7 - Reimagining Urban Public Housing as a Commons

Summary

Drawing on Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione’s generative