Category:Commons Policy
In this section, we are compiling policy proposals that are specifically oriented around commons.
We endorse the proposal by Joseph Cederwall: A Global New Deal For The Commons [1]
Introduction
Five Basic Design Principles for the Urban Commons
Christian Iaione and Sheila Foster:
"We have distilled five key design principles for the urban commons:
- Principle 1: Collective governance refers to the presence of a multi-stakeholder governance scheme whereby the community emerges as an actor and partners up with at least three different urban actors
- Principle 2: Enabling State expresses the role of the State in facilitating the creation of urban commons and supporting collective action arrangements for the management and sustainability of the urban commons.
- Principle 3: Social and Economic Pooling refers to the presence of different forms of resource pooling and cooperation between five possible actors in the urban environment
- Principle 4: Experimentalism is the presence of an adaptive and iterative approach to designing the legal processes and institutions that govern urban commons.
- Principle 5: Tech Justice highlights access to technology, the presence of digital infrastructure, and open data protocols as an enabling driver of collaboration and the creation of urban commons."
(https://www.thenatureofcities.com/2017/08/20/ostrom-city-design-principles-urban-commons/)
Key Concepts
- The Global Urban Commons Stack, a proposal for leagues of cities, associated with cooperatives, ethical finances and other actors of generative business practice, to create global open design depositories (which we call Protocol Cooperatives, to mutualize the basic urban provisioning systems.
- Public-Commons Partnership protocols for cooperation between the public sector and commons-based collectives seeking to improve the common good of the city. See also the report on the topic by Commonwealth UK: Public-Common Partnerships: Building New Circuits of Collective Ownership. By Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell. Manchester, UK: Commonwealth, 2019
- Institutional proposals for the Commonification of Public Services (such as Acqua Beni Comuni Napoli)
Status of city-based commons transitions
You will find key comparative material in our 2020 report:
- Mutualizing Urban Provisioning Systems, By Michel Bauwens and Rok Kranjc [3]
A for Amsterdam and Antwerp
- Amsterdam Is Pivoting to Doughnut Economics as Policy Framework; and it has signed the Maak Accord 020 - Amsterdam with contributory citizens, promising to set aside up to 10% of the city budget for territorial change. Amsterdam is working with De Meent and Commons Network on a commons transition for the city. See f.e. Amsterdam 2018 Coalition Accord and its Commons-Centric Elements; The crafting of the Commons Transition Plan for Amsterdam is ongoing;
- Antwerp, Belgium has a very dynamic Commons Lab
B for Barcelona and Bologna
- Barcelona has crafted several policy plans with a distinct attention to the concept of the Commons: see Barcelona City Council Open Digitisation Plan ; Barcelona City Data Commons. "The “communitarian management framework” called “Patrimoni Ciutadà”. According to the Spanish and the Catalan legal system, “communitarian management” is a quite innovative formula enabling citizens and neighbors to manage, control, arrange, run, and decide which kind of activities and which kind of management they want for their “citizen heritage”. [4]. See: Communitarian Management Framework - Barcelona
- Italian cities started implementing protocols for formal collaboration between public authorities after the crafting of the Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons; see also: Bologna's Urban Commons Approach and: Christian Iaone on the Urban Commons Charters in Italy. See also here for more info on the Co-Cities Project.
G for Ghent and Grenoble
- The Commons Transition Plan for the City of Ghent was crafted in 2017 [5]. See for the official dutch version: [6]. Unfortunately, a new coalition has not advanced on the issue since the last electoral cycle; prospects are dim.
For context, see our P2P Foundation Report: Changing Societies through Urban Commons Transitions. By Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Niaros. P2P Foundation and Heinrich Boll Foundation, 2017 [7] This is a more reflexive document on the experience in Ghent, with chapter 3 focusing on Ghent itself.
- the city of Grenoble, in France, where a permanent assembly of the commons, involving citizens and local organizations, was directly promoted by the city council.
