The CO‐City: Sharing, Collaborating, Cooperating, and Commoning in the City

• Author: Christian Iaione
• Published date: 01 March 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12145
• Date: 01 March 2016

The CO-City: Sharing, Collaborating,

Cooperating, and Commoning in the City

By CHRISTIAN IAIONE*

ABSTRACT. This article introduces an innovative, experimental, adaptive,

and iterative approach to creating legal and institutional frameworks

based on urban polycentric governance to foster commons-based urban

policies. First, the theory of urban/local governance is introduced, based

on an urban co-governance matrix. A new type of regulatory system is

then described that aims at transforming people in distributed nodes of

collective action. Citizens and institutions can be myriad nodes of

designing and problem solving in the public interest. Urban co-

governance aims at taking advantage of this galaxy of networks. I then

examine design principles and a methodology to implement the urban

co-governance matrix. The concluding question concerns the need for a

new research methodology to investigate the ongoing process of state

transformation and institutional genesis at the urban level.

Introduction

Governance theory is naturally and inherently intertwinedwith the law.

Modern governance and legal theory must confront the growing urban-

ization of our world. This triggers the question of how to design new

institutions and rules of cooperation and collaboration for the great

variety of actors operating within urban contexts (Dekker and Werner

2004; Zumbansen 2011). The main purpose of this article is to in-

vestigate if urban assets and resources or the city as a whole can be

transformed into sharing, collaborative, cooperative, commoning eco-

systems that enable collective action forthe commons. The new goal of

both public and private institutions is to create value with, not for, the

*Christian Iaione is associate professor of public law at Guglielmo Marconi Univer-

sity of Rome, fellow of the Urban Law Center at Fordham University, and visiting pro-

fessor of governance of the commons at LUISS Guido Carli where he directs

LabGov—LABoratory for the GOVernance of the Commons (www.labgov.it). <http://

docenti.luiss.it/iaione/www.labgov.it>

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 75, No. 2 (March, 2016).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12145

V

C2016 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

entire community. This can be done by shifting from closed centralized

institutions to co-owned, co-managed, and co-produced institutions for

the governance of urbanresources as commons, so that the community

as a whole can capture the value. After a brief introduction of the theo-

retical framework, I propose five design principles of a “commons-

based urban governancematrix” and related methodological processes.

In the conclusion, I draw up a research agenda for future studies on

commons-based urbangovernance.

The analytical framework in this article relies on some crucial ele-

ments that are still often lacking in the implementation of an urbangov-

ernance scheme: organizational innovations inside city administrative

structures, a communication plan with a democratic digital platform as

the central tool, and bridging institutions that spread commoning cul-

ture and practice at the city level and in neighborhoods. Finally, the

need to rethink the role of cognitive institutions like schools and uni-

versities and policymakers is evident. Instead of acting like authorities

or suppliers of expert knowledge, they should behave as facilitators, a

role that is more in line with the urban governance scheme designed

here.

Co-Management and Co-Production of Urban Commons:

Cornerstone of an Urban Co-Governance

Urban spaces and neighborhood or community services satisfy several

needs that come with living in a city because they are functional to a

community’s well-being, as well as to the individual exercise of rights

of citizenship. They encourage higher sense of belonging to the com-

munity, help to overcome political apathy, foster social cohesion.

Urban commons and services of common interest are undergoing a

deep crisis period, determined by two factors: the decline of public or

collective spaces and citizen disaffection. Urban public spaces are per-

ceived as nobody’s or local public authority’s places, rather than every-

body’s places, like commons (Iaione 2015). Urban blight is the most

evident effect of the above-mentioned crisis, but is also due to the lack

of civic involvement in urban planning and in the design, production,

and implementation of urban services.

The American Journal of Economics and Sociology416

Urban spaces can be considered as commons taking into account the

dimension of their use and social utility. A square is not a common good

in and of itself only because it is a simple urban space. As Mattei clearly

points out (2011: 55), it becomes a common good given its nature as a

“place for social access and existential exchange.” Also local services can

and must be conceptualized as commons. The conceptualization of local

services of common interest will be deeply analyzed in the second part

of this article, as an application of the polycentric approach to gover-

nance. To introduce the concept, the idea of urban commons concerns

all those urban spaces and services we consider “local commons” or

“common spaces and services.” It is not necessary that the formal owner-

ship of common goods be public, in the sense of being in the care or

supervision of some public administration. The ownership of a commons

can also be in private hands, but it must be characterized by the necessity

of guaranteeing universal access and use and by the need to involve

community members in their production and management. Thus, the

community includes anybody who can contribute to the survival, care,

and conservation of urban commons. Urban commons share some char-

acteristics with public goods, but only up to a certain point, when, as

Foster (2011) would put it, “regulatory slippage” takes place. At this

stage, users tend to use the resources in a way that reduces their value

and the resources resemble a traditional commons more than a public

good. This conceptualization of urban commons is deeply c onnected

with a new kind of urban welfare (Iaione 2015).

The collective action for urban commons has implications for social

inclusion policies. There is a clear connection between regeneration of

public spaces and functionality of neighborhood/community services

and collective well-being. The aim of social inclusion policies in 21

st

-

century cities should be to achieve what town planners call “urban

well-being” (Bellaviti 2006, 2008a, 2008b, 2009; Munarin and Tosi

2009). The five pillars of the collaborative city, which willbe introduced

later, aim at being the cornerstone of a “living together” approach by

fostering urban lifestyles based on civic duties and shared social norms,

as well as collaborative services, mobility, and urban planning.

The new urban welfare will result from the evolution of the concept

of urban well-being. Welfare policies of the 20

th

century of most devel-

oped countries have mainly focused on the construction of a “public

Sharing, Collaborating, Cooperating, and Commoning in the City 417