Urban Commoning in East Asia

Description

Jeffrey Hou:

"In Taipei, a variety of new urban commons have mushroomed in recent years. They rangefrom self-organized placemaking activitiesto community-driven initiatives to activate vacant sites with the support of city resources. These activities include community gardening, urban farming, appropriation of residual spaces for social events, and salons hosted by independent cafés and bookstores. In Hong Kong, instances of urban commoning have emerged against a backdrop of significant social and political shifts since the handoverfrom the United Kingdom to China in 1997.

Some efforts have strong ties to the recent protest movements, including the occupa- tion of Queen’s Pier, the movement againstthe high-speed railway connecting to China,and more recently the Umbrella Movement.Specifically, many of the recent commoning initiatives have been organized by activists who participated in those movements.In Seoul, responses such as Bin-Zib shared housing have emerged in the context of declining income and job opportunities for young people, coupled with high living costs in the city.

With the election of Mayor Park Won-Soon, a longtime human-rights lawyer, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched an aggressive Sharing City initiative in 2012 to address issues of transportation, park-ing, residential, and environmental issues through sharing policies. In Tokyo, there arealso a variety of commoning initiatives, rang- ing from Curry Caravan, a moving feast of curry rice to catalyze social interactions andactivate public spaces, to more establishedinitiatives, such as the 3331 Arts Chiyoda, a vacant public school transformed into a hub for artists and designers." (https://www.academia.edu/34360760/Urban_Commoning_Against_City_Divided_Field_Notes_from_Hong_Kong_and_Taipei?email_work_card=view-paper)