L for Lille and Lisbon
- In several French cities, commoners have organized initiatives like the Assembly of the Commons and the Chamber of the Commons, for which Lille in Northern France was the pioneer. There is already a political influence of commons' themes, see: Commons Proposals for the French Municipal Elections of 2019
- “In 2010, the City Council of Lisbon, aware of the urban inequalities in the city, identified seventy-seven Priority Intervention Neighborhoods and Zones (BIP/ZIP, original acronym in Portuguese). .. Through this program, the City Council is trying to reinforce the socio-territorial cohesion of the municipality by mobilising citizens’ energy in the search for solutions that can continue into the future.” [9]. See: Priority Intervention Neighborhoods and Zones - Lisbon
N for Naples
Naples was one of the first cities to institute City-Based Departments of the Commons. See also its Assessor of the Commons ;
S for Seoul, Sydney
- The now deceased mayor Park of the city of Seoul announced to the P2P Foundation an inquiry on how to move from the paradigm of the sharing city, which made Seoul famous, to that of a commons city. The Karl Polany Asia Institute, in collaboration with the P2P Foundation, are preparing a report on the urban commons in Seoul.
- The Commons Lab of Sydney has sent a Draft Proposal for a Commons Transition Plan for the City of Sydney in August 2019
Miscellaneous
- List of specific Commons Labs: Antwerp, Belgium ; The Hague, Netherlands [10]
- The Co-Cities Report on the Urban Commons Transitions of LabGov (with the collaboration of the P2P Foundation), has analyzed 1,000 case studies of urban commons, half from the Global South.
Regional and Larger Scale
This document by the French digital ambassador stresses the strategic interest for the French government and the EU of supporting the expansion of digital commons: see Digital Commons as Drivers of Sovereignty
- Multi-Stakeholder Institutions for Terrotirial Transition - France
- Proposed Constitutional Amendment To Introduce the Commons in the French Constitution
- Public-Commons Partnerships in France: Special Issue: Vers des partenariats public-communs ? Un dossier coordonné par Élisabeth Dau et Nicolas Krausz.Horizons Public, #21, 2021 [11]
- Commons Policy in the Brussels Region of Belgium [12]
Territorial Mutualization
- France: Riposte Créative Territoriale: a series of initiatives to mutualize local resources as a response to the COVID-19 crisis: "reliés par une démarche commune sont des espaces ouverts de coopération pour apprendre ensemble de la crise, favoriser les solidarités, mutualiser les initiatives et préparer l'après. Ces communautés de pratiques ouvertes animées dans une logique de communs, coopèrent entre elles et partagent leurs productions en licence par défaut CC by SA.". Examples: Strasbourg ; Bretagne
- Netherlands: Initiative for regional transitions highlighting the role of (commons-centric) civil society initiatives in the Netherlands: "De Coöperatieve Samenleving samen met allerlei landelijke en regionale partners aan het verankeren van deze transitiesprong naar een coöperatieve samenleving."
P2P Foundation Reports
* Report/Book: Changing Societies through Urban Commons Transitions. By Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Niaros. P2P Foundation and Heinrich Boll Foundation, 2017 [13]: This is a reflexive document on the experience in Ghent, with chapter 3 focusing on Ghent itself.
- English translation of the original Commons Transition Plan for the City of Ghent can be downloaded here
- Dutch-language report: Commons Transitie Plan voor de stad Gent. Van Michel Bauwens en Yurek Onzia. Juni 2017. In opdracht van de stad Gent. Pdf version of the original dutch-language policy proposal
Key Quotes
We need to couple private sufficiency and public luxury
"The new approach could start with the idea of private sufficiency and public luxury. There is not enough physical or environmental space for everyone to enjoy private luxury: if everyone in London acquired a tennis court, a swimming pool, a garden and a private art collection, the city would cover England. Private luxury shuts down space, creating deprivation. But magnificent public amenities – wonderful parks and playgrounds, public sports centres and swimming pools, galleries, allotments and public transport networks – create more space for everyone at a fraction of the cost.
Wherever possible, such assets should be owned and managed by neither state nor market, but by communities, in the form of commons. A commons in its true form is a non-capitalist system in which a resource is controlled in perpetuity by a community for the shared and equal benefit of its members."
