Future Urban Research: Focus on the Commons

Challenges ahead: framing urban research as a commons activity and as a research agenda

The focus of urban research has shifted in recent years.While the traditional focus was on aspects of urban provision (e.g. mass transit, housing, other infrastructure), the recent emphasis has shifted to the ‘end goals’ of urbanisation – e.g. sustainability, resilience, well-being, etc. In all these, a constant underlying theme has been the emphasis on creating and managing places. Rohinton Emmanuel (Glasgow Caledonian University) explains why future research needs to focus on the urban commons.

Our world is on the cusp of overwhelming urbanisation over the next two decades. Built environment research is increasingly seen as urban research – more specifically, ‘sustainable urban futures’ (Dixon 2022) or ‘sustainable urban systems’ research (Ramaswami et al. 2018).

As the world continues to urbanise we face unintended consequences, for instance, the urban heat island effect. How, therefore, should we study and explore the social, economic and environmental implications urban placemaking? One approach to urban research, is to focus on its essence – i.e. to see urban spaces as ‘communal.’  In other words, it concerns the ‘commons.’ 

‘Commons’ is that which belongs to all.  Garrett Hardin (1968) who popularised the term in the 1960s explored the ‘tragedy’ of the commons – ‘tragedy’ in the sense of ‘remorseless working of things’ (p. 1244) and the outcome of the unfettered use of the commons being its own demise i.e. ‘freedom in a commons brings ruin to all’. (p. 1244).  However, the Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom (1990) did not agree with this inevitability of the commons leading to ruination, rather she showed that there are traditional and modern approaches to managing the commons that do not lead to decline. Nevertheless, both these views do not strictly apply to the ‘urban commons’ in all instances though uncritical use of commons in cities can be problematic if not managed and governed carefully (Foster & Iaione 2019).  The difficulty arises from a consideration of the commons as a Common Pool Resource (CPR).  Transposing CPR in an urban setting may not always be appropriate, thus, there is evidence in theory, and in practice, that in the urban situation, the ‘tragedy of the commons’ may not apply in all cases.  For instance, use of communal gardens, clearly deprives others from using them, however, using other open spaces, streets and parks doesn’t limit others from using them (Löfgren 2014). Indeed the value of these ‘resources’ increases in proportion to their use.  Borch & Kornberger (2015, p. 12) put this succinctly:

The (urban) commons is not a pooled resource; in contrast to water, grass or fresh air, the urban only comes into existence through the encounter of people, things and ideas. Density and proximity are the intangible fibres that are woven into the fabric of the urban commons. Far from being a ‘pool’, the urban commons is  . . . the corollary of interactions in a dense network.

In other words, the urban commons is central to the liveability of cities, created, improved and modified by the interactions between urban dwellers.  It is the quality and quantity of these interactions that make as well as enhances the value of urban commons.

Place-making has long been seen as central to urban planning (Jacobs 1961).  Some places arise spontaneously while others are purpose-made, yet success in either case is due to a variety of factors: social and cultural at the core but also economic, political and, when speaking of sustainable places – ecological and environmental factors too are important.  Successful urban places (i.e. successful urban commons) are “not simply out there, waiting to be exploited; rather they must first be produced and then constantly reproduced” (Borch & Kornberger 2015: 12).

What does the urban commons mean for urban research?

Wang et al. (2024) identified four key success factors for urban commons which perhaps point to a research agenda for successful urban commons:

• Have established rules, and property rights arrangements
• Allow institutional diversity
• Give the public more institutional control over resources
• Have platforms that provide dedicated competences and resources as well as political and administrative support

It is important to study how and which designs of rules and property rights arrangements can encourage public participation, give back institutional control over resources and harness agency (Wang et al. 2024).  Secondly, institutional diversity is needed for the variety of places that form the urban commons (such as street, neighbourhoods, whole cities and perhaps regions/agglomerations).  Wolman et al. (2022) have identified key questions which in this context may include:

• How are variations produced?
• By what systems, decisions, communities, policies, histories, initial conditions, or endowments are the differences between places developed and maintained?
• Are there ways to design systems and processes that produce more equitable, sustainable, and efficient outcomes?

