Panel 11.3. The role of urban commons in sustainable and equitable city making

In a time ruled by neo-liberal urban governance, the role of libraries as urban commons has exponentially become crucial in fostering social equity and sustainable city-making. However, in public policy matters, libraries are barely depicted as ‘meeting places’ for neighborhoods. This study explores how libraries facilitate social interaction, community engagement, and a sense of belonging. This comparative analysis of the Feijenoord municipal library and the self-organized reading room Leeszaal in Rotterdam reveals that libraries serve not only as information centers but also as vital platforms for community empowerment and activism. The Feijenoord library emphasizes structured activities to promote social connections, while the Leeszaal encourages spontaneous interactions, fostering a flexible and inclusive community environment. The findings underline the potential of libraries in redefining social relations and action in communities. It suggests that libraries can address urban inequalities by facilitating dialogue, activism, and local initiatives. To fully recognize this potential, allocating municipal support for library initiatives becomes vital, reinforcing their role as catalysts for community building and key actors in sustainable, equitable urban development.

In this study, we focus on the redevelopment of urban villages in China and the roles and evolutions of the commons that holds together these special villages. Urban villages are essentially villages that have become enveloped by the rapid expansion of cities. Villages in China collectively own their rural land, unlike state-owned urban land. This difference in ownership rights played a significant role in the formation of urban villages. While the state could develop land around the villages, the village land itself was often left untouched, leading to these pockets of rurality within the city. Due to this unique land ownership situation, development within urban villages often occurs informally. Many regulations and planning guidelines that apply to state-owned urban land do not apply to urban villages.

As millions of migrant workers seek jobs in cities, many settled in urban villages where housing is affordable. To accommodate the increasing demand for housing, the construction in urban villages happens incrementally and organically, with villagers adding floors to their houses or building new structures. They may not adhere to building codes and safety regulations. This gives rise to unique forms of urban villages such as densely packed “handshake buildings”. Because many migrant workers do not have a Hukou (i.e., a permanent residence permit) at the city where they work, they cannot access formal social benefits (e.g., education, healthcare, property ownership) provided by the city government. But they may rely on the services operated informally by community groups or businesses without licenses in the urban village. Some see urban villages as places where commons flourishes.

Notably, in contrast to the widespread demolition of urban villages in megacities over the past few decades, reuse and preservation techniques have emerged as the primary means of enhancing the value of urban villages in recent years. Nantou's redevelopment is the case in point. With an emphasis on preserving its historical heritage, which spans 1,700 years, Nantou has been developed primarily as a site with mixed uses, cultural and residential. Some of the original residents and businesses remained. We use ethnographic methods, including document research and interviews with actors to uncover the dynamics between the state, formal neighbourhood committees and informal community groups in the redevelopment of Nantou, and the roles and evolution of commons for and under redevelopment.

The proposed paper discusses participatory design as a commoning practice in urban environments. Urban development often prioritises growth, leading to conflicts between commercial interests and the ethical considerations of local communities and the environment. The research has been built upon a three-year research/practice/educational project titled Common Gardens, which took place 2023-2026 as a collaboration between Loughborough Farm and London South Bank University, Division of Architecture. The farm, founded in 2013 by the volunteer-led charity LJAG, transformed an abandoned plot into a community and ecological asset. In 2022, they secured a 25-year lease to remain on site, but the redevelopment resulted in the loss of a mindfulness garden. The goal of the project was to reinstate this space. Each year concluded with a design intervention and a public event, culminating in the creation of a learning garden to celebrate and share farm knowledge.

Since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, increasingly more built environment professionals have adopted dual roles as volunteers, blending activism with professional practice to mediate these competing priorities. This is especially relevant for architects, who have ethical considerations embedded in their code of conduct. Through the lens of commoning, design becomes an inclusive and transformative practice. It serves not only to reclaim urban territories for community ownership but also to restore ethical agency within the architectural profession.

This study investigates participatory strategies as a way for built environment professionals to regain agency and resolve conflicts between commercial development imperatives and ethical considerations in urban design. It explores how buildings can serve as artefacts of land claims and as sites for negotiation. It raises questions about how these processes can cultivate alternative relationships, such as those involving volunteer consultants and suppliers. Finally, the study examines how participatory design can create meaningful impacts and resolutions in urban development, using commoning as a framework for ethical and inclusive transformation.

Urban wastelands are spaces in a state of latency (withdrawal of activity, evident abandonment), have become a recurrent focus in debates on urban commons since the 2010s. These spaces, including vacant lots and abandoned interstitial areas, serve as crucial refuges for urban socio-biodiversity. Nevertheless, they offer valuable resources: absence of known ownership, broken barriers allowing easy access, vegetation-covered soils, more-than-human presences, and remnants of past activities... Such resources make urban wastelands conducive to diverse social practices, ranging from walking and conviviality to informal economies and even illicit activities. The indeterminate status of the land, its unclear ownership, and its uncertain future foster diverse urban experiences often framed as expressions of free commons. When a development project is planned or moves into an operational phase, mobilizations sometimes arise to defend urban wastelands. These collective actions involve local residents, environmental associations, and broader activist groups. In these moments, tensions turn into social mobilizations to protect the space and resist to its transformation.

