New Urban Commons (original) (raw)
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Urban Commons: Building a 'Communal System' of the Future
Problemy Polityki Społecznej. Social Policy Issues, 55(4): 48–74, 2021
An increasing number of communities successfully governing urban commons could be seen as a strong move towards ‘delinking’ from homo economicus myth that still remains at the centre of the capitalist economic assumptions. This paper, theoretical in nature, presents an alternative, a preferred scenario of a future ‘communal system’ as a vision of society built on different values than homo economicus conduct, values that are distinctive for urban commons today, especially in peripheral countries. These are: responsibility, networking, cooperation, caring for others, reciprocity, self-help, continuous learning and sharing. The given three examples of urban commons: Torre David, SE VIOME and Bangkok Noi urban gardens — that illustrate such system in the present — share these values and therefore contribute to social change. Although commons are still at the margins of economic considerations, while corporations through the processes of neo-colonisation dominate the centre, a future ransformation into a ‘communal system’ is possible, as posited by the postcolonial theory and the actor-network-theory (ANT) discussed in this article. Vision of an economic system, based on the new communal myth contributes to the emerging field of postcapitalist, post-growth theories arising in the shadow of a climate catastrophe and other upcoming crises.
From Urban Commons to commoning as Social Practice
Cultural Commons and Urban Dynamics A Multidisciplinary Perspective, 2020
Today, cities are being intensively reshaped by unexpected dynamics. The rise and growth of the digital economy have fundamentally changed the relationship between the urban fabric and its resident community, overcoming the conventional hierarchy based on production priorities. Moreover, contemporary society discovers new labour conditions and ways of satisfying needs and desires by developing new synergies and links. This book examines cultural and urban commons from a multidisciplinary perspective. Economists, architects, urban planners, sociologists, designers, political scientists, and artists explore the impact and implications of cultural commons on urban change. The contributions discuss both cases of successful urban participation and cases of strong social conflict, while also addressing a host of institutional contradictions and dilemmas. The first part of the book examines urban commons in response to institutional constraints from a theoretical point of view. The second and third parts apply the theories to case studies and discuss various practices of sustainable planning and re-appropriation in the urban context. In closing, the fourth part develops a new urban agenda as artists imagine it. This book will appeal to scholars interested in the social, economic and institutional implications of cultural and urban commons, and provide useful insights and tools to help local governments and policymakers manage social, cultural and economic change.
Designing Autonomous Communities in Suburbs of Japan
European Journal of Sustainable Development
In Japan, the suburbs face issues of depopulation, loss of culture, identical and interchangeable scenery due to the prevalence of chain stores and weak relationships between members of the community, contrast to the heavy concentration of populations in major cities. In tackling these issues, the conventional approach of community revitalisation leans heavily on economic, technological and administrative measures. This study proposes a new paradigm to address community autonomy of suburbs in order to accommodate contemporary values and lifestyles. The proposed paradigm is based on the concept of the apron diagram developed by Arne Naess in deep ecology, one of the theories of environmental ethics. The diagram induces a paradigm shift in the way of thinking where individuals with different fundamental philosophies can share the principle and take diverse action for community autonomy. Also, the concept of Self-realisation proposed in deep ecology is applied to the premise of community governance. Self-realisation is the extension of the individual self to the larger Self and encompasses the essence of community autonomy. This theoretical approach is supported by an interview survey conducted by the authors in Itoshima City, Fukuoka. The survey observed Self-realisation in the voluntary actions of community members.
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.
Decolonizing the notion of 'Urban Commons' to mitigate the fragility of contemporary cities
Proceedings of the International Conference: Repurposing Places for Social and Environmental Resilience, 2023
In recent years, the international commons movement has increasingly joined forces with the global movement of municipalities, putting common ideas on the political agenda in many western countries. Commons have been widely discussed in literature. Broadly understood, commons refers to the practices for collective development, ownership, management, and fair access to resources and artifacts (social, cultural, economic, political, environmental, and technological). However, the concept remains vague, complex, and unclear, especially when it comes to different contexts in which new definitions are needed to better understand the societal and cultural dimensions of urban commons. Decolonizing the notion of urban commons brings into visibility the unseen cultures, infrastructural systems, and communities showing where de-growth and separation can take place. Therefore, this analysis can provide new insights, opportunities, and the need for new theoretical, methodological, and shared approaches. There is a gap in transnational research and cultural understanding within the field of urban commons. This research opens new lines of inquiry relating to the definitions of commons in non-European countries. This may include longitudinal research on the decolonization and potential fragmenting of the commons and in particular 'commoning' mindset, more detailed empirical evidence of the cultural and communal concepts, and how these cultural diversities and new interpretations can be implemented in collaborative governance in a wider variety of non-western contexts. By challenging existing frameworks, this study facilitates the emergence of differentiated, dynamic, and non-linear forms of social and political subjectivity within various sociospatial domains.