighborhoods. In developing these projects the Municipality is always engaging the community in the process by fostering participation, generating knowledge and advancing a new vision of cultural heritage as a commons.
Conclusion
The process activated by the Naples administration is highly relevant as it not only allows citizens to re-appropriate common spaces of high social and civic value, but it also builds an ecosystem of collaborative practices that will generate a radical transformation of the city and of its governance. The case of Naples demonstrates that when cities are aware of the need to radically innovate institutions and regenerate urban life in order to answer to the multiple requests of their citizens, a real paradigm change is possible. What is more, it proves that such objectives will only be achieved if citizens will be allowed to participate in the decision-making process, so that the cities of the future will be designed according to the real demands and desires of their inhabitants.
This article is part of the CO-Cities Series
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[1] Maria Rosaria Marella, The Commons as a Legal Concept, Law Critique (2016).
[2] Saki Bailey and Ugo Mattei, Social movements as constituent power: the Italian struggle for the commons, in Indiana Gobal Legal Studies 20, 2, 2013 at 965-1013. See also Ugo Mattei, Protecting the Commons: Water, Culture, and Nature: The Commons Movement in the Italian Struggle against Neoliberal Governance South Atlantic Quarterly (2013) and, form the same author The Commons Movement in Italy, South Atlantic Quarterly (2013).
[3] Gabriella Punziano (eds.) Società, Economia E Spazio a Napoli. Esplorazioni E Riflessioni (2016), L’Aquila: GSSI Social Sciences, Working Papers, 28.. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2753565 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2753565.
[4] Harvey, David (2013)Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, Verso Books, London.
[5] As expressed in Naples City Council Resolution n. 466, 1.06.2016, available here http://www.comune.napoli.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDP
agina/16783.
[6] Translated by the italian original version: Micciarelli, Giuseppe (2015) Pratiche di commoning nel governo dei beni comuni: il caso dell’ex Asilo Filangieri, Il tetto, sommario n. 306-307, at 92.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] The complete text of the Declaration of civic use of Asilo Filangieri is available here: http://www.exasilofilangieri.it/regolamento-duso-civico/.
[10] Giuseppe Micciarelli, I beni comuni e la partecipazione democratica, Jura Gentium, XI:1, 2014.
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Ex OPG “Je so pazzo”, courtyard
Negli ultimi anni la città di Napoli è stata teatro di una serie di sperimentazioni e innovazioni che hanno permesso di sviluppare e rafforzare pratiche di democrazia urbana attraverso i commons. Riconoscendo degli spazi occupati come beni comuni generativi di valore sociale, promuovendo processi di rigenerazione e di partecipazione e ricostruendo un dialogo tra cittadini e amministrazione la città ha saputo costruire un vero e proprio ecosistema di pratiche collaborative.
by Francesca Spigarolo | Apr 22, 2017 | The Urban Media Lab
All over the world, cities are facing multiple and ever-changing challenges, ranging from growing economic inequalities, widespread gentrification and increasing segregation to issues of environmental degradation and scarcity of resources. In the most extreme cases, such challenges are at the origin of a phenomenon defined by the sociologist and economist Saskia Sassen as political, social and economic expulsions.
In such a climate of widespread insecurity, the number of cities that are becoming aware of the limits implied in the traditional top-down decision making processes, seen with suspicion and detachment by many city inhabitants, is continuously growing, alongside with the numerous voices calling for the necessity of a new governance paradigm. Such paradigm should aim at strengthening citizens’ participation in decision-making, in order to allow for the creation of public policies and institutions able to answer to the needs expressed by the community, to increase the legitimacy of political choices and to foster inclusion.
One path that is being object of experimentation in different cities and that holds the potential to bring about a substantive transformation in urban life is based on the idea that participation and collaboration could be built around the urban commons, resulting in benefits for the whole community. Such path will eventually lead to the creation of Collaborative Cities (CO-Cities), as envisaged by Professor Christian Iaione and Sheila Foster in their work The City as a Commons, where the two scholars advance the idea that not only common resources, but the city itself should be governed as a commons.
