ABSTRACT

This book rethinks the city by examining its various forms of collectivity – their atmospheres, modes of exclusion and self-organization, as well as how they are governed – on the basis of a critical discussion of the notion of urban commons. The idea of the commons has received surprisingly little attention in urban theory, although the city may well be conceived as a shared resource. Urban Commons: Rethinking the City offers an attempt to reconsider what a city might be by studying how the notion of the commons opens up new understandings of urban collectivities, addressing a range of questions about urban diversity, urban governance, urban belonging, urban sexuality, urban subcultures, and urban poverty; but also by discussing in more methodological terms how one might study the urban commons. In these respects, the rethinking of the city undertaken in this book has a critical dimension, as the notion of the commons delivers new insights about how collective urban life is formed and governed.

chapter 1|21 pages

Introduction

Urban commons

chapter 1|25 pages

The city is not a Menschenpark

Rethinking the tragedy of the urban commons beyond the human/non-human divide

chapter 5|18 pages

Managing the urban commons 1

Public interest and the representation of interconnectedness

chapter 6|26 pages

Mediated exclusions from the urban commons

Journalism and Poverty

chapter 7|18 pages

Communities and the commons

Open access and community ownership of the urban commons