Commons Economies in Action: Mutualizing Urban Provisioning Systems

Abstract

This chapter serves as an accessible introduction to some key concepts that are used to describe contemporary urban commons and commoning and as an overview of situated experiments in public-commons cooperation and governance, that have adapted these through a variety of protocols, institutional designs, and social, technical, and ecological innovations. Drawing on the experiences of the cities of Ghent, Barcelona, and others, as well as recent developments in peer-to-peer production and value accounting, it makes a case for urban contributive democracy, and finally, cosmolocal production, a planetary mutualization strategy.