Adam Polko Department 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

1. COLLECTIVE BENEFITS GENERATED BY URBAN COMMONS
– THE CASE STUDY OF POLISH CITIES
Adam Polko
Department 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

2. 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

3. Urban CPR as a economic good
excludable
URBAN CLUB GOODS
Local/urban/neighborhood
goods: gated commutities
URBAN PRIVATE GOODS
Urban 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

4. 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

5. Urban CPR – macro and micro level
Urban CPR
The 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 commons
macro-level;
the city as a commons (Foster, Iaione
2016)
As main resources and city
governance model (co-city, sharing
city)
Neighborhood commons
micro-level; urban blocks (Oakerson,
Clifton 2015)
As local resources and specific
governance model

6. The main processes in urban public spaces of
Polish cities
TYPE
Macro-level
The main urban
public spaces
PROCESS
regeneration
(huge public or
private projects)
EFFECTS
Improving the
image and
importance (iconic
places)
Metropolitan
functions
Commercialization
Thematization
TYPE
Micro-level
Neighbourhood
public spaces
PROCESS
Privatization or
appropriation
EFFECTS
Fancing (gated
communities)
Fragmentation of
space
Segregation
6

7. Collective decisions in participatory budgeting
– the case of Polish city
Type of projects
All
projects
Accepted in
voting
Rejected 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%

8. 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 (?)

9. 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

10. 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