[P2P-F] Fwd: Commons Transition - from Ghent to Bristol

[Michel Bauwens]

Vasilis Niaros posted: "An interview with Michel Bauwens, conducted by
Vasilis Niaros. Vasilis Niaros: Can you give us a short background of the
project? Michel Bauwens: Ghent is a mid-sized city of about 300,000
inhabitants, with a huge student population, and a prest"

New post on *P2P Foundation*
<https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?author=1530> First Impressions on the
Commons Transition in Ghent: An Interview with Michel Bauwens
<https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/first-impressions-commons-transition-ghent-interview-michel-bauwens/2017/05/22>
by
Vasilis Niaros <https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?author=1530>

*An interview with Michel Bauwens, conducted by Vasilis Niaros.*

*Vasilis Niaros: Can you give us a short background of the project?*

*Michel Bauwens*: Ghent is a mid-sized city of about 300,000 inhabitants,
with a huge student population, and a prestigious history. It was once the
biggest city in northwestern Europe (12th-13th century). It has had a
progressive red-green-blue city coalition for more than a decade and has
already been active in supporting many citizen initiatives. But as the city
became more and more aware of the importance of the commons in these new
models, it asked us as the P2P Foundation (myself and coordinator Yurek
Onzia for our p2p/commons related expertise) to map the commons in Ghent,
and to see what is expected of city authorities in this context. Thus, we
have three months for intense conversations with the local players, and to
produce a Commons Transition Plan.

*VN: In which phase are you at the moment? What have you done so far?*

MB: We are pretty much done with the investigative and ‘mapping phase’. We
did a lot of online research, about 80 conversations with project
initiators, an in-depth questionnaire; and all of this has been put in a
open and shared wiki <http://wiki.commons.gent>, which is organized by
major ‘provisioning’ systems, i.e. food, mobility, housing, etc. In
parallel, we have organized, with the assistance of Timelab
<http://timelab.org/> and Evi Swinnen, weekly meetings in order to
stimulate more interconnection between players in particular fields.
Timelab is one of the maker cultural centers/makerspaces and has been an
essential ally and supporter for this project.

A lot is happening in Ghent. The Flanders region has known a tenfold
increase in commons-connected citizen initiatives in the last ten years,
but as in many other places, there is still too much fragmentation. We are
using the commons narrative to catalyze more convergence across projects,
so that they can have a systemic effect on the city ecosystem and even
influence policy making. Some areas we are specially focusing on are the
economic realities of the commons projects (what are their concrete
resources), their regulatory difficulties, and the possibilities of turning
them into real economic and social projects that can stimulate the local
economy. Our basic hypothesis is that the transition towards these commons
models is also vital to morph into sustainable societies.

*VN: Which are the main challenges that you have faced by now?*

*MB:* The collaboration and reception we received from both the city and
the citizen initiatives have been tremendous. More than 50% have returned
our extended questionnaire, and we’ve had good attendance at our collective
meetings. Amongst our preliminary findings are:

   1. Ghent has a dynamic city administration that is effectively engaged
   in the transition, for the long term, but there are still too many
   sectorally fragmented approaches;
   2. Ghent has very dynamic and organized citizens that are concretely
   initiating and advancing transition projects, but they are also quite
   fragmented, although some sectors are more advanced than others, such as
   food and energy;
   3. amongst the weaknesses is that Ghent lacks an emergent industry, and
   that university institutions are not visibly connected with citizen
   initiatives;
   4. in general, there is a lot of action, but not yet much
   meta-reflection and inter-connection and alignment between projects.

We made a lot of progress with our wiki <http://wiki.commons.gent>, lots of
material to work with and analyze, and we will soon be ready with our
writing and proposition phase.

*VN: Can you give us an idea of some of the directions that you are taking
in terms of proposed solutions?*

*MB:* The key issue for me is how we can move from the current situation of
fragmentation towards the beginning of an alternative eco-system that is
sustainable and socially fair. One of my ideas is to build on the structure
that has shown relative success in the most advanced sectors, which is the
success in creating the beginning of an alternative food system. Ghent has
a wide variety of CSA projects, collective purchasing groups, and the like,
in which new producers and active prosumers are creating new relationships.
It also has a workshop where the key players of this new economy are
studying and reflecting together, and can propose changes to the city. It
also has a food policy council and project, Ghent en Garde, that is fully
committed to the sustainability transition.

I think this could be the basis of a generic structure for the transition
in the other provisioning systems as well; I call this ‘sustainability
empowerment platforms’. I’m also looking at how the collective purchasing
power of the anchor institutions, could leverage this power in terms of
sustainable local purchasing by moving to social procurement practices.
Ghent has one million school meals in the city schooling system, which
could be locally sourced. Timelab has pioneered a ‘call for commons’
approach in which, instead of competing for scarce subsidies, actors create
common solutions through a network approach, which could be generalized in
other city-based projects, instead of purely competitive bids. On a more
fundamental political level, can city institutions and democratic
procedures integrate the ‘right to challenge’ by citizen initiatives, and
even the ‘right to initiate’ as is already the case in Bologna for example?
Is the city and its administrative and political culture ready to become a
‘partner city’ which can empower citizens to co-create common-wealth more
systematically and successfully?

*VN: What is the role of the municipality in the project?*

*MB:* The municipality commissioned the project. It is the first
municipality in the world to look strategically at the commons transition,
that’s not trivial. The mayor and the strategic directorate of the city
have been supportive and have nominated a very effective coordinator, which
has opened doors for us to meet a series of engaged officials in different
departments. In parallel, we received equally enthusiastic support from
civil society initiatives and organisations, showing us that the commons
are alive and correspond to a true aspiration. The difficulty of the
project is not to be underestimated however, i.e. how to get more
convergence and systematicity amongst commons actors in the various
sectors, and how to realize more voice and political clout. How can we
tackle the more infrastructural commons requirements, such as space and
land, which is subject to tremendous speculative activity and
gentrification? How can we fund the commons transition, for example,
through circular finance that tackles the cost of negative externalities
and supports commons initiatives which drastically improve the material
footprint of human economic and social activities?

Photo <http://wpinject.com/> by ClarkHodissay
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/27406808@N00/4055767159>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/>
*Vasilis Niaros <https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?author=1530>* | May 22,
2017 at 11:00 am | URL: http://wp.me/p4csWb-h2f

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Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org


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