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Commons and public spaces
Chiara Belingardi
(PhD Student Chiara Belingardi, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Micheli 2, Firenze, chiara.belingardi@gmail.com)
1 ABSTRACT
In the contemporary city, beside public and private spaces there is a third type of spaces: the
common places. This are spaces which are maintained and managed by people from the surrounding
community. Such examples are community gardens and common allotments, and other open (or
closed) spaces where people meet and work together.
Urban commons have a long history in Italian cities since the Middle Ages, where they were then
mainly represented by untutored fields and grasslands. Modern town planning decided both a
specific use and owner for every space, but in the cities there survive wastelands where people can
experience the “self-building” of place and in this way express themselves, growing things, taking
care of a common ground and building a community. There are many examples in Rome and other
cities all over the world (some case will be presented in the session). This allotments and gardens,
because of the self building of the people and the openness, have all the characteristics of user
friendly spaces: as their use was never identified, people here have more freedom for use, only
being sure nothing will be destroyed or damaged by them and respecting the common rules. The
active existence of these common spaces, while the most are occupied, is tied to the wealth and the
good disposition of either the private owners and the public institution holding ownership of the
space.
The importance of this places for the city and its community should be recognized by the planners,
who should find ways of both improving and protecting them.
1 COMMON SPACES IN TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY CITIES
1.1 Commons. A tentative definition.
Which kind of goods are Commons? Many experts tried to answer to this question, giving definition
based on the ownership and the openness. But it's impossible to have a list and to make a taxonomy,
because in the concept of Commons you can't separate the thing (for example the water) from the
community and from the rules of use that this community decided (Cacciari 2010). So when people
call something “common” they simultaneously say that they want this thing to be open and free and
that they want to decide the rules of the management (access and care) of this particular good.
Normally in contemporary city the space is divided into public and private space accordingly to the
belonging and the openness. You can therefore find public spaces open for all (for examples the
street) and also public open private spaces (for example shopping center – not very “public”
because those are open only for consumers). In spite of the free entrance, there is not a free use: in
Italy for instance most of historical places are tailored for tourists, and not for citizens. A few years
ago the municipality of Firenze forbade to everyone to play football or other games, or to play
guitar, or sit in the ground or in the stair of the churches, especially in the city center; and in Genova
a policemen asked an old lady seated in a chair outside her door if she had the permission (and
naturally if she had payed the fee).
In front of this Public Space Crisis there are thousands of Tiny Resistances (Sandercock, 1998):
formal or informal groups of people that, with or without permissions, occupy untutored field and
wastelands, clear the ground and begin to growing the field and to creating a common space open
for other inhabitants.
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This places are not properly private, and not properly public. They can be defined Urban Commons
because of the openness, the free entrance, the free use and the self organization of the community
that take care of the space.
1.2 Middle Ages
We have information about common ground since the Roman Ages. We know that the Roman law
admit only two type of property: private and public, and states that private property is a natural
right. Most of the modern occidental laws descended from this one. But in the same time we know
that others populations, for example German people or Celtic one, have different ways of managing
the land used for agriculture and grasslands.
With the fall of Roman Empire, different kind of organization appears, and in the Middle Ages in
Italy the “civic use” became widespread. In feudal organization the right to use prevails up on the
ownership. We therefore know that people can access some spaces and have the right to use wood,
or go to mushrooms and chestnut picking, even in the land of the Lord.
In Italian Communes there is a lot of ambiguity between goods belonging to the municipality and
goods belonging to the community. The managing of the goods is strictly connected with the use,
and we know that when the municipality had to decide about the conveyance or the sale of a part of
the good with a frequently use by the citizens, the citizens were involved in the choice. Because of
this ambiguity and the strong differences between one city and another, we haven't a list of the
commons, but we know that normally they included: streets and squares, river and riverside and
island in the river, grasslands and untutored fields, walls of the city and places nearby, the mill and
other building with common use, and so on. In this list we can find Braide or Barcacce, that were
empty spaces sometime use like grasslands, but free for different common use, like military
training, fairs, or civic and religious fests.
Because of the pestilence plague that infested Europe after the enlargement of the wall of the cities
due to the need for new buildings, free ground and grasslands may be found even in the urban
texture.