Given the centrality of communities to urban commons, research is needed to clearly define the community (or the ‘public’), and who has ‘rights to the city.’ A key question in this regard is how to change the regulation of public and private property to give citizens institutional control over resources, and how to work with/through local government to enable and protect the urban commons (Wang et al. 2024)

Finally, there is a need to enhance competencies of both the administrators of the urban commons as well as the public to make the commons successful.  A key to such competencies is data and future research may focus on novel ways to collect data, for instance through citizen science.  In areas such as outdoor comfort, microclimate, air quality and noise, for example, there is already evidence to the utility of citizen science (Schuetze et al. 2024), but research needs in this area include development and operationalisation of platforms for data sharing, machine learning to enhance pattern detection and forecasting and closer integration between data co-production and policy making.

A recent report sponsored by the US National Science Foundation on long-term research agendas for sustainable urban systems (Ramaswami et al. 2018) argued for the integration across three scales: single urban areas where multiple sustainability outcomes are addressed; multiple cities exploring inter-relationships among networks of cities, and, supra-aggregations of cities to assess the collective impact of urban transformation on people and planet. Across these scales and perspectives, several research questions were identified concern the urban commons that can

1. What is the impact of changes arising in urban areas on local well-being, on the transboundary distribution of benefits and burdens across communities (urban and rural), and on planetary boundaries?
2. What shapes human well-being in diverse urban areas, including city cores, and along urban-rural gradients?
3. What are the different modalities for co-producing actionable science at the different scales?

The research funding landscape is changing rapidly, some would even argue it is shrinking (Auranen & Nieminen 2010) and universities, traditionally the centres of academic research, are struggling to make ends meet. In this context, research on the urban commons will need to look elsewhere – practitioners, communities and other co-producers leading to knowledge transfer for improved wellbeing. Action research that enhances the value of urban commons by greater usage, may offer an opportunity to make meaningful difference to the life of urban dwellers even as it contributes to new knowledge.  Urban commons as Living Labs, could offer additional long-term research facilities to engage both practitioners and urban communities.

References

Auranen, O. & Nieminen, M. (2010). University research funding and publication performance—An international comparison. Research Policy, 39(6), pp 822-834. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2010.03.003

Borch, C. & Kornberger, M. (eds). (2015). Urban Commons: Rethinking the City. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315780597

Dixon, T.J. (2022). Sustainable urban futures and sustainable urban systems in the built environment: towards an integrated urban research agenda. Journal of Sustainability Research, 4(4), e220015. https://doi.org/10.20900/jsr20220015

Foster, S. & Iaione, C. (2019). Ostrom in the city: design principles for the urban commons. In, B. Hudson, J. Rosenbloom, D Cole (eds.) Routledge Handbook of The Study of The Commons, pp. 235–255. Routledge.https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315162782-19

Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162 (3859), pp. 1243-1248. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.162.3859.1243

Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Random House. ISBN: 0-679-74195-X

Löfgren, O. (2014). Urban atmospheres as brandscapes and lived experiences. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 10(4): 255–266, https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2014.26

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807763

Ramaswami, A., Bettencourt, L., Clarens, A., Das, S. et al. (2018). Sustainable Urban Systems: Articulating a Long-term Convergence Research Agenda. The National Science Foundation. https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2022-12/Sustainable-urban-systems-508c.pdf

Schuetze, C., Koedel, U., Herrmann, T.M., Liang, C. & Dietrich P. (2024). Citizen science and climate services in cities: current state, new approaches and future avenues for enhancing urban climate resilience. Frontiers in Earth Science, 12. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science/articles/10.3389/feart.2024.1461334 

Wang, X., Lam, W.F. & Lorenzo, T. (2024). A synthesis of rational choice and critical urban commons debates. International Journal of the Commons, 18(1), pp. 475–489. https://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1277  

Wolman, H., Barnes, W., Clark, J., Friedman. S., Harris, R., Lin, J. & Ogorzalek, T. (2024). The state of urban research: views across the disciplines. Journal of Urban Affairs, 46:3, pp. 425-462. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2022.2080073

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