Civic eState

About

The Civic eState network is all about the policy challenge of recognising and/or co-designing legal and sustainable urban commons governance mechanisms enabling city inhabitants and local communities constitutional rights to collectively act in the general interest.

The Civic eState network started with the aim of transferring Naples’ Good Practice on urban commons collective governance, with appropriate adjustment and betterment, to other European partner cities including Barcelona (ES), Gdansk (PL), Ghent (BE), Amsterdam (NL), Iasi (RO) and Presov (SK).

Naples’ Good Practice consists of enabling collective management of urban essential facilities conceived as urban commons. Are interpreted as urban commons:  tangible and intangible assets, services and infrastructures functional to the exercise of fundamental rights considered by the city of Naples as collectively owned and therefore removed from the “exclusive use” proprietary logic to be governed through civic “direct management”.

Naples’ Good Practice relies on a public-community governance approach i.e. the engagement of neighborhood-based community in designing, experimenting, managing, and delivering new forms of cultural and social services and revitalizing the urban historical heritage to revive the local identity while uniting the local activists, civic entrepreneurs and the active citizenship scene.

This practice was meant to overcome the traditional top-down command-and-control system through bringing together city inhabitants at the heart of the decision-making and city assets management process. Indeed, this form of collectice proceeding secures fair and open access, co-design, preservation and a social and economic sustainability model of urban assets and infrastructures all for the benefit of future generations.