Public-Commons Partnerships in Bologna, Italy
Source
* Article: Perroud, T. 2026. Les partenariats public commun : l’exemple de Bologne, EnCommuns. Article mis en ligne le 14 octobre 2026.
URL = https://www.encommuns.net/articles/2026-10-14-les-partenariats-public-commun-lexemple-de-bologne/
"Règlement sur la collaboration entre les citoyens et l’administration pour l’entretien et la régénération des biens communs urbains"
This text introduces the full translation, in French, of the Italian Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons. In Ttalian: "Regolamento di Bologna and patto di collaborazione".
Translation furnished by Z.ai.
English translation of the intro blurb:
"We are publishing a translation, accompanied by an introduction by Thomas Perroud, of the regulation of the city of Bologna establishing partnerships between the city and its citizens for the care of urban commons. This is an opportunity to revisit the origins of this pact of collaboration, the way in which it contributes to renewing the principles of public action, and its influence in Italy and in France."
The Text
Introduction to the Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons
by Thomas Perroud:
"At a time when many French municipalities are wondering how to involve communities in public action, we thought that a translation of the regulation of the city of Bologna establishing partnerships between the city and its citizens for the care of urban commons, in force since 16 June 2014, could be useful for conveying the interest of these pacts in France. We will limit ourselves to a few comments by way of introduction.
First, what is its origin? The movement that led to the drafting of this text takes root in a context of strong citizen mobilization, marked by the 2011 referendum against the privatization of water and by occupations of vacant buildings (such as the Teatro Valle in Rome). It was in this climate that the city of Bologna adopted, in February 2014, its "Regulation on collaboration between citizens and the administration for the maintenance and regeneration of urban commons."
The success was rapid: by 2015, Bologna already counted seven active pacts. Today, according to the association Labsus (the principal promoter of the scheme), more than 300 Italian local authorities (municipalities, unions of municipalities, provinces, and even regions such as Lazio and Tuscany) have adopted a similar regulation. This diffusion testifies to the great adaptability of the model.
Several interesting things emerge from the Bologna text. The development of Italian collaboration pacts is, first of all, anchored in a vision of the relations between citizens and public authority that proceeds from the Constitution. It is not a simple form of delegation of general-interest activities to groups of citizens. Article 118 of the Italian Constitution, which establishes the relations between the different levels of public action (State, regions, municipalities) and between these public bodies and civil society, is the source of this tool. The principle of subsidiarity is at the heart of the scheme. It implies, on the one hand, that competences be exercised as close as possible to the citizens, but also: "the State, Regions, Metropolitan Cities, Provinces and Municipalities shall foster the autonomous initiative of citizens, individually or in association, for the exercise of activities of general interest, on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity." The Constitution thus legitimizes the role of citizens in the provision of certain services, on the same footing as public bodies.
The collaboration pact thus corresponds to a renewal of citizenship. The citizen is no longer treated as an administered subject, but as an actor. One of the key notions of the Bologna pact is that of the active citizen, defined as one who is prepared to take charge of urban commons. The text renews, in a novel way, the link between citizenship, the common good and the State. The city must moreover rely on civic networks and civic media to carry out its action.
On the other hand, the field of the pacts is broad, since it has the same extension as the central notion of "urban commons," which covers "tangible, intangible and digital goods [...] essential to individual and collective well-being." The commons weave the relations between the State and private persons in a different way, but they are also an occasion to put the emphasis on the link between individual and collective well-being. In this text, one senses clearly that the political project carried by the commons is an overcoming of individualism. One perceives that the text sketches, in negative relief, a meaningful cluster of oppositions: individualism and the State, on one side; the collective, the common and the citizen, on the other. What the text does not say, however, but which is part of its subtext, is that the individualism–State pairing has often had, as its corollary, the market-based provision of general-interest services, whereas the pact proposes, for its part, a model based on society (one sees in the regulation that the financial support of the municipality is limited).
The pact therefore symbolizes a new mode of public action. This is also visible in the principles that guide public action in this field. This new mode of intervention that the pacts embody is in continuity with the values that administrative action is supposed to embody in the modern period (publicity, transparency and impartiality). But, by adding the principles of inclusivity, openness and sustainability, this tool also embodies much more recent principles of public action, which are not perfectly recognized everywhere.
The field of intervention of citizens with respect to urban commons is, by contrast, circumscribed: it concerns maintenance and regeneration. Article 6.2 makes clear that the pacts are intended to complement public action where it is non-existent or insufficient. What radically differentiates the system of pacts from the classical system of administrative law is that communities can be the originators of the request (Article 11). It is therefore not a top-down procedure.
