From November 15th to 17th, Detroit will host BUILD – Bilbao Urban Innovation Leadership Dialogues, the event organised by The German Marshall Funds for the United States that will reflect on the role that cities and regions can play in the broader transatlantic relationship via new subnational diplomacy efforts and by reflecting our transatlantic values of democracy, freedom and justice.
BUILDis a forum for urban innovators that explores pressing issues facing transatlantic cities and how to move from ideas to action. GMF launched BUILD in 2014 as a vehicle for discussing transformative change in transatlantic cities supporting greater sustainability, inclusion, and global engagement.
BUILD 2016 launched a conversation on urban transformation in the digital age: this dialogue is going to be deepend and examined in light of new disruptive dynamics challenging rtaditional paradigms in the global political and economic order. Last year’s forum added a new dimension to the exploration of urban transformation — the impact of the digital age on the people, places, and economies of transatlantic cities.
BUILD 2017 plenary sessions will provide a space for critical discussion of how transatlantic cities can rise above the wave of disruption to global leadership while delivering on a local agenda of sustainability, inclusion, and innovation. In keeping with BUILD’s mission, the sessions will address both the policy dimensions and leadership practices to support participants in translating ideas into action.
Alicia Bonner Ness, LabGov’s senior advisor for the Co-Cities research, is going to attend the forum. In particular, she is going to attend the breakout session “Neighborhoods Rising: Co-Creation as an Antidote to Apathy?” on Friday 17th morning. The session will challenge prior thinking on engagement by presenting three models of engagement — co-creation, co-production, and co-city — from leading experts in the field.
The agenda of the 2017 forum is available on theBUILD Program page.
Dal 15 al 17 novembre, Detroit ospiterà BUILD 2017, il forum per innovatori urbani nato nel 2014, che esplora le problematiche e le sfide che stanno affrontando le città transatlantiche e come muovere dalle idee all’azione. Alicia Bonner Ness, senior advisor di LabGov, parteciperà al Forum come speaker per la sessione “Neighborhoods Rising: Co-Creation as an Antidote to Apathy?“.
The fifth edition of LUISS LabGov Educational Lab (workshops, co-design sessions, community gardening and fieldwork) will re-start on October 6th, 2017!
The meeting will be held in Viale Romania, 32 at 4.00 PM.
EDU_LabGov 2017-2018 will explore the principles, techniques, instruments and practices of the urban commons’ management. The experience, as every year, will begin from LUISS community garden, intended as a gym for collaboration, cooperation and auto-organization. Students will learn to build and develop concrete projects of social innovation, sharing economy and collaborative urban development for the city, and will co-design together the future of the lab.
Il percorso di educazione non formale del LABoratorio per la GOVernance dei beni comuni (di seguito “EDU_LabGov“) è una clinica urbana transdisciplinare (economica, politologica, legale) che realizza la terza missione dell’università, contribuendo a svolgere “attività di produzione di beni pubblici sociali e culturali (public engagement, patrimonio culturale, formazione continua, sperimentazione clinica)”.
Al via il sesto anno di laboratorio. Appuntamento il 6 ottobre alle ore 16.00!
“Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons” is the new publication from the non-profit media outlet Shareable, which collects 137 case studies divided in 11 categories in order to demonstrate that another city governance model is possible, and is in fact, already in the making. By showcasing initiatives from all over the world, and in particular from the US and Europe, Sharing Cities unfolds as a concrete testament to the richness, creativity and diversity of the world of urban commons today. Indeed, the book is structured as a powerful storytelling and showcasing work of the best practices in the field of urban commons. Such collections represent the starting point for the work that LabGov is carrying on with the drafting of the scientific research project known as the Co-Cities Report¹.
Shareable has been one of the key initiators of the Sharing Cities movement: they organized ShareFS in 2011, the first event held under the joint theme of sharing cities, and in 2013 they launched the Sharing Cities Network to connect local sharing activists in cities around the world for mutual support and movement building.
Before presenting an overview of the wide range of urban commons projects presented in Sharing Cities, it is important to mention the introductory theoretical framework developed by Neal Gorenflo. Indeed, the co-founder of Shareable introduces the collection of case-studies by providing the theoretical background on the study of urban commons, acknowledging the analytical contribution of scholars like Christian Iaione from LabGov, Sheila Foster from georgetown University, Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation, and David Bollier of the Commons Strategies Group, among others.
Gorenflo adfirms, There are 67 case studies and 66 model policies in this book. Though the book only scratches the surface of what’s out there, the geographic and sectoral diversity of our selections will expand your view of what’s possible. Together, they are provocative in the best possible way. In terms of the case studies, I challenge you to flip through the book and not be amazed at what ordinary people can do when they commit to projects where personal interests and the common good are aligned.
