Changing Societies through Urban Commons Transitions
By Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Niaros
Contents
1. The Centrality of Urban Commons in the Social-Ecological Transition 7
1.1. Understanding the global conjuncture in which urban commons emerge 8
1.1.1. Placing the re-emergence of urban commons in a ‘material’ historical context 8
1.1.2. The political conjuncture for the urban commons as locus for societal change 12
1.1.3. The role of the commons in reducing the material footprint of humanity 13
1.1.4. The challenge of meaningful work in the age of Trumpism 15
1.2. The challenge of urban commons for the actors in the city 15
1.2.1. Contributory democracy as a challenge to representative democracy 15
1.2.2. The generative economy as a challenge to market power 16
1.2.3. The commons as a challenge to traditional civil society organisations 17
2. Recent Developments in Urban Commons Transitions 18
2.1. Grassroots initiatives in urban commons transitions 18
2.1.1. Developments in the Global North 18
2.1.2. Developments in the Global South 19
2.1.3. The Assemblies of the Commons as the ‘voice’ of the commoners 20
2.2. Commons-oriented municipal coalitions 22
2.2.1. The rationale for our case study choices 22
2.2.2. The city of Barcelona 23
3. Towards a Coherent Institutional Design for Public-Commons Partnerships 35
3.1 The basic concepts underlying public-commons partnerships 35
3.2 How is the Commons Transition Plan in Ghent related to the FLOK Society Project in Ecuador? 37
3.3 A three-pronged strategy for the commons transition 38
3.4. An institutional design for the city administration 39
3.6. Towards a global infrastructure for commons-based provisioning 44