Urban commons have emerged as vital actors in the reconfiguration of European cities, promoting more sustainable, equitable, and inclusive urban landscapes. This contribution will explore how grassroots initiatives, cooperatives, and social enterprises are fostering alternative models of urban development by reclaiming underused spaces and repurposing them as hubs for community engagement, affordable housing, and local economies. Drawing from over a decade of hands-on experience in Brussels and across Europe, this research highlights the transformative power of urban commons in addressing systemic issues like housing precarity, social exclusion, and gentrification.
Through an in-depth analysis of diverse case studies—including temporary use projects, community land trusts (CLTs), cooperatives, squats and "beni comuni"—this presentation will showcase how urban commons navigate legal, social, and economic challenges. It will also emphasize the role of collaborative governance models that bring together civil society and local governments, fostering new forms of social property and innovative use of urban space. Concrete projects will be presented, from Brussels, Berlin, Riga, Marseille, Barcelona, Naples, such as Communa, Fairground, Haus Der Statistik, Mietshäuser Syndikat, Free Riga, L'Arpès-M, La Borda, and Ex Asilo Filangieri, as well as public-commons partnerships.
This contribution builds on my work as an Ashoka Fellow and my research with Brussels University (VUB) under the European project DOMINIA. It also integrates insights gained from a comprehensive tour across Europe, where best practices were identified and shared among urban commoners.
By bringing these experiences to the IASC conference, I aim to shed light on the potential of urban commons to regenerate cities, promote the “Right to the City,” and offer scalable solutions for sustainable urban development.
Ultimately, this presentation will contribute to ongoing discussions on how to protect, sustain, and expand urban commons as a counterforce to the commodification and enclosure of urban space, fostering a more resilient and equitable future for cities across Europe.
States are in a constant pressure to redefine their spatial development strategies to address discrepancies between increasing and often conflicting land demands and sustainable development. Commons, on the other hand, activated by concerns of decommodification, solidarity and equity, reclaim and provide socio-economic alternatives to restore ecological values and counteract socio-ecological crises produced by extractive capitalism. This study is part of a book that will be published in 2025 and aims to contribute to the panel’s topic by adding the discussion around the role of the state in supporting or hindering commons as alternative forms of self-organisation and governance, and critical actants of more sustainable and equitable cities.
We go through case studies that span across seven EU countries and Morocco to explore: (1) how commons emerge as socio-ecological agents, through which communities re-invent property and creatively re-define modes of ‘provisioning’, and (2) how states either hinder, or ally with-, support, or inspire commoning practices setting the ground for improved land governance. The selected cases address a diversity of themes including sustainable food systems, affordable housing provision, urban land occupation and land use planning legislation, and urban cultural commons.
The question addressed is: how can states support and enable the proliferation of commons? Since there is no single answer to this question applying to all commons, countries and contexts, we delve into different cases and state configurations to provide more nuanced answers. Therefore, state-commons interactions are approached differently in each case and discussed with theoretical lenses that range from Ostromean approaches to anarchist perspectives and stretch towards political-cultural ecology, social solidarity economy, strategic-relational institutionalism, new municipalism, socially innovative governance, and critical legal theory. This work contributes to the panel's core question by illustrating how urban commons reshape responsibility, power dynamics, and access to resources while concretely contributing to socio-ecological transitions.
