Working with Strangers in Saturated Space: Reclaiming and Maintaining the Urban Commons

Abstract

The commons is increasingly invoked as a way to envision new worlds. One strand of commons research focuses at the local scale, on small groups in “traditional”, mostly rural societies; this research asks how commons are maintained over time. Another strand focuses on the commons at a global scale; this is political research that asks how commons can be reclaimed from a capitalist landscape. Here, I bridge these two approaches by theorizing the commons as reclaimed and maintained in the context of the city, through examining the experiences of limited‐equity housing cooperatives in Washington, DC. I argue that the urban commons is marked by two distinct traits: it emerges in space that is saturated with people, competing uses, and financial investment; and it is constituted by the collective work of strangers. The challenges of reclaiming and maintaining an urban commons are substantial, but the need for them is urgent.

On the Transformative Potential of Community Land Trusts in the United States

“…Other scholars have additionally used the framework of commoning to describe CLTs. The urban commons is both an institutional object that allows for shared ownership and/or management of scarce resources in cities, as well as a process of creating and enacting the commons through social interaction (Card forthcoming; Huron ). The literature on CLTs as urban commons tends to focus on the dynamics of participatory decision‐making and alliances between residents, the state, and other actors like private developers (Aernouts and Rychewaert ; Bunce ; Engelsman et al.…”

Urban commons are more‐than‐property

“…But more than this, as a commons, the library is critically exclusive (Browne, 2009;Hunter, 2008;Iveson, 2007) urban commons that cares for and is cared for by a specific group and, to some extent, it is this critical exclusion that is vital to the library becoming a commons (Huron, 2015). Decisions about who accesses and has the ability to use this urban commons have been negotiated over time.…”

“…First, urban commons are produced by sharing and competition for resources in what Huron (2015) terms saturated space. First, urban commons are produced by sharing and competition for resources in what Huron (2015) terms saturated space.…”

“…A brief history of commons: more-than-property Historically, the term 'commons' has been used to denote material forms of the natural world or common resources that are collectively owned or owned by no one, such as forests, pieces of land, or the ocean (Eizenberg, 2011;Gibson-Graham, Cameron & Healey, 2016;Huron, 2015). According to Linebaugh (2008, p.278), '"common" has a multitude of meanings-common land, common rights, common people, common sense'.…”

“…Commons produce new languages, relationships, practices, resistances, and ways of being in the world (Chatterton, Featherstone & Routledge, 2012;Hardt & Negri, 2009). Dynamic practices of commoning grow and sustain commons on a day-to-day basis (Chatterton, 2010;Huron, 2015). Dynamic practices of commoning grow and sustain commons on a day-to-day basis (Chatterton, 2010;Huron, 2015).…”