1.3 Modern Ages
In modern ages we loose track of the commons, because of the increase of the bourgeois
importance, as well as the private property. Commons were treated like something archaic, not
suitable for the Modern Ages, particularly in the Illuminism Ages, where people thought that
rationality was the right way to proceed in all the life side, and that technicians had the instrument
to decide everything.
We can find a track of the commons (or land with free access and use) in the Nolli Map of Rome. In
1748 Gian Battista Nolli drew a complete map of the city of Rome, that is the first example of a
modern cartography. Houses, churches, monuments, as well as villas and gardens intra muros, and
some near the wall are drawn in this picture. All the gardens are signed with the owners name
“Vigna de' Padri Penitenzieri di Santo Spirito” or ”Orto Riccardi” and so on. Near Testaccio a place
is named Prati del popolo di Roma (Roman People Gardens). We can therefore argue that in the city
of Rome there were few places that people could access and use freely.
1.4 Contemporary Ages. The case of Roma.
Planning in the contemporary ages doesn't contemplate the existence of places without ownership or
with a free use; notwithstanding sometimes the growing of the cities create some empty spaces, that
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may be too small for building, or are abandoned, or are of unknown property, or they are in places
were is impossible to build (for example on the riverside). Kevin Lynch define this empty spaces
like Wastelands; he also wrote that this spaces are strategic because they are free for experiments,
and here a marginalized way of life survives and new things begin (Lynch, 1990).
A famous example of such case are the community gardens of Loisada, New York. These gardens
were created in the vacant lots that were empty for the abandon and the demolition of the building,
because of the crisis of the Seventies (in the city of New York there were 25 000 of vacant lots in
1977). This Wastelands were occupied by the inhabitants of the neighborhood for to growing and
improving the way of life. These gardens still exist. The groups are composed by very different
urban farmer. Anyway the people involved in this practice while working can share experiences and
knowledges, and of course tell each other the story of their life. The community gardens of Loisada
are now famous all over the World and they have been strongly defended from property speculation.
The city of Rome had a very rapid and disorderly growth especially after the Second World War,
thus there are a lot of wasteland or places without use, as they are hide, or vacant. This places are
often dangerous because they are filled with waste, or because they became meeting point for
robbers or places for other criminal activities. People don't like those spaces because this
dangerousness, bat also because they are simply dirty.
A lot of active citizen in Rome have decided to work together for growing and taking care of such
spaces and for creating community gardens. More than seventy different experience of groups that
manage and take care of vacant lots now exist in Rome, and the number is still increasing.
Because of the self building they are the right answer of the inhabitants need of open spaces to meet
each other.
Four cases in the city of Rome are here presented.
1.4.1 Galli Garden
The Galli garden is located in a little hidden lot in Piceni street, in the district of San Lorenzo,
Rome. It owes its name to the fact that it lies on the bed of the old Galli street, which no longer
exists. Before the park there was a piece of asphalt left to itself, becoming an illegal dump. In 2001
this little vacant lot was occupied by a group of associations: the Popular Gym, the social center
"32", the cooperative “Oltre”, with the aim of creating a playground for children under the age of
eight, as the district had no such space: its position, quite secluded from the neighborhood, and its
shape, easy to fence being closed by walls and building on three sides, are ideal for the purpose.
The objectives for managing this garden are:
creating a special playground especially for children under the age of 8;
creating a social meeting point, different from pubs, restaurants, bar that are the only ones
represented in the district;
involving in the growing and caring activities the schools of the neighborhood, and giving to
the children an open play ground of which the school are not furnished;
opening the garden for all children and their families in the district and from outside.
When the will of these associations and citizens, to occupy and manage this space, became
widespread, a man tried to appropriate the lot. IHe wanted to build a parking lot for his B&Bs in the
same place. The result was a legal battle in which the Municipality and the Province of Rome
together with the associations involved brought an action against this man, and after a few years the
use as a public space was finally recognized.
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Fig. 1: Galli Park.
After the legal battle the Province took in charge the early works like replacing asphalt with grass
and equipment with some games for children. On 13th November 2006, the garden has been
inaugurated and completely entrusted to the associations, who have had the license to open a small
bar, run by two volunteers, whose purpose is to secure funds for maintenance and improvements.
