The Neapolitan network of commons has provided the city with new tools for the management of urban spaces and communal property. These are legal and institutional forms that empower the community to participate in public choices on the destination of buildings and urban areas, to directly manage the commons and to make them accessible by lowering all economic and social barriers as much as possible.
Most of the network’s commons have been legally recognised thanks to the new instrument of ‘civic and collective urban use’; for others, the battle is still ongoing, through a constant dialectic with the municipal administration.
What is the urban civic and collective use?
Urban civic and collective use is a legal institute elaborated by the communities of the Neapolitan network themselves, which has allowed the Municipality of Naples to formally recognise some properties of its heritage as ’emerging’ commons.
Each commons, in its public and open assemblies, has written a Declaration of Urban Civic and Collective Use, which puts down on paper the practices with which the community uses and manages the property every day, constantly striving to reflect on itself in order to make itself increasingly open, heterogeneous and inclusive. The Declaration describes, for example, the decision-making bodies and processes, the procedures for accessing spaces, the sharing of responsibilities between the community and the administration, and the principles of internal economies. An ‘activity dossier’ is attached to the Declaration, showing the variety of activities and actors using the spaces. The dossier makes clear the accessibility and ‘civic profitability’ of the commons, i.e. the ability to redistribute resources and produce enormous cultural, social, political and pedagogical value.
The Administration has formally recognised these forms of self-government, with specific Resolutions of the Municipal Council. These take note of the Declarations themselves, officially identifying them as rules for the management and use of spaces. The Resolutions also recognise the ‘civic profitability’ of the experiences and therefore commit the administration to supporting them by guaranteeing the accessibility of the property and taking charge of, among other things, utilities and extraordinary works.
In this sense, civic use represents an alternative to forms of exclusive assignment to individual or collective subjects (such as concessions), which is particularly useful for communities. Rather, they constitute new participatory institutions, based on autonomous and democratic assembly processes.
How urban civic and collective use came about
The urban civic and collective use was experimented for the first time in l’Asilo, in a period of experimentation lasting more than three years, within the framework of public assemblies of the community, working groups, public tables with the administration, and moments of study with national and international experiences…
The liberation of a space – prompted by an urgent need for spaces for social and cultural use – produced a broad and heterogeneous movement that had the strength to assert a change in institutions and itself proposed forms of direct involvement of the inhabitants in decisions on urban spaces. The aim was to create a legal precedent, which could also be used in other contexts as a resource for the recognition of other communities.
These needs made it possible to move creatively within the legislative framework, in order to bring out a new instrument which – although not explicitly provided for by law – found a direct anchorage in the Constitution, in particular in the rights of participation (art. 49), in the ‘social function’ of property (art. 42), in the possibility of collectively administering essential services (art. 43) and, above all, in substantial equality. With this orientation, the Municipality – after having amended the Statute to introduce common goods – started a process of legal acts that recognised the civic and collective urban use first of the Asilo (Delibera 400/2012 and 893/2015) and then of the ‘seven spaces’ (Delibera 446/2016): Giardino Liberato, ex Lido Pola, Villa Medusa, Scugnizzo Liberato, Santa Fede Liberata and ex Schipa.
Declarations of use and common principles of the Neapolitan commons
Each commons has its own vocation and its own way of governance. However, over the years, the network has promoted a process of internal dialogue and comparison to identify principles common to all the Declarations.
For example:
- the non-exclusive use of any part of the spaces, in opposition to any proprietary logic;
- the rejection of any logic of commodification and the generation of non-competitive economies;
- the construction of a mutualism that does not want to replace essential public services, but to act for the defence and extension of rights;
- assembly management characterised by: openness to participation by all; publicity of the convocation and minutes; publicity of the calendar of activities; decision-making methods established in advance, based on consensus or other methods that respect dissent; participation in assemblies with non-possessive and non-obstructive attitudes;
- openness to proposals for use, on the basis of organisational and time criteria and the concrete possibilities for mutual exchange of time and skills, in accordance with the founding principles of civic use and the criteria of anti-fascism, anti-racism and anti-sexism.
- The assumption of responsibility by the administration for the accessibility of spaces;
- the exclusion of the possibility of making access to spaces conditional on a binding economic contribution;
- the constant self-regulating capacity of the communities, and therefore the possibility of modifying the Declarations only by the assemblies themselves, through a strengthened procedure
Civic Use in the Italian debate on Commons
Civic and collective urban use has profoundly innovated the legal instruments available for the care, administration and use of the commons. In particular, the instrument of civic and collective urban use tends to lower economic and social barriers to the management and use of the commons spaces, as it provides for material support from the administration and, at the same time, a non-exclusive management and use of spaces. Moreover, it translates the needs of communities that want to remain radically open and horizontal, giving priority to lowering economic and social barriers, and in this sense perceive the insufficiency of the forms of legal subjectivity recognised by current law.
Beyond law, the challenge posed by the commons in Naples has been to free up spaces to express a broader opinion on the government of the territory. Public spaces are immediately identified as resources to be pooled for social purposes, especially for the benefit of those who are expelled from other spaces for economic-social reasons or other types of discrimination. In this sense, the experience represents a strong option – and at the same time a concrete alternative – against the privatisation of the ownership and management of public goods, which results in increased barriers to access and the deprivation of resources and power from communities. At the same time, the commons propose a different public management of goods, which goes beyond the simple criterion of cash by valuing the participation of the inhabitants and the recognition of ‘civic profitability’ as functional to essential needs. With these assumptions, civic and collective urban use has been claimed by a network of other experiences in Italy, the National Network of Emerging Commons and of Civic Use, which proposes the recognition of this institution in local regulations and the creation of a supporting legal framework at the national level. The Network is in a critical dialogue with existing proposals, proposing the introduction of points capable of taking into account the specificities of urban commons, and in particular of emerging commons, claimed as such by the communities of reference.
To know more:
Atti amministrativi del Comune di Napoli sui Beni Comuni
Dichiarazione d’uso civico e collettivo urbano de l’Asilo
Approfondimenti sull’uso civico e collettivo urbano
Il sito della Rete Nazionale dei Beni Comuni Emergenti e a Uso Civico
Un appello per costruire in comune lo spazio urbano e difendere i beni comuni naturali
(17/1/2019)
Proposte per lo sviluppo dei beni comuni “emergenti”
(23/11/2020)