In particular, citing the work of Christian Iaione and Sheila Foster, as well as the seminal urban commons initiatives like the CO-Bologna project and regulation², the book underlines the importance of urban commons initiatives in today’s context of citizens disempowerment. As the introduction argues “the importance of the urban commons to cities today is that it situates residents as the key actors – not markets, technologies, or governments, as popular narratives suggest – at a time when people feel increasingly powerless. To paraphrase commons scholars Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione, the city as a commons is a claim on the city by the people.” What is key to understand when talking about the urban commons framework is that it is not only about sharing resources, knowledge, and tools. Sharing for the sake of innovative profit making lacks the fundamental constitutive element of the commons, that is the creation of collaborative relationships between urban residents, NGOs, public institutions and businesses in order to manage resources in urban communities in a way that gives the decision-making power back to the people.
After the introduction on urban commons, the book dedicates 11 chapters to the different categories of commons, namely: Housing, mobility, food, work, energy, land, waste, water, information and communication technology, finance, and governance³. Ranging from cases of co-housing, open-data initiatives, comprehensive shared mobility projects, open access edible plots of land, networks of workers cooperatives, commons collaborative economy initiatives, community energy distribution networks, to examples of commons regulatory frameworks, this book represents an inspiring proof of the existence of new governance models that can ensure an alternative, more sustainable, way-forward. These cases and policies reveal a new model of city, where people has been put at the centre, having a primary role among market priorities, technologies or government. Moreover, it is not a simple demonstration that a city run by the people is possible, but it unveils that much of it is already here. In this perspective, the book represents a claim.
Shareable launched a crowdfunding campaign, that is part of a three-years strategic plan, as a step towards the big goal of establishing Shareable as a financially resilient organization by 2020.
La nuova pubblicazione di Shareable intitolata “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons”approfondisce il tema dei commons, mostrando attraverso 133 casi studio, come il modello di governance dei commons rappresenti un’alternativa valida e realizzabile per la gestione condivisa delle risorse al livello urbano.
The focus will be on urban policy, urban governance and collaborative planning. The meeting will bring together academics, policymakers and practitioners to better understand the ideas of participatory approach to urban development and discuss new concepts such as urban commons, cooperative cities and sharing cities. The meeting will be also an opportunity to integrate academics and discuss future research projects in the field of urban and regional studies. There are 7 conference themes to which researchers interested in exchanging ideas and results on urban studies are invited to participate:
Urban policy – theory and practice
Collaborative planning in cities
Urban and metropolitan governance
Urban Commons and city as a commons
Sharing economy, circular economy, and urban development
Urban regeneration strategies, tools, and projects
Urban laboratories and experimental economics in urban studies
The call for paper has been until August 30 to collect abstract on these themes. All reviewed and accepted papers will be published on “STUDIA REGIONALIA”, “JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT” and other peer-reviewed publications.
Professor Christian Iaione, LabGov Faculty Director, will take part in the conference as a keynote speaker.
Un’altra importante occasione per discutere di #urbancommons e #sharingcities: il 12 e 13 ottobre 2017 a Katowice (Polonia), presso la University of Economics, il Dipartimento di Economia Spaziale e Ambientale organizza la 4th International Conference on Urban and Regional Economics. La conferenza, dal titolo “Contemporary Urban Policy – European Perspective”, si concentrerà sui temi delle #urbanpolitics, #urbangovernance e #collaborativeplanning. Fino al 30 agosto è possibile inviare il proprio abstract su uno dei 7 temi proposti. Maggiori informazioni al sito www.ue.katowice.pl/ure.
The conference represents a very important opportunity for the consolidation of the study of the commons, bringing together scholars, young researchers, public and private actors, and professionals from all over the world, who will learn, exchange ideas, and debate on innovative practices of management and governance of the commons.
Engaged in the achievement of the social and institutional regeneration of the commons, LabGov is doing research on innovative governance models and it will participate in the 2017 IASC Conference in Utrecht. Elena De Nictolis (LUISS University) together with the co-founders of LabGov, Christian Iaione (LUISS University) and Sheila Foster (Georgetown University) will present the “1st Co-Cities report on Urban (Commons) Transitions”, introducing the work that LabGov has carried on and sharing their experiences acquired on the field through the design of regulatory frameworks like the Bologna Regulation on Civic Collaboration for the Urban Commons.
As part of the “Practitioners’ Labs”, particularly of interest are the “LabGov Amsterdam: An expedition in progress”, which will explore the practices of the Laboratory for the Governance of the Commons (LabGov) in Amsterdam, inspired by the work of professor Christian Iaione and LabGov; and the Lab on “Becoming-common. City administrations as practitioners of the commons in Europe”, which presents different practices developed by local governments in the production and management of public resources that are understood as commons.
The work of the IASC and the thematic focus of this conference reflect the urgency and the relevance that commons have in our societies today. Increasing privatization of public goods coupled with the economic downturns of recent years have weakened our societies, creating the necessity to restore the collaborative relationships between citizens, administrations and businesses in order to share resources, and take care of the commons in urban and local communities.
Dal 10 al 14 luglio avrà luogo a Utrecht la conferenza organizzata dall’ International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) sul tema: ‘Practicing the commons: Self-governance, cooperation, and institutional change’. LabGov parteciperà alla conferenza presentando il lavoro di ricerca intitolato “The 1st Co-Cities report on Urban (Commons) Transitions”.
