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

[2]

• 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]

• * Report: Reviving the commons? A scoping Review of Urban and Digital Commoning. By James Henderson and Oliver Escobar. Edingburgh Futures Institute. Data Civics Observatory, 2024 [4]

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”. [5]. 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 [6]. See for the official dutch version: [7]. 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 [8] 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.

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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.” [10]. 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

Regional and Larger Scale

Belgium

• Commons Policy in the Brussels Region of Belgium [11]

France

• Report: Policy Proposals for Land Commons in France. FONCIER EN COMMUNS. VERS UNE PROPRIÉTÉ PARTAGÉE. DES LIEUX ESSENTIELS. Ed. by Rémy Seillier et Sébastien Shulz. Société des communs, Livret 04. 2024.[12]
• Report: Rethinking Public Services in the Light of Commons. 'OUVRIR LA GOUVERNANCE ET LA PRODUCTION DES SERVICES PUBLICS AUX CITOYENS. Coordinateurs du livret : Louise Guillot, Rémy Seillier et Sébastien Shulz. Societe des Communs. January 2024.

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• Multi-Stakeholder Institutions for Territorial 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 [14].
• 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
• 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

• 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."

South Korea

• Urban Commons and the State in South Korea

Spain

• The Valencian Fent Cooperativism Plan

Global and Cosmo-Local

Jean-Christophe Duval: The Neguentropic Money International Monetary System - NEMO IMS, with new commons-based institutions such as: The NEMO Green DTS‎ and the GAIA Economic Symposium: "NEMO IMS recommends the creation of new institutions that would issue debt-free money as income in return for commons regeneration activities."

Domain-Specific

Housing

* Report: Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts, by John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy with the International Center for Community Land Trusts. [15]]: "Drawing on insights from 115 community land trusts (CLTs) that were interviewed or surveyed by the International Center for Community Land Trusts, the report explores how CLTs are partnering with public officials to help address the housing affordability crisis."

More information

• Preserving Affordable Homeownership builds on the Lincoln Institute’s 2008 Policy Focus Report The City-CLT Partnership, coauthored by Davis and Rick Jacobus.

Miscellaneous

• List of specific Commons Labs: Antwerp, Belgium ; The Hague, Netherlands [16]

• 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.

P2P Foundation Reports

* Report/Book: Changing Societies through Urban Commons Transitions. By Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Niaros. P2P Foundation and Heinrich Boll Foundation, 2017 [17]: 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 [18]

Key Resources

Key Articles

• Article / Chapter: Commons Economies in Action. Mutualizing Urban Provisioning Systems. Michel Bauwens, Rok Kranjc, and Jose Ramos

[19]. From the book, Sacred Civics

• Digital Commons and the State. Sebastien Shulz.

""We defend the following thesis: the forms of digital commons have always been conceptualized by actors based on their critique of a particular figure of the State during debates aimed at regulating digital infrastructure while envisioning other desired State figures. We rely on secondary sources, a collection of grey literature, and ten interviews with historical actors of the digital commons movement to identify three moments when actors critique three State figures, conceptualize three forms of digital commons—digital common goods, digital commons, and making common through digital means—and prefigure three alternative State figures. This categorization fills a blind spot in the literature by explicating the different ramifications of the digital commons movement and their relationship with the State."

* Moving from coproduction to Commonization of Digital Public Goods and Services. Sébastien Shulz. Public Administration Review, February 2024 [20]

"I define commonization as the integration of shared property, peer production, and self-governance into public administration. To explore the democratizing potential of commonization, I conducted a qualitative study comparing two case studies in France and Spain (Barcelona)."

• 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 [21]. See: Parallelisms between Commons and Municipalism for Urban Alternatives

* The Right To the Co-City. By Christian Iaione. Italian Journal of Public Law, 2017 [22]: "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). [23]: "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 [24]

• Our Commons: Political Ideas for a New Europe. Ed. by Sophie Bloemen and Thomas de Groot. Commons Network, 2019 [25]. 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) [26]; 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)

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• 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

1. Charter of the Commons
2. Permanent Commons Fund
3. 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
4. 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. [28]

Technology Policy

• Critique of the Anti-Trust Policy Proposals Against Social Media Monopolies. By Michael Kwet.

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). [29]

• Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons

• 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 Statistics

• "Provisioning decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments."

See: How Much Growth Is Required to Achieve Good Lives for All Insights from needs-based analysis. Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan.

Key Videos

• Christian Iaone on the Urban Commons Charters in Italy

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 [30]

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

• Commons-Based Welfare Infrastructures in European Cities