The other source of funding comes from the offers that are made by those who organize here
birthday parties.
People self built the cabin of the bar with an available bathroom. For those who want it is also
possible to use a barbecue, chairs and tables, piled in a corner so not to take away place from the
children's playground.
The park is open daily. In the evening is closed with a lock, except when evening activities are
organized: in 2010, some films were projected in the summer evenings, but after complaints from
some neighbors and the occupation of an old Cinema in the district, which allows better projections
because of the darkness and the equipment, in 2011 only occasional late afternoon films for children
were shown.
In addition to the swings and slides, some games are available to children. These were given by the
families of the children that are too big to continue coming here; these games belong to the park and
the kids can use and share them how long they want and then put it back. Keep the area clean and
tidy is a task for everyone and no one avoid from that.
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The closure and the presence of other families give a sense of safety and security, so the children
can play with lot of freedom and sometimes they are entrusted to other adults so their parents can
fulfill other small duties (it is always time limited, but sometimes very valuable). Moreover, this
represents an area of integration for newcomers to the neighborhood: they come here with their sons
and begin to forge bonds with other mothers and fathers.
For the future they hope to increase the number of visitors, which is already of thirty families of
regulars users, and they would make a covered room for the winter and a small library of books for
children.
1.4.2 The Land of Mandr ione – Casilina Vecchia Committee
The area around Mandrione street and Casilina Vecchia street is about 4.5 km long and 800 meters
wide. Its shape allow us to be so precise in tracing the boundaries: once you take this street, at the
fountain of Porta Furba, you can count only three / four entrances or exits, and that gives the feeling
of being in a long corridor flow: homes squeezed between the Felice aqueduct (built in Roman
Ages) and the railway to Naples, and beyond the walls of the Bank of Italy and its sporting center,
the precincts of the productive activities, the gates of houses and nurseries. All along the entire
street there is a continuous line of parked cars and no footpath, so it's very difficult to cover it on
foot or by bike, despite the charm of the place would require it. It's even more difficult to stop: there
aren't places where it could be possible, except the space in front of Casilina station, that's not used.
This little enlargement of the street it's surrounded by the station and the high walls of the Bank of
Italy; here there is room to stop only if you drive a car: no benches, no sits and so on.
Fig. 2: Mandrione Street with the aqueduct
Here there is a little but active committee composed by around fifteen inhabitants. Most of them are
born here and spent here their childhood, and now they are all retired they came back to live here
and decided to improve the neighborhood.
One of the main needs for the inhabitants was then to have a public open space, to meet together. So
they conquered, cleaned up, arranged and opened the Land of Casilina Vecchia.
This area, 500 square meters wide belongs to the Railways, which, after some passages that were
not always easy and that prove the citizen's persistence in asking and following the affair, have
granted free use of the Town Hall. Initially the Railways talked about a free transfer to the
Municipality, which has literally missed the appointment. After that the land was offered directly to
the committee, who declined because they wanted a public owned place, not belonging to a group
of people, however great or small the group was and however they might decide to keep it open. So
they continued to work in order to mediate between the City and the Railways. The committee
mediation had its gain in this agreement of free use: the Municipality guarantees the opening of the
ground to all citizens, and the committee take care and manage the area and the activities in it. After
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the first works in charge to the Town Hall (the clearance from asbestos and other dangerous waste),
the committee has always maintained and cleaned the Land and gradually equipped it with benches,
tables, canopies for shade, fruit trees, children's playground and a barbecue, which lately has
become a large masonry fireplace. It is a place that may be used to gather, get together, eat, read in
the shade and sit in the ground. The fruits of the trees are available to all as long as you "do not
come with the bag," meaning that if you leave it for others. It is a place that people define “Se
magna se non piove” (you can eat if it's not raining - the rain is the only thing that can keep people
out of here) and it's a user friendly space: you can place wherever you want and stay as long as you
want, a sign at the entrance explains you that the only duty is to leave it clean, so there are even
available ashtrays.
Fig. 3: the Land of Mandrione – Casilina Vecchia Committee
The constant presence of people and their almost daily care for its maintenance, cleaning and
improving make this place very pleasant, but there is more: the ability of the people of the
committee to enter into a relationship with the regular users of the Land makes you feel welcomed
into a common space and makes natural for everybody to leave the space clean (the only accidents
have happened at night, but we talk about unimportant things, met with a little of regret, but without
much thought).