- George Monbiot [14]
Key Resources
Key Articles
- Urban alternatives, to what degree? Parallelisms between Commons and Municipalism. By Iolanda Bianchi. [forthcoming in “Spatial Justice and the Commons”, Center for Spatial Justice: Istanbul], 2019 [15]. See: Parallelisms between Commons and Municipalism for Urban Alternatives
* The Right To the Co-City. By Christian Iaione. Italian Journal of Public Law, 2017 [16]: "This study is an effort to discuss the argument that the current debate in urban studies on the way to conceptualize the city lack a rights-based approach and that to build such vision one needs to reconceive the city as a commons enabling collective action of city inhabitants ... Part IV offers concluding remarks and proposes the idea of "rights to pooling". "
- History of the Movement for the Digital Commons; see: Dulong de Rosnay, M. & Stalder, F. (2020). Digital commons. Internet Policy Review, 9(4). [17]: "This article presents the history of the movement of the digital commons, from free software, free culture, and public domain works, to open data and open access to science. It then analyses its foundational dimensions (licensing, authorship, peer production, governance) and finally studies newer forms of the digital commons, urban democratic participation and data commons."
Key Books
- Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth. By Guy Standing. Penguin / Pelican Books, 2019 [18]
- Our Commons: Political Ideas for a New Europe. Ed. by Sophie Bloemen and Thomas de Groot. Commons Network, 2019 [19]. See: Commons-Based Political Ideas for a New Europe
- The City as Commons: a Policy Reader. Ed. by Jose Ramos. Commons Transition Coalition, Melbourne, Australia (2016) [20]; see: City as a Commons Policy Reader
Key Experts
France
- Olivier Jaspart: seeking a synthesis between commons law and administrative law
Key Policy Proposals
This is a very good overview of city-based policies: City as a Commons Policy Reader
- Book: The City as Commons: a Policy Reader. Ed. by Jose Ramos. Commons Transition Coalition, Melbourne, Australia (2016)
- Book: Orsi, J., Eskandari-Qajar, Y., Weissman, E., Hall, M., Mann, A., & Luna, M. (2013). Policies for Shareable Cities: A sharing economy policy primer for urban leaders. Shareable and the Sustainable Economies Law Center.
Themes
- Charter of the Commons
- Permanent Commons Fund
- Inclusive Value Ledger, proposed by NY Assemblyman Ron Kim is the first contribution-based public accounting scheme I have heard of; therefore a paramount and pivotal commons-based policy proposal
- Right To Pooling
Regionally-Specific
- Politics for the Commons - France: "Politiques des Commun: Cahier de propositions en contexte municipal": an overview of commons-oriented policies for the municipal level, as a preparation tool for citizen lobbying for the 2020 municipal elections in France. [22]
Technology Policy
Key Legislation and Regulation
- Policy Proposals for City as Commons. Find them also in the book: The City as Commons: A Policy Reader. Ed. by José Maria Ramos. Commons Transition Coalition, Melbourne, Australia (2016). [23]
- Support of the french government for makerspaces as drivers of territorial development: "Nouveaux lieux, nouveaux liens : l’Etat s’engage pour les tiers-lieux": "Appel à manifestation d’intérêt : “Fabriques de Territoire”.
Key Videos
Topics
Energy
- Commons-Based Renewable Energy in the Age of Climate Collapse. By David Hammerstein.
- Energy Commons as the Missing Link Between Energy Transition and Climate Justice
- Collaboration between Local Authorities and Renewable Energy Cooperatives
Food and Agriculture
- Moving to a European Common Food Policy instead of a Common Agricultural Policy
- Food Commons 2.0
- Food Commons in Europe
- Food Policy Councils
- Homegrown Minneapolis Commons-Based Food Policy Blueprint
- Territories of Commons in Europe, see the Policy Paper: “Territories of Commons” in Europe: pivotal for food production, nature stewardship, heritage maintenance and climate mitigation. By Jose Luis Vivero Pol et al. Conference Paper for the European Commons Assembly, in Brussels, November 2016 [24]
Housing
- Commons Law for Housing. By Saki Bailey
- Naples Council Resolution of 2016 on Occupied Buildings as Common Goods
- Naples' Government Resolution no. 446 - 2016 on the Identification of Urban Spaces as Commons
- Shared Spaces as Urban Commons in Amsterdam and Berlin
Welfare and Social Solidarity Schemes
Pages in category "Commons Policy"
The following 200 pages are in this category, out of 562 total.