This communication inquiries two cases of “defended wastelands” to interrogate the notion of commoning through urban wastelands. We focus on the everyday urban and social stakes of these mobilizations, considering how they (re)define both the governance of urban commons (Ostrom, 1990) and the ontology of « urbanized natures » (Angelo, 2021). This proposal draws on the experiences and insights of urban researchers with various levels of activist engagement. We focus on two mobilizations in Montreal (Canada) and Paris (France). We cross-analyze these mobilizations, considering (1) how they generate everyday practices and governance through urban commons (Iaione, 2019) ; (2) how these commons in the making are not merely a ressource but are mostly defined by processes of commoning (Starvides, 2016 ; De Angelis, 2017) by collective mobilization. Our main contribution underlines the importance of urban wastelands indeterminacy in these struggles. Following the struggle of public squares, the struggle for urban wastelands reveals the function of these ambiguous spaces in expanding agency within global cities as a commoning resources for urban populations.

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.

Brazilian cities deal with severely unequal access to housing and infrastructure. This paper examines how popular housing movements in São Paulo respond to threats to access to housing, food, sociability, and citizenship, observing the Gera Juncal Community Garden in São Paulo. Originating from a housing rights movement, it has evolved into a multifaceted site that integrates food sovereignty with right-to-the-city claims and merges popular education, solidarity economy, and agro-ecological practices. Using a feminist and relational perspective, this study observes the community maintaining the garden, and their daily negotiations around membership, resource distribution, and political strategies shaping the garden's hybrid community. These interactions portray the garden as a political-ecological assemblage where the interaction of bodies, food, labor, and political engagement redefines urban commons boundaries. The findings suggest that like other social reproduction and care practices, they address urgent needs and promote individual and collective agency, sustaining the movement. The daily work in the community garden fosters connection and trust, as they leveraged opportunities to share and build a common language towards caring for the land, solidarity, and justice. This shared experience proved crucial, as the garden kept the group during an uncertain period. Building on this sense of community, they shift the focus from individual to collective demands broadening the housing concept to a co-produced shelter, and challenging urban dynamics that threaten the environment, habitability, and social bonds. They also shift their identity as the not-haves to the providers of services, building and claiming their autonomy as they establish diverse relations with the state and other networks. However, by merging productive and reproductive spheres, they replicate challenges like unequal labor division, devaluation of work assigned to female and non-white bodies, limited access to resources, externalization of socio-environmental impacts, and perpetuation of unequal power relations. Conversely, everyday work is also a realm of creativity and extraordinary, where strategies and relationships are critically evaluated. Movements connect the claim for the commons with their maintenance, thereby linking forms of struggle with forms of life. They can embed their sought principles and values into actions and practices, embodying prefigurative politics, and expanding present demands by collectively shaping the future.

In the town of Casper, Wyoming, U.S., population 60,000, a stretch of land in mountain foothills has remained undeveloped, surrounded by modest housing. People all over the town use the land for hiking, biking, and horseback riding. All other stretches of mountain foothills in the town are private property with no access. This area has remained undeveloped because it belongs to the state of Wyoming, under a 130-year-old system in which states in the western U.S. were given federal public land as they gained “statehood” in the nation. The gift of land was intended to generate revenue for states to fund public schools and other needs. In Casper the land in question had been grazed by livestock for a small fee; public access to state lands has always been allowed, so people have also recreated there for many years, unaware of state ownership. Recently a local company leased the state land for gravel mining. Neighbors were unaware of the lease until exploration pits began. State officials had approved the mine lease unaware of its location. Since the mine plan became public, outrage over the state’s use of its ownership has led to packed agency meetings and generated over 5,000 opposition petition signatures. Agency action is in limbo: the company has sued county officials who tried to stop the mine. The mine operation has not begun. The town has long thrived as a supply hub for coal, oil and gas production; the gravel company represents the 3rd generation in a wealthy local oil-gas family. For two decades, however, the traditional industries have declined. This case study suggests that people in so-called “dying industrial towns” see themselves and their place as valuable. They want a sustainable community and will fight to keep what they prize about their place.

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.

