Spatial Commons. On the Communalization of Urban Spaces

What do open spaces in the city have to do with commercial spaces and housing? If the city is a common good, then recreational, commercial, and residential spaces can all potentially be understood as commons. Through acts of inclusive and collective appropriation, all of these spaces can form spatial types of commoning, functioning beyond the categories of public and private. These spatial resources of the city, as well as the rules, conventions, and social relationships that organize coexistence in these spaces, are based on an idea of ownership that is oriented towards common use, rather than profit.

Dagmar Pelger explores the multi-layered and contradictory potential of the concept of the commons. Through cartographic surveys of specific locations in Berlin, the spatial phenomena and characteristics of communalization become visible. The interdisciplinary process of mapping provides information about the types, processes, and rules of commoning as a spatial practice. In doing so, it points towards different ways of shaping the city as a spatial commons.

This book clarifies conceptual terminology and presents practical methods for describing urban space. It is aimed at urban researchers, architects and planners, as well as cultural workers and all those who are interested in, or would like to work on, use-oriented processes of commoning and mapping as a tool for spatial exploration.