Cities from all over the world appear to be heading in this direction, by focusing on the development of different forms of collaborative governance, designed according to the peculiar characteristics of the context and resulting for this reason in a wide variety of experimentations. While throughout the past years we have been closely following the path that led to the creation of the Bologna Regulation on collaboration for the urban commons and to the activation of the CO-Bologna process, it is fundamental to bring our attention to the similar phenomena that are taking place all over the country, where different strategies and approaches are being adopted in order to design public policies for the urban commons.
This is what we will try to do through our CO-Cities series, which will look into the variety of strategies adopted by other Italian cities like Turin, Naples, Reggio Emilia, Milan, Messina, Rome, etc.) in order to improve their inhabitants’ lives by enabling the governance of the urban commons.
Stay tuned for more stories!
The participatory process #CollaboratorioRE in Reggio Emila
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Da Bologna a Napoli, da Torino a Palermo, passando per Milano, Reggio Emilia, Messina e per tante altre città italiane, osserviamo la nascita di risposte innovative alle problematiche che caratterizzano l’ambiente urbano. Molte di queste risposte ci mostrano come i beni comuni e la collaborazione possano essere alla base di un nuovo paradigma di governance urbana.
Attraverso la serie CO-Cities racconteremo storie di cambiamento provenienti da tutta Italia. Non perderti i prossimi articoli!
by Francesca Spigarolo | Apr 10, 2017 | The Urban Media Lab
On March 28th 2017, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture of Paris – ENSA Paris – hosted the first International Conference Contradictions Urbaines, a one-day event organised by the Laboratoire Ville Urbanisme Environment LAVUE.
The event gathered researchers from different fields of study to explore some of the contradictions running through modern cities and metropolitan areas. While the urbanisation process is becoming less and less controlled by the State, the interplay between financial conglomerates, local communities, and grassroots movements has proven crucial for the future of the cities. At the same time, however, different demands and aspirations have led to the emergence of “urban contradictions”, which are evident in the controversial relationship between global and local, exclusion and inclusion, homogeneity and social, economic, and cultural diversity. Along these lines, the Conference focused on the issues of citizens’ and users’ counter-power in the co-production of public spaces, on the impact “collaborative research” may have on the promotion of citizens’ initiatives, and on the specific topic of collaborative housing and social inclusion.
Focused on this latter aspect, the seminar “Collaborative Housing and Social Inclusion: Unpacking Contradictions?” has been organised, as part of the Conference, by the ENHR Working Group on Collaborative Housing. The seminar was constructed along two lines of investigation. First of all, it was observed that emerging collaborative housing groups in France are characterised by self-segregation, lack of social inclusion, and cultural and economic homogeneity among its members, which is at odds with a narrative discourse that usually associates these projects with social inclusion and diversity. From this starting point, the seminar aimed to explore whether, to what extent, and through which means these contradictions could be reconciled and collaborative housing groups effectively promote social inclusion and economic diversity. Linked to this, another proposed line of investigation concerned the role public authorities play in the promotion and funding of collaborative housing project. Although in top-down collaborative housing experiments social inclusion and economic diversity may be more easily achieved through a public-led process of residents’ selection, this might negatively affect the level of participation and engagement of residents in the collective project. In this respect, the seminar proposed to reflect on whether a top-down approach to collaborative housing has a negative impact on the sustainability of the project in the long term and what types of arrangements could be put in place to remedy these possible downsides.
While the Conference opened up the debate on these two crucial aspects of collaborative housing in Europe, an upcoming event will give the opportunity for further reflections on the topic. The seminar “Collaborative Housing: Public, Private, and Cooperative Experiences” will take place on the 14th of June in Amsterdam during the first International Social Housing Festival 2017 (13th to 21st of June). The seminar intends to be a platform for sharing collaborative housing experiences and innovative tools used in the management of communities throughout Europe; at the same time, the event will give an opportunity to explore the role of cooperatives in the field of social housing. The event is organised by Legacoop Abitanti and Fondazione Housing Sociale, as members of Housing Europe, in partnership with the TU Delft’s Department of Management in the Built Environment and the ENHR Working Group on Collaborative Housing.
