Co-City, Turin

The UIA project Co-City was conceived to test  Turin City Council’s recently approved Commons Regulation, in order to find sustainable responses to socio-spatial polarisation in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and support public administration innovation at local level.

The “Regulation on collaboration between citizens and the City for the care, shared management and regeneration of urban commons” was first ratified in 2016 to allow the deeper involvement of urban actors – citizens and civil society, but also private actors and knowledge institutions – in the care and regeneration of urban commons. The regulation’s main goal is to encourage and sustain new collaborative forms of dialogue with civil society related to the management of public goods and the provision of collective services. The regulation implies that the local authority’s authoritative approach should be replaced by a collaborative one. This means citizens becoming change-makers, agents of virtuous circular processes of commoners’ welfare, and the public sector becoming a partner and enabler of processes, rather than just a service provider.

One indication of the positive legacy and success of the Co-City project is the signing of over 60 Pacts of collaboration between Turin local administrations and citizen initiatives since 2016. Co-City also helped set up a new Neighbourhood House, a multi-purpose hub responding to local social, cultural and community needs, as well as a network of eight Neighbourhood Houses that work together to support community cooperation and civic engagement.

Building on these experiences with Co-City, a new regulation for the shared management of urban commons was approved in late 2020, enriched with new forms of collaboration between the local authority and citizens.

Co-City encouraged citizens’ commitment by defining a general framework of shared responsibility and mutual trust. A public call was issued at the beginning of the project for groups of active citizens to apply (NGOs or informal groups) and present a project proposal on abandoned buildings, and underutilised infrastructures for public services, schools and public spaces. Then a co-design phase started for each selected proposal, leading to final collaboration pacts between citizens' organisations and the urban authority, defining the commoning programme, respective powers, liabilities and expenses.

The main feature of Co-City was its focus on the cyclic process of “place production”, rather than on a specific social target or deprived area. Underused or dismissed public spaces and public green areas were seen no longer as a cost, but as an opportunity for community empowerment and collective commitment to a shared task, included in a Pact of Collaboration.

As part of the project, Pacts of Collaboration were signed to support: 1) care for green areas and public space; 2) sports activities in public space; 3) arts and cultural activities in urban areas; 4) social and cultural programmes; 5) community welfare services; and 6) youth involvement.

Key pillars of Co-City were transferred to three other EU cities through the UIA-URBACT Innovation Transfer Network CO4Cities. These included: Collaboration Pacts; Neighbourhood Houses; new financial and economic models for community spaces; and inter-departmental cooperation.