Thanks to these characteristics the land has become attractive not only for the residents of the street
Mandrione - Casilina Vecchia, but also for the neighboring districts, for students, for people arriving
from other parts of the city. Curiously this space, located right in the center of the neighborhood, is
also the place of meeting between the committee and the city: a meeting place from which to gather
support and news, to make known what are the requests and needs of the committee, to be together
and socialize.
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1.4.3 Verdemarino (Ladispo li, Roma)
The municipality of Ladispoli (Roma) made in 2011 Sbilanciamoci col Verde, a participatory
process about the green areas of the city. During this process the municipality proceeded in the
assignment (on call) of green areas to groups of citizens that wished to take care of this places.
Some inhabitants responded to this notice and started the experiences of self-management of green
areas, one of which is Verdemarino.
The group is composed by four active citizens, who already had the idea to do something in this
little square before the call. The participatory process has been the occasion for everyone to meet
each other and as soon as possible they started with the planning and the works.
Fig. 4: Verdemarino. View from above.
One of the main objectives, in addition to the beautification of the little square, is the involvement
of other neighbors both for helping (cleaning, control, water the plants and the green) and for
attending. The purpose is to make sure that the gardeners are doing something beautiful and useful
for the citizens, and to make this flowerbed alive not only for the plants.
After assigning the area the work began as soon as possible, trying to involve other people and
growing the ground. These work days are advertised through mailing, flyers and blogs. One of the
first things built was the bulletin board, with the contact, the presentation and a calendar with the
turn to water.
The second steps included the arrangement of benches in the shade for parking, fencing with low
hedges, planting new plants, the implementation of initiatives for the entertainment of the place and
the search for new employees to take care of the place. In addition, the longer term, they want to
build an irrigation system and a little footpath.
Last summer parties and concerts took place there in order to let the people know this area and to
include other citizens; in June and July they organized the “Flower cookers party”, with cakes and
meals made with flowers. The parties have also the objective to find some money for buying other
plants or equipments.
The hope is to enlarge the group from four to thirty persons constantly involved, everyone with
small tasks distributed according to ability and willingness.
The financing of the work is done through donations of plants, furniture and funds. The initial
money was found through the sponsor: donations were made by some retailers and operators of
bathing area and by a nursery.
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The people of Verdemarino have a friendly attitude with the majority of the City and the
municipality. They hope to get help, especially in future, but they prefer to be disconnected at the
initial stage, to show that people can make it on their own and have some independence. They
would like to pass the idea that you must be active and move to try and improve things, but this
message sometimes encountered indifference or mistrust on the part of those who prefer to delegate
to the appropriate office. Despite this, the objective is to arrive after a year of opening, to have some
visitors, helpers, new members, people who love spending time here and who recognize the value of
the place.
1.4.4 Gabatella Garden
Garbatella Garden are located in a lot of 4.500 squared meters near the building of Lazio Regional
offices. This lot has been empty for many years. The city planning destined this area for a public
park, but nothing was done accordingly in the last 15 years.
The park is in the side of a very big road with a lot of cars and noise and could be a green barrier
among the houses of Garbatella and the pollution of the road.
In these 15 years of battle to defend the green area from property speculation and waiting for the
park, the associations and the inhabitants have seen in that place a circus, a car dealer open air, a
dump of rubble, and so on. All these activities damaged the ground and left a soil of broken asphalt
were it's impossible to grow anything.
Fig. 5: Garbatella Garden.
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The need of a green area was so strong that some associations decided to put there some allotments.
They choose this destination because of the continuous presence of the gardeners and because of the
wishes of some inhabitants that knew the experiences in other European capitals. It was also
because of the many aged people that are over the sixty years old that live in the neighborhood, and
that have the frequent wish to grow a garden: in Italy most of retired people have one allotment, or
are waiting for one. Moreover for younger people and families the garden could be a little income ,
which is important as there are some unoccupied persons. Naturally, because of the management of
the locale association and neighbors, the rule for the assignation and the maintenance of the garden
are less bureaucratic than the ones of the municipality.
