In Search of New Urban Welfare Policies: The Design of the Commons for Spatial Planning

The current phase of great changes that are affecting society, the economy, and various territories emphatically marks the emergence to two phenomena that are generally treated as opposing dynamic forces. On the one hand, the progressive shrinking of public resources is bringing about a substantial reduction in the quality and availability of those urban resources and services that state administrations had guaranteed in their effort to safeguard the right to the city and the related land values ever since the very origin of the idea of urban planning. On the other hand, various forms of organization into civic associations have broken into in the urban field, mostly affirming themselves most actively in the production, maintenance, and management of civic resources. Their affirmation has been accompanied by novel techniques in the production of services, the very same sphere that, from among the broadest range of urban welfare policies, had tradi- tionally been reserved for public intervention.