Fabiana Bettini, Postdoctoral Researcher, Sciences Po Law School, Paris
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Lo scorso 28 marzo si è svolta ad ENSA Parigi la prima Conferenza Internazionale Contradictions Urbaines organizzata dal LAVUE. Al suo interno, il workshop Collaborative Housing and Social Inclusion: Unpacking Contradictions? organizzato dallo ENHR Working Group on Collaborative Housing è stato l’occasione per riflettere sul rapporto tra segregazione e inclusione sociale nei progetti di “abitare collaborativo”. Un prossimo evento su collaborative housing si terrà ad Amsterdam durante il primo International Social Housing Festival (13-21 giugno 2017).
by Francesca Spigarolo | Apr 10, 2017 | Commons Press
Between 1999 and 2012 around 300 million cubic meters of new constructions have been created in Italy. Following the crash of the real estate market in 2007, this construction boom resulted in the presence of an enormous amount of unfinished and unused building in the territories which were hit by the economic crisis. We can count at least 6 million empty houses and 10 million vacant properties; 20 million square meters of railways areas fallen (or falling) into disuse and around 5 thousand kilometers of unused railways; around 20 thousand kilometers of roads laying in abandonment, out of which 2600 are not used; and additionally, we can’t even begin count the number of abandoned stores and industrial hangars.
Such numbers call for a serious reflection. This is exactly what the book “Agenda RE-CYCLE, Proposte per reinventare la città”, published by Il Mulino, does. Based on a research developed at national level and involving legal experts, economists and city planners, the book aims to study the possibility to reduce the normative obstacles that prevent or make the regeneration of architectural and urban resources difficult. This contributes to the creation of an agenda of policies and actions which could foster new life-cycles for real estate and urban vacant assets.
Professor Christian Iaione, LabGov co-founder, contributed to this knowledge creation process through the article “La città collaborative: la governance dei beni comuni per l’urbanistica collaborata e collaborativa”, in which he speaks about the possibility of transforming urban governance and creating collaborative cities through collaborative city planning and collaborative governance of the urban commons.
The book can be purchased here in its Italian version.
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“Tra il 1999 e il 2012, e poi con minore intensità fino a oggi, sono stati realizzati in Italia circa trecento milioni di metri cubi all’anno di nuove costruzioni: un boom edilizio che, dopo il crollo del mercato immobiliare del 2007, ha lasciato sui territori investiti dalla crisi economica un’enorme quantità di opere incompiute o inutilizzate. Si contano almeno sei milioni di case vuote su più di dieci milioni di immobili sfitti; venti milioni di metri quadrati di aree ferroviarie dismesse o in dismissione; circa cinquemila chilometri di linee ferroviarie non in uso; ventimila chilometri di strade in abbandono, di cui duemilaseicento inutilizzati; non si conta, infine, il numero degli esercizi commerciali e dei capannoni industriali abbandonati. Sono numeri che impongono una riflessione seria. Ce la propone questo libro, frutto di una ricerca nazionale che ha coinvolto giuristi, economisti e urbanisti, con l’obiettivo di studiare le effettive possibilità di ridurre gli ostacoli di carattere normativo che impediscono o rendono difficoltose le azioni tese a favorire il riciclo dei beni architettonici e urbani: un utile contributo per la costruzione di un’agenda di politiche e azioni che favoriscano nuovi cicli di vita del patrimonio immobiliare e urbano abbandonato”.
All’interno del libro è possibile trovare il contributo del Professor Christian Iaione, co-fondatore di LabGov, che con l’articolo “La città collaborative: la governance dei beni comuni per l’urbanistica collaborata e collaborativa”, propone una nuova visione della città e della governance urbana basata su collaborazione e cura dei beni comuni.
Il libro può essere acquistato qui.