The leading question of this paper is one from which only a few architects or urban planners would start when talking about innovation in urban design: how could political aspects of urbanity change the quality of daily life in urban neighborhoods? To answer this question, we will use the approach of the commons, highlighting the fact that producing alternative visions through creative patterns of the commons (Bollier, Helfrich, 2019), revealing relationships of use, innovating with institutions - and even breaking with the inherited administrative system - lead to a real exercise of political imagination (Dardot, Laval, 2015).
The Turin case study, that we intend to treat, is of particular interest in understanding the relationship between social practices, urban design and forms of governance. In recent years, the city of Turin has relied on two factors as vectors of innovation: first, the representation of a new epistemology of the crisis as a lever of transformation; urban regeneration programs using European funds such as ToNite (UIA) or national or even local funds are in this vein.
The second proposes different governance frameworks for common urban resources, moving from participation to collaboration. This is made possible by the new co-governance tools: the "Pact of Collaboration" (a civic deal through which the city and civic actors constitute a form of shared governance to regenerate, care for and manage together one or more urban commons) and the "Regulations on Collaboration between Citizens and Administration for the Care, Shared Management and Regeneration of Urban Commons" (2016).
The hypothesis of this paper is that the shift from participation to collaboration in urban practices may favour the questioning of past urban planning principles, which paid little attention to bottom-up generative forces and the human/environment relationship in terms of co-evolution. In this framework, how to create new urban patterns of commoning? Every pattern has an underlying challenge, that of bringing a different look at reality and this implies bringing into play the value system of a society. What are the values that guide the construction of new patterns of commoning? Just as Tim Ingold identifies the “path” as the metaphor of something that is continually coproduced in the collaboration of multiple people (Ingold, 2000), the pattern of commoning represents the vital movement that aims to cross different narratives, and the web of forces that can produce intercommoning and shared culture.

Commoning within the city implies collaboratively transforming spaces to address the basic needs of urban dwellers through collective action. Urban food commoners are developing various methods for producing, distributing, transforming, and sharing food, often through voluntary labor or independent organizations, including NGOs. This research considers such practitioners’ utopian imaginaries of feeding/nourishing/eating in the city.
Utopian imaginaries encompass beliefs, desires, and actions that shape perceptions of possibility. Exploring the utopian imaginaries of urban food commoning practitioners can reveal transformative pathways to desirable alternative futures.
The research develops a novel methodology for commons research by utilizing the future creating workshop (FCW) paired with Ruth Levitas’ Imaginary Reconstitution of Society’ (IRS) or 'utopia as method'. This approach is infused with artistic activities to explore and articulate the desired present-futures envisioned by urban food commoning practitioners.
The FCW provides a space for individuals to express their commitment to shared issues, emphasizing participants’ interests and lived experiences. It consists of three phases: Critique (identifying problems), Utopia (envisioning an ideal future), and Realization (strategizing implementation). To enhance discussions during the Utopia and Realization phases, we incorporate IRS modes—archaeology, ontology, and architecture—to articulate detailed utopian visions. Crafting these utopias involves recognizing present opportunities and determining the values and systems to support them. By integrating artistic activities such as image theater, drawing, and collage, the FCW creates engaging sessions that consider different means of expression, encourage diverse perspectives, and facilitate collaborative meaning-making.
In this presentation, we provide an overview of the use of these methodologies in a research project to imagine the urban as a regenerative space for food commoning. We also present the outcomes of using this methodology with research participants who express their aspirations, hope, and strategies for life-sustaining collective action.

Commons are widely studied for their ability to govern resources beyond state or market control without leading to depletion (Ostrom 1990). Feminist and political economy research highlights commoning as a challenge to neoliberalism and a path to equitable social relations (Linebaugh 2008; Caffentzis & Federici 2014; Huron 2015; De Angelis 2017). Yet, empirical studies on urban commons in the Global South remain scarce. In rapidly urbanising Africa, this gap overlooks critical knowledge, particularly given West Africa’s history as a central site of racialised enclosure and commodification, as well as counter-hegemonic resistance.
This paper examines the governance, motivations, and societal impacts of marginalised groups—including women and youth—commoning resources such as land amid increasing commodification. Using a feminist political ecology framework and a Black feminist approach, we investigate how collective action emerges and how intersecting identities (e.g., class, race, age, marital status) shape access to and visions for urban commons in multiple sites in Ghana. Our central question: How does urban commons governance both reproduce and challenge hierarchical power dynamics and social inequities?
Three case studies ground this study. The first explores a widows’ farming and shea-processing collective in Bolgatanga, where landless women mobilise rotational savings, cooperative farming, and advocacy to navigate exclusion from landholding and markets. The second examines a Ga youth-led beach cleanup in Accra, where volunteers reclaim coastlines from ecological degradation and commercial encroachment. The third examines a volunteer group of professionals who clean drains to mitigate flooding and mobilise self-organisation.
Findings suggest that in neoliberal city-making, commoning arises from material necessity, exclusion, and solidarity-building, shaped by the social dimensions of customary tenure systems. Rather than existing outside dominant structures, commoners navigate state, market, and traditional institutions, revealing constraints and opportunities for alternative social infrastructures. These efforts underscore commoning’s role in securing livelihoods and challenging unequal urban resource management.