This is a CTP of initiative: Shareable‐Co‐Bologna&LabGov (Italy)
The signs of this CTP (CTP5) already date back to the time of the seminar in December 2011 (CTP2) when the Bologna City Administration became interested in the outcomes of the research led by Iaione, mapping the possible resources that could be managed as an urban common in Bologna and nationwide. This CTP is about the beginning of the Co-Bologna project and the communication and dissemination events organized to amplify the message that Co-Bologna is different from other co-city projects. It is closely linked to two workshops, or events, that were organized to boost Co-Bologna as described in CTP3.
The beginning of the Co-Bologna project is closely linked to the development of the Co-Bologna regulation, which was formally approved by the Bologna Municipal Council and published in May 2014 with the name “Regulation on Collaboration between Citizens and the City for the Care and Regeneration of the Urban Commons”. This regulation paves the way for the municipality to support “the creation of street or neighborhood associations, consortiums, cooperatives, foundations to manage public space, public urban green spaces and parks, abandoned and creative spaces” (Iaione & Foster, 2016: 63).
In line with the ideas presented in the workshops and the Co-Bologna regulation various street or neighborhood associations, consortiums, cooperatives and foundations emerged that focused on ‘urban commons’ such as public space. Of the 250 project requests presented by inhabitants, neighborhood associations and enterprises of Bologna, almost 200 became collaboration pacts, a tool for shared governance where citizens and the municipality generally agree on the following points based of the recently approved regulation: 1) Who are the parties entering the collaboration; 2) Joint definition of objectives; 3) Modes of implementation; 4) Mode of collaboration; 4) Duties of the requesting party; 6) Forms of support granted by the Municipality; 7) Duration of the intervention; 8) Declaration of responsibility of the requesting party. The collaboration pacts are available on the Municipalities website: http://comunita.comune.bologna.it/beni-comuni
In this CTP the Co-Bologna process really got started. It began in 2011 after the first seminar on the City as a Commons in Imola. Also the workshops in CTP3 are important moments were it all comes together. So all the people and events mentioned in the other CTPs (mainly CTP 1, 2, 3 and 4) were crucial for the beginning of Co-Bologna. Where it must be noted that CTP4 is about the founding of LabGov, while LabGov actually was already active under the radar during this CTP. The key people include Marco Cammelli (at the time president of the Del Monte Association, a private foundation for local community projects) and Giacomo Capuzzimati (the director general of Bologna Municipality). Also many LabGovers, the name given to university students and PhDs working at LabGov, participated in drafting parts of the Bologna regulation and LabGov’s Scientific Committee is in charge providing feedback on any new instrument produced. In the case of the Bologna regulation feedback came from Professor Sheila Foster from Fordham Law School of New York and Professor Giacinto della Cananea from the University of Rome. This CTP would not be happening without the roughly twenty staff member of the Municipality who accepted to work with LabGov in the Co-Bologna process.
Co-Bologna is the public legislative framework under which other experimental instruments of collaborative governance, a part from the regulation, are currently becoming possible. For instance, in Bologna, LabGov is also supporting the creation of the following experimentations: 1) a local development agency “Mastro Pilastro” supported by the Local Community Cooperative “Camelot”, a cooperative of local commercial businesses who are in charge of local neighbourhood governance; 2) an experiment on social innovation and migration, where migrants that temporarily hosted at the Bologna migration hub will be included in a hyper-local circuit of ‘giving-taking’ promoting skilling, sense of belonging and care for the environment even if for a short period of time.
As these other experimentations are ongoing, LabGov and the Municipality organized two dissemination and communication events in Bologna, which are the central events in this CTP. The aim was to amplify the message that Co-Bologna was different with respect to other co-city processes in Italy. The two events are the first ‘Festival of Civic Collaboration’ and the conference ‘The City as a Commons’. The festival was organized by the city of Bologna under the scientific coordination of Christian Iaione to highlight the need to fight resignation and foster civic collaboration among citizens and between citizens and local authorities. The event included keynotes from international experts on the urban commons Sheila Foster (LabGov USA), Neal Gorenflo (Shareables), David Bollier, a roundtable discussion on the possibility of a national policy on collaborative cities, break out working groups around three of the five Co-City pillars (living together, growing together, making together) and a touring exhibition of the collaboration pacts approved by the Municipality.