Because of the gravel and the asphalt there was no chance to grow in the area, so the association
“Orti di Garbatella” had to dig some “pool” of 40 squared meters and fill them with fertile soil. This
initial pools were 15 and were assigned to individuals and little groups and families according to
their being retired, unoccupied, or of their contribution in the project. The gardeners are very
different people: there are young anarchist, family, squatters and old people.
The gardens are closed only to avoid the dog entrance, but the door is always open and you can
have a walk whenever you want. The gardens exist since three years and nobody took away tools or
fruit without asking. In growing together people share some tools and some fruit: the main rule is
“everyone grow, everyone eat”: the main objectives are to defend the green in this area and to create
a meeting point for people to socialize.
A part of the area is dedicated to establishing relationships: there is a table with chairs for meeting
and common dinners, a place where children can stay together and play, and they made an
handmade a scarecrow.
In another part they created a Japanese – style garden, which is the second biggest in Rome (the first
one is in the Japanese embassy). Every week an expert teaches to everybody who wants to attend
how to create and care a real zen garden.
For the success of the initiative “Orti della Garbatella” decided to increase the number of the
allotments and now they are digging 10 other ground pool. One of them will be a didactic garden.
1.5 Answering to community needs.
We can individuate a specific use for each of these common spaces, namely the answer to a need of
the neighborhood. In the case of Galli Park what the people needed was a playground for little
children, because there wasn't one in the district; the need of the community of Mandrione street
and Casilina Vecchia street was to have a place where they can stay together and hold meetings of
the committee; verdemarino was made to have a pleasant place near home and a place where people
can socialize; Garbatella Gardens were created to have a green area in the neighborhood and to save
this area from property speculation. Therefore the groups that organized themselves to create and
manage this places made them with the equipment that was needed, but there are many other things
that can be done there.
2 CONCLUSION
We can say that those are user friendly spaces because instead of the specificity explained before
there is many freedom of use: Galli park was made for children less than eight years old, but if you
are twenty years old, you can also stay there and have a beer, or maybe you can go to meet someone
and have a chat, or organize a family lunch using the grill. Everyone can go in the Land of Casilina
Vecchia street, not only for the meeting of the committee: you can stay there and read a book, or
sleep in the ground, or use the grill for a dinner together with your friends, children have a little
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swing and last year there were two graduate parties. In Verdemarino, that was designed as a meeting
point, you can also go to stay alone, seated in a bench in the shadow of the tree, and so on. In
Garbatella Garden you can have a walk even if you aren't a gardner.
Traditional public spaces aren't so friendly: in the park or green areas you cannot sit in the green,
sleep in the ground, cook lunch with a grill, or grow something (in the city of Latina a policeman
fined a man that was growing a vacant lot and oblige him to remove all his plants); in commercial
line you cannot stay without buying something (you are hardly invited to); in touristic place you
cannot go to play guitars, or sit in the ground, in some public spaces bench are designed for short
stops only and anyway to avoid sleeping on.
We can therefore say that common spaces self managed by a community are more friendly than
public spaces managed through bureaucracy. This is because bureaucracy works only with single
parts of your person: you are a man or a woman, a child or an elderly or an adult, you have a job or
you are unoccupied, and so on.
Insurgent common spaces, because they are made by persons without specific rules can satisfy
exigences from many parts of you.
Common spaces are very important for the urban life. Planners should protect and improve them by
staying among the communities, the public administration and the owners, for example encouraging
the municipalities to let people self manage spaces and to do call like in the case of Ladispoli;
while private owners planners should foster agreements to let people using their lots.
As it is impossible to create a common space without the initiative of the inhabitants, planners could
let some spaces without destination while projecting the urban fabric, in order to let the neighbors
free to create a common space.
3 REFERENCES
CACCIARI Paolo: La società dei beni comuni. Una rassegna. Roma, 2010.
LYNCH Kevin: Wasting Away, San Francisco, 1990.
RAO Riccardo: Comunia. Le risorse collettive nel Piemonte comunale, Milano, 2008
SANDERCOCK, Leonie: Towards Cosmopolis: planning for multicultural cities. London, 1998.
www.verdemarino.blogspot.com (6th march 2012)
www.passocorese1.org/ProgettoOrti (6th march 2012)
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