https://www.facebook.com/farmcitydetroit/

Different categories of actors are involved in Guifi: Volunteers, Professionals, Companies, Service Providers, Government, Academic.  In july 2008, the members of the Guifi community decided to constitute a non profit Foundation, Guifi.net Foundation, that gives a legal identity to the community. Its mission is to supervision the management of the network infrastructure as a commons, and has a coordination and arbitration role. Among its activities, it maintains the NCL and enforces its compliance when necessary. It also play a proactive role in building and maintaining a set of tools (e.g. IP address space, legal identity, possibility to operate under its name).            Internet access is the most popular service offered by Guifi, but also services related to the infrastructure deployment and maintenance, and on the other hand, services delivered over the network are offered, such as: VoIP, remote maintenance or backups, new services such as video streaming and video on-demand.

Scientific studies shows that Guifi community network has helped to reduce the geographical digital divide in Catalonia by increasing the Internet access rate in Osona-county. (Fuchs 2017). As Navarro outlines, the Catalan county with the best results, and the only one above the EU average, is Osona, where guifi.net was born. The indicators of other counties with significant guifi.net presence, such as Bages and Baix Ebre, are also high when compared to similar counties where guifi.net is not present. (Navarro, 2015).

More recent developments saw the adoption in January 2016 of the “Regulation on collaboration between citizens and the Administration for the care, shared management and regeneration of the urban commons” (inspired by the Bologna Regulation), an instrument allowing for a deeper involvement of all urban actors (citizens and civil society but also private actors and knowledge institutions) in the care and regeneration of urban commons.

Additionally, the city has recently been included between the 18 winners of the first UIA (Urban innovative Action) competition, which resulted in a 4.1 million financing from the EU Commission to the CO-City project, proposed by the City administration in collaboration with Turin’s University, ANCI and the Foundation Cascina Roccafranca. The project takes as its starting point the Regulation on the commons, and adopts the collaboration pacts as an instrument to foster collaboration between citizens and local administration. The project addresses the challenge of regenerating the most deprived city’s neighborhood and fighting social exclusion. It aims at transforming abandoned buildings and vacant land into hubs of residents’ participation, in order to foster community spirit and to create social enterprises, reducing in this way unemployment and urban poverty. The commons will be entrusted to the care and management of citizens through forms of active participation, supported by the Case di Quartiere (Neighborhood Houses) network. The project will adopt digital instruments such as First Life, a platform developed by the University with the aim of facilitating citizens’ involvement and mapping community projects.

http://www.comune.torino.it/benicomuni/bm~doc/regolamento-beni-comuniurbani-n_375.pdf

http://www.comune.torino.it/benicomuni/co-city/index.shtml

Source: Urban Innovative Action http://www.uia-initiative.eu/fr/uia-cities/turin; Regolamento sulla collaborazione tra cittadini e amministrazione per la cura, la gestione condivida e la rigenerazione dei bei comuni urbani. http://www.comune.torino.it/benicomuni/bm~doc/regolamento-beni-comuniurbani-n_375.pdf

Contact : rigenerazioneurbana@comune.torino.it