Governance & Policy
Urban Commons
Urban resources — gardens, squares, buildings, infrastructures — governed collectively by communities rather than purely by market or state.
Definition
Urban commons are resources in cities that communities create, manage and govern collectively: community gardens on vacant land, shared public spaces, housing cooperatives, community energy schemes, tool libraries and mutual aid networks. Applying Ostrom's commons framework to the city, the concept covers both the resource and the social institution — the rules, roles and trust — through which urbanites self-organise provision that neither market nor municipality supplies adequately.
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