COLLECTIVE BENEFITS GENERATED BY URBAN COMMONS – THE CASE STUDY OF POLISH CITIES

Adam PolkoDepartment of Spatial Economics

University of Economics in Katowice, Poland

THE CITY AS A COMMONS Track 1: Common Pool Resources in the City

Bologna, 7th November 2015

Research questions and problems

How should we coceive of the urban commons from economic prespective?

What is the nature of benefits generated by urban commons?

What are colective/joint benefits generated by urban commons? (If they exist at all?)

In pursuit of appropriate combination of urban goods in the context of urban development

Urban CPR as a economic good

excludable

URBAN CLUB GOODSLocal/urban/neighborhood goods: gated commutities

URBAN PRIVATE GOODSUrban private goods: private parking lots

non-exludable

URBAN PUBLIC GOODS

Local/urban public goods: streets, parks, landsacape, etc. (without congestions and overuse problems)+ cultural heritiage, city brand/image

URBAN COMMON-POOL RESOURCES

Urban CPR: street, parks, landscape, infrastructure, urban gardening etc. (with cogestion and overuse problems), Reaching a point refer to as „regulatory slippage” (Foster 2011)

non-rivalrous rivalrous

Aditionally the concept of (urban) merit goods – good that an individual or society should have on the basis of some concept of need, rather than ability and willingness to pay

Transformation of urban goods – sample path

• More positive than negative externalities

• Free-ride problem• The necessity of local

government provision and regulations

Local public goods

• Congestion, overuse and rivalry

• More negative than positive externalities

• The necessity of collective action

Common-pool resources

• Club action (appropriation by one group) or individual action

• Social exclusions• Fragmentation of

space

Club goods or private goods

Urban CPR – macro and micro level

Urban CPRThe resource system and the flow of resource units produced by the system.

Resource units are what individuals appropriate or use from resource system (Ostrom 1990). In ubran context the resource system consists of open access

space and infrastructure. The resources units are space unit filled.

Urban/metropolitan commonsmacro-level;

the city as a commons (Foster, Iaione 2016)

As main resources and city governance model (co-city, sharing

city)

Neighborhood commonsmicro-level; urban blocks (Oakerson,

Clifton 2015)As local resources and specific

governance model

The main processes in urban public spaces of Polish cities

TYPEMacro-level

The main urban public spaces

PROCESSregeneration

(huge public or private projects)

EFFECTSImproving the

image and importance (iconic

places)Metropolitan

functionsCommercialization

Thematization

TYPEMicro-level

Neighbourhood public spaces

PROCESSPrivatization or appropriation

EFFECTSFancing (gated communities)

Fragmentation of space

Segregation

6

Collective decisions in participatory budgeting – the case of Polish city

Type of projectsAll

projectsAccepted in

votingRejected in

voting

% in all submitted projects

% in all accepted projects

roads, parking lots, sidewalks 71 22 49 42,77% 33,85%

monitoring, lighting 8 1 7 4,82% 1,54%

leisure time (playgrounds, gyms) 35 18 17 21,08% 27,69%

squares, backyards, open space, parks 14 6 8 8,43% 9,23%

building repairs 4 3 1 2,41% 4,62%

libraries, schools (books, softwares etc.) 30 15 15 18,07% 23,08%

other public services (transport etc.) 4 0 4 2,41% 0,00%

Sum 166 65 101 100,00% 100,00%

The nature of benefits generated by urban commons

Private benefits

Private benefits + externalities = Social benefits Agglomeration economies and neighborhood externalities

which result from proximity and density value captured for example in housing prices using hedonic

price method or total economic value using Contingent Valuation Method

Local government policy enahncing (regarding positive externalities) or reducing (negative externalities) private action to gain social efficiency

Collective/joint benefits (?)

Collective / joint benefits generated by urban commons

Collective benefits – benefits gained only as a result of collective action (additional benefits comparing collective provision of urban public goods and commons with public or private provision of this goods, also voluntary sector providing goods supplemental what the local government already provides).

Collective benefits – higher and more resilient social capital and innovation based on strong relation between users and urban resources (Foster, Iaione 2016).

Collective benefits – motives for commoning

Conclusions

The need of identification of collective benefits/collective action motives (the case studies, experimental economics – the differences in results of games without and with commoning)

The need of better understanding the forces of urban goods production and the influence of their structure (public, commons, club, private) on urban development and urban resilience

Local context is important