(previous page) (next page)A
- Access to Land
- Accessory Dwelling Unit
- Achieving Wellbeing Without Growth
- Acqua Beni Comuni Napoli
- Activating the Urban Commons Through Sharing Cities
- Ada Colau, Barcelona's New Mayor, on Spain's Political Revolution
- Adrian Wrigley on Land-Based Money
- Alexis Frasz on Universal Basic Income
- Alternative Models of Ownership
- Alternatives to Housing Through Urban Commoning
- Alternatives to the Land Value Tax
- Amsterdam 2018 Coalition Accord and its Commons-Centric Elements
- Amsterdam Is Pivoting to Doughnut Economics as Policy Framework
- Amsterdam Manifesto on Data Citation Principles
- Andrea Fumagalli on the Five Criteria To Distinguish a Progressive Interpretation of the Basic Income
- Andrea Reimer on Open Cities and the Open Motion in Vancouver
- Anti-Displacement Toolkit for Greater Boston
- Appeal to the Commons - France
- Assembly of the Commons - Helsinki
- Assessor of the Commons
- Asset-Based Approach to the Urban Commons
- Atmospheric Commons
B
- Babayagas House
- Barcelona 5.0 Plan
- Barcelona Activa
- Barcelona City Council Digital Plan
- Barcelona City Council Open Digitisation Plan
- Barcelona City Data Commons
- Barcelona City Policies
- Barcelona Commissioner for Cooperative, Social and Solidarity Economy and Consumption
- Barcelona Conference on Social Commons
- Barcelona Digital City Plan
- Barcelona Digital City Plan 2015-2019
- Barcelona Environmental Ordinance
- Barcelona MADE Project
- Barcelona Manifesto in Favour of Technological Sovereignty and Digital Rights for Cities
- Barcelona's Solar Thermal Ordinance
- Basic Income
- Basic Income, Labor, and the Idea of Post-Capitalism
- Berlin's Remunicipalization of its Energy Utilities
- Berlin’s Vote To Expropriate the Landlords
- Better Land-Based Economies
- Bologna as a City of Collaboration
- Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons
- Bologna's Urban Commons Approach
- Bristol's Food Policy and Urban Agriculture Movement
- British Digital Cooperative
- Building 21st Century Civic Infrastructures
- Building a Co-Cities Index To Measure the Implementation of the EU and UN Urban Agenda
- Building Bottom-Up Finance Solutions for Cooperative Housing in Central and South-Eastern Europe
C
- California Data Dividends Working Group
- Cap on Annual Material Use
- Carbon Dividends
- Carbon Quantitative Easing
- Carbon Sequestration-Based Cryptocurrency
- Cargo Bike Vienna Program
- Carshare Parking Quotas
- Case for Universal Property
- Catalonia in Common
- Cecile Blanchet on Energy as a Commons and Remunicipalization in Germany
- Central Bank Public Ledger
- Changes in Urban Governance Under a Radical Left Government in Barcelona
- Changing Societies through Urban Commons Transitions
- Charter for Building a Data Commons for a Free, Fair and Sustainable Future
- Charter of the Commons
- Charters of Urban Commons
- Christian Iaone on the Urban Commons Charters in Italy
- Circular Cities
- Circular Economy Policies for Cities
- Circular Finance
- Citizen Assets Board
- Citizen Assets Programme in Barcelona
- Citizen Trusts
- Citizen's Dividend
- Citizen's Income
- Citizen's Stake
- Citizen's Trust
- Citizens Economic Resource Currency in Barcelona
- Citizens Evolving from Data Providers to Decision-Makers in Barcelona
- Citizens Wealth Fund
- Citizens Wealth Fund for the UK
- City Administrations as Practitioners of the Commons in Europe
- City as a Commons Policy Reader
- City Policies for the Commons Collaborative Economy in Barcelona
- City State Code - Germany
- City-Based Departments of the Commons
- Civic Economy in Japan
- Civic Tech and Place-Based Municipalism
- Climate Change, Capitalism and Sustainable Wellbeing
- Climate Equity Reference Project
- CLT Brussels
- Co-Cities
- Co-Cities Open Book
- Co-Cities Project
- Co-Cities Report on the Urban Commons Transitions
- Co-City
- Co-City Protocol
- Co-City Protocols
- Co-Viability Analysis
- CoAbode