In this respect, the Italian initiative is part of a more global moment which, starting from the financial crisis of 2008, favored a renewal of citizen–State relations, with very opposed political inspirations. For example, in the United Kingdom, David Cameron's Big Society project pursued precisely the objective of favoring society over the State by allowing communities to take back public services. The Localism Act of 2011 even contained a provision allowing communities to express their interest in providing or improving public services currently managed by local authorities in England (right to challenge). But the public authorities were bound to take into consideration the requests received. Unlike in Italy, what is at stake here is public services and not commons. One sees that, in those years, the financial crisis and the diminution of revenues it brought about for public authorities generated a renewal of the relations between citizens and public authorities.
This regulation is also clear-eyed about the risks of the commons, in particular the risk of closure and exclusion. Openness is, first, a basic principle of the pacts. Then, the regulation does provide, for example for the shared management of buildings, that the community must "guarantee the collective use of the good as well as openness to all citizens wishing to participate in the interventions." Likewise, with respect to public spaces, the regulation provides that "active citizens may not conduct activities or carry out interventions contrary to public use." On the whole, this text marks a major shift in the philosophy of public action, but whose reach is certainly limited by the absence of public support."
(https://www.encommuns.net/articles/2026-10-14-les-partenariats-public-commun-lexemple-de-bologne/)
After and Beyond Bologna
Thomas Perroud:
"Since this text, initiatives have multiplied. Let us mention the developments concerning Italy and France. Collaboration pacts in Italy are characterized by their great flexibility, which has allowed a multitude of experiments. Projects range from the micro-local scale (maintenance of a flowerbed, cleaning of a portico in Bologna) to the management of entire buildings or parks. The scheme has even been adapted at the inter-municipal scale, as with the "Regolamento del Lago" between the municipalities of Bracciano, Trevignano Romano and Anguillara. The signatories can be individual citizens, informal committees, structured associations, or businesses. This openness allows for the inclusion of a wide diversity of actors. Initially focused on the "care" (cura) of public space, the objectives have diversified: urban regeneration, cultural projects, social services, education, urban agriculture, and even the management of intangible or digital goods.
There is thus a great variety of projects. Far from being a simple copy-paste of the Bologna model, many cities have appropriated the regulation and hybridized it with other schemes, or have developed competing schemes. One may notably cite the "urban civic and collective use" (uso civico e collettivo urbano), conceptualized by the urban commons movement in the city of Naples and carried by the experience of the community of the Asilo following the occupation of the Ex-Asilo Filangieri in 2012. This scheme is inscribed in the tradition of usi civici, of very ancient origin, and attached to the archaic institution of collective ownership of land. It in turn constitutes an emblematic experience of urban commons that has set a precedent in Italy, but which rests on a constitutional foundation different from the Bologna project. Where the Bologna project relies principally on Article 118, paragraph 4, of the Italian Constitution — which enshrines the principle of horizontal subsidiarity, the object of which is to allow citizens to participate in the exercise of functions of general interest alongside the administration — Naples, for its part, mobilizes principally Articles 42 and 43 of the Constitution, in an approach centered on the social function of property and the collective self-management of goods. The aim is to recognize in a community powers of direct administration over a good of which the municipality remains the owner. Bologna and Naples thus constitute two poles of political interpretation of the urban commons project.
There also exist examples of hybridization. One may first mention the example of Turin. The city has developed a particularly sophisticated approach with its Co-City project. Turin's regulation does not limit itself to classical collaboration pacts, but integrates other forms of management of the commons, such as "urban civic and collective use" (uso civico e collettivo urbano), "civic collective management," and the "foundation of commons." This diversification allows for the response to larger-scale projects, notably the reactivation of large disused industrial spaces, in partnership with banking foundations and actors of the social economy.
In Padua, the city has likewise adopted a mixed approach, combining collaboration pacts with "Declarations of civic and collective use" (Dichiarazioni di uso civico e collettivo). This hybridization seems to distinguish maintenance projects carried out by citizens from those, more structuring, carried by organized collectives, thus offering a palette of legal tools adapted to the nature of the projects.
However, this tool has been able to give rise to tensions and resistances. The principal criticism, underlined by numerous observers, is the risk of instrumentalization by the public authority. By requiring municipal validation for each pact, the model preserves a top-down logic that can curb the autonomy and the spontaneity of citizen initiatives. The administration, in defining the rules of the game, can end up orienting projects toward its own priorities, transforming a tool of emancipation into an instrument of management, at lesser cost, of public space. This tension between institutionalization and the preservation of the radical spirit of the commons remains the principal challenge of the Italian model.
In France now, one may mention the example of Grenoble. Inspired by the Italian ferment, Grenoble is the first French city to have undertaken a similar approach, while remaining anchored in the French juridical and cultural context."
(https://www.encommuns.net/articles/2026-10-14-les-partenariats-public-commun-lexemple-de-bologne/)