The Urban Commons: Cement of the “Contributory City”

Faced with unprecedented environmental, economic, and public health challenges, cities must innovate to reinvent themselves. Concurrently with the initiatives of renaturation and the technological advances of the smart city, we are also witnessing a proliferation of urban experiments building on social intelligences based on the reinterpretation of the ideas of the commons. Claire Brossaud analyzes how these forms of sharing of natural or intellectual resources are built around the promotion of the concept of collective use and action. The commons remains a practice that is in the making, permanently under construction. Moreover, it stems from an instituted collective intelligence and we will thus require a highly codified governance in order to move towards a city that isn’t simply intelligent or collaborative, but truly contributive.