The international conference took place six months later and was led by Iaione and LabGov with Sheila Foster (Fordham Law, School of Law, LabGov USA) with the aim of bringing together worldwide experts on the urban commons and discuss the case of the Bologna regulation, its weaknesses and strengths and how to move forward from common urban resource (shared governance) to the city itself as a common (cooperative and polycentric governance).
Related events:
Municipality of Bologna (2014) Regulation on Collaboration between Citizens and the City for the Care and Regeneration of the Urban Commons. http://www.comune.bologna.it/media/files/bolognaregulation.pdf
May 16th Festival of Civic Collaboration 2015 http://www.comune.bologna.it/news/il-16-maggio-prima-festa-della-collaborazione-civica
November 6-7th 2-15 The City as a Commons Conference http://urbancommons.labgov.it/
Since the approval of the Bologna regulation in May 2014 other Italian cities claimed the Co-City vision as product rather than a process. This appropriation has its roots in the diverging behavior of one of the actors that came to be involved in the process but who did not share the same vision as the one of the initiators. At the time of the “City as a Commons” seminar of 2011, Iaione was the only researcher feeding in all the knowledge on the urban commons and polycentric governance developed through the years in the United States. He was also the director of an online socio-legal journal, where he shared many insights and reflections on his research, which led to a multiplication of the centers of knowledge around this issue. According to him, this added an element of complexity because the journal was not in complete alignment with the content and methodology that both he and Marco Cammelli shared, but was appropriated as a communication and marketing campaign instrument by the journal. On the contrary, Cammelli and Iaione wanted to have an informal dialogue based on a strong allegiance to scientific and ethical values but when the knowledge and project governance centers are increased it is difficult to maintain the underlying identity and values of the initiative. With governance experimentations “you run the risk that, on the one hand, they are too fragile and are crushed by reality and on the other, that you have opportunistic actors that appropriate the idea for political communication and marketing” (Interview with C. Iaione, March 29th, 2016).
Partly as a result of this communication campaign and ‘word of mouth’ that followed, the Bologna regulation has been copied by roughly 100 smaller and medium sized local municipalities and used “as a marketing instrument and product to sell an image and then urban services” (Interview with C. Iaione, March 29th, 2016) without setting in motion the processes that led to a co-city regulation like the one done in Bologna. Co-Bologna’s focus is on the process and vision of collaborative city, beyond the individual instruments it generates. LabGov is interested in learning from scientifically supported urban experimentations and with this inform new arrangements and a paradigm of city governance.
This CTP eventually results in a defined Co-City protocol used as a means to implement and experiment with collaborative or polycentric governance in Bologna (approved in 2014, see related events). In this sense the CTP is understood to be a crucial moment as it is happening. In line with the principle of scientific rigour and methodological emphasis that LabGov is championing, the know-how of the protocol is now being systematized in a series of high profile academic publication by Iaione (2016) ‘The Co-City: Sharing, Collaborating, Cooperating, and Commoning in the City” and Foster and Iaione (2016) “The City as a Commons”.
Publications:
Iaione, C. (2016) “The Co-City: Sharing, Collaborating, Cooperating, and Commoning in the City” in American Journal of Economics and Sociology Vol. 75(2):415-455
Foster, S., Iaione, C. (2016) “The City as a Commons”, 34 Yale Law and Policy Review.
According to Iaione, this CTP was key to understand the importance of maintaining a scientific and practical approach based on practical testing of products and study the impact this has on governance actors. Speaking of the Co-City protocol he states: “You do not need to arrive by force to the establishment of a legal entity, nor is it necessary that the experiment continues if there are no conditions. In empirical research, you learn a lot and above all by errors and failures”. The Co-City Protocol is then understood as a flexible instrument that will need to adapt to local conditions and actors.
The lessons that Iaione takes from the appropriation of the Co-City approach by other municipalities are twofold. On the one hand, the architecture and direction of such social innovation processes need to be kept simple without multiplying the centers of opinion, especially where there is already a strong core sharing similar values of collaborative city. On the other hand, to avoid that the core values of future Co-City processes are distorted and appropriated, one should invest more resources locally and nationally in public communication and dissemination of the process, vision and method behind a collaborative and polycentric city.
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