Pop-up spaces are not a new thing (even the article we’re linking to is two+ years old), but few are well done, fewer still are not incubating retail spaces, but it’s even more unique to find a group that does multiple projects over a few years. That’s what the CultureHouse have been doing, turning pop-up spaces into social infrastructure.
We’ve written about the commons a few times in the past, and this piece by Eula Biss is probably the best one. Although not directly related to cities, since she looks at the more traditional agricultural village-based commons, it’s an excellent explanation of the concept and its history, extremely useful as background for any discussion about other forms of commons.
Some great things just go together, even if sometimes it takes a while before someone has the idea of trying the combination. That’s what Meg Backus, at the time Northern Onondaga Public Library’s (NOPL) adult programming director and public relations coordinator, proved. Backus saw empty land across the street from the library and pitched the idea of setting up a garden on the library’s land. Soon enough, 40 members were bringing “their own water, seeds, seedlings, and other growing provisions to investigate whether that land could produce.”
This great piece by Sheila Foster, From Vacancy to Decommodification: Co-Cities and the Enabling State, was part of a symposium on decommodifying urban property, held by the LPE Project (Law and Political Economy). In it, Foster shows how the commodification of property can be replaced by a community-oriented vision, and how homes and shared resources can be managed in land trusts, instead of as private property dealt on the speculative market.
We’ve spoken about the concept of the circular economy a few times already, but it’s definitely worth another look when a mainstay of economic discourse such as the Financial Times comes out with not only one piece but a whole report on the topic.