- Cognitive Capitalism vs the Economy of Knowledge
- Collaboration between Local Authorities and Renewable Energy Cooperatives
- Collective Action Workshop with Michel Bauwens for the City of Greater Bendigo in Australia
- Common Asset Trusts for Integrated Natural Capital Stewardship
- Common Asset Trusts for Ocean Commons
- Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities
- Common Ground Trust
- Common Home of Humanity
- Common Ticketing for Mobility as a Service in Helsinki
- Common Urban Assets
- Common Wealth
- Commons Approaches to the Infrastructural Gap
- Commons as New Narrative to Enrich the Food Sovereignty and Right to Food Claims
- Commons as Political Subject
- Commons Collaborative Economy
- Commons Development Officers Network - Wales
- Commons Equality Principle
- Commons Fund for the Precariat
- Commons Governance in Design
- Commons Law for Housing
- Commons Policy in the Brussels Region of Belgium
- Commons Proposals for the French Municipal Elections of 2019
- Commons Transitie Plan voor de Stad Gent
- Commons Transition Plan for Amsterdam
- Commons Transition Plan for the City of Ghent
- Commons Transition Plan for the City of Sydney
- Commons, Markets and Public Policy
- Commons-Based Citizenship
- Commons-Based Climate Response
- Commons-Based International Food Treaty
- Commons-Based Political Ideas for a New Europe
- Commons-Based Renewable Energy in the Age of Climate Collapse
- Commons-Based Welfare Infrastructures in European Cities
- Commons-Innovations Vouchers
- Commons-Supportive Programmes in Barcelona
- CommonsPolis
- COMMUNIA’s 20 Policy Recommendations for the Public Domain
- Communitarian Management Framework - Barcelona
- Community Balance Sheet
- Community Choice Aggregation
- Community Control of Land and Housing
- Community Data as a Legal Concept
- Community Food Enterprises
- Community Food Enterprises in Australia
- Community Solar Gardens
- Community Supported Industry White Paper
- Community VAT as Commons Taxation
- Community Wealth Building
- Community Wealth Cities
- Community-Based Transformation
- Community-Led Housing
- Community-Led Local Development Network - Lisbon
- Community-Owned and Controlled Finance
- Context for En Comu's Commons-Oriented Policy for Barcelona
- Convergence for Post Capitalist Transition
- Cooling the Commons
- Cooperation Jackson
- Cooperative Cities in the US
- Cooperative City
- Cooperative Commonwealth and the Partner State
- Cooperative Housing in Egypt
- Creating a Digital Commons
- Creating City Portraits - Doughnut Economics Methodology
- Creating Socio-Ecological Societies Through Urban Commons Transitions
- Critique of the Anti-Trust Policy Proposals Against Social Media Monopolies
- Crowdfunding for European Structural and Investment Funds
D
- Damage-Limitation Policy Proposals Against AirBNB Gentrification
- Dampbusters Bristol
- Danish Promotion of Renewable Energy Act of 2008
- Data and Digital Intelligence as People’s Resources
- Data Commons License
- Data Protection
- Data-Driven Approach to Decision-Making
- Decent Living Standards
- DEcentralised Citizen-owned Data Ecosystems
- Declaration of Economic Liberty and Interdependence
- Declaration of Urban Civic and Collective Use
- Defending Economic Relocalization Against the Arguments for Neoliberal Development Models
- Democratic Ownership Funds
- Department of the Commons - Naples
- Design Principles and Practices for the Urban Commons
- Digital Commons as Drivers of Sovereignty
- Digital Democracy and Data Commons
- Digital Public Assets
- Digital Public Space and Interoperability
- Digital Ultra-Decentralization and the End of Data Centers
- Digital Yuan
- Distributed Property Arrangements and their Relevance for Self-Organising Cities
- Doughnut Economics
- Doughnut Economics as Policy Framework
- Draft Proposal for a Commons Transition Plan for the City of Sydney
- Dutch Commons Assembly
- Dutch Cooperative Approach fo Agri-Environment Adaptation to Climate Change