The world is on a headlong rush towards urbanization, with more than 75% of its people expected to live in the cities by 2050. Urban commons represent those rare spaces in increasingly segregated cities where the rich and the poor can still meet, children of all classes play together and collaborations for conservation can occur.

Body

Two types of urban commons are worth foregrounding in this regard:

• Urban ecological commons (such as air, water bodies, wetlands, landfills, and so on).
• Urban civic commons (such as streets and sidewalks, public spaces, public schools, public transit, etc).

Each of these is rapidly diminishing due to erasure, enclosure, disrepair, rezoning, and court proscriptions, replaced in many instances by new – privatized, monitored – public spaces, such as malls, plazas, and gated venues. The ongoing diminution of urban commons is cause for concern because they are critical to economic production in cities, to cultural vibrancy and democracy, to regenerating the sense of place that forms communities and, ultimately, to the reproduction of urban populations and ecosystems.

Challenges and threat to urban commons

• Urban common property regimes are facing increasing threat due to state and private capture in cities across the world.
• Forests like Mumbai’s Aarey are threatened for infrastructure projects, wetlands in Thiruvananthapuram acquired for technoparks and trees in South Delhi felled to build apartments.
• Smart city plans and restoration projects take an approach that de-commonises the commons by evicting people who depend on them most.
• Beach sides, river fronts, lakes and parks become gated spaces, accessible only to those who can pay, and available only for recreational use, often coupled with “entertainment” in the form of flashing lights, loud music and food courts that evict wildlife.

Importance of urban commons in urban areas

• Urban parks and gardens play a critical role in cooling cities, and also provide safe routes for walking and cycling for transport purposes as well as sites for physical activity, social interaction and for recreation.
  • As per WHO estimates, physical inactivity linked to poor walkability and lack of access to recreational areas, accounts for 3.3% of global deaths.
• Mental well-being: Green spaces also are important to mental health. Having access to green spaces can reduce health inequalities, improve well-being, and aid in treatment of mental illness.
• Pollution Reduction: Through improved air and water quality, buffering of noise pollution and mitigation of impacts from extreme events, urban green spaces can reduce environmental health risks associated with pollution from urban sprawl.
• Wetlands act as filters and also help in preventing urban floods.
• Green spaces can reduce the ambient temperature of cities by 1°C, thus reducing the urban heat island and harmful city smog. In this sense, 1°C cooler urban environments prevent the harmful ozone layer that is triggered during intense heat episodes from forming.
• According to recent studies, cities with more Urban commons, especially parks and public spaces boost social cohesion and relations, since they are meeting points to share and create links between city inhabitants.

Way Forward

• Integrated Planning: Urban Commons such as parks, sidewalks, public transit and landfills must be part of area planning.
• Community Engagement: It is based on the concept of participatory democracy. These include projects such as decentralized use of regenerative energy sources, social housing, digital democracy, urban gardening, open spaces for culture and art, among others.
• Government must create spatial GIS maps where common areas and their boundaries are clearly marked. This will solve the problem of information asymmetry today and communities will be empowered to fight for their common spaces.
• Ward committees must be empowered to manage urban commons and protect them from encroachment and construction activities.

Conclusion

The ongoing diminution of urban commons is cause for concern because they are critical to economic production in cities, to cultural vibrancy and the cement of community, to “learning” how to do democracy through practices of creating, governing and defending collective resources, to regenerating the sense of place that forms communities and, ultimately, to the reproduction of urban populations and ecosystems. Hence it is important to realize that commons are not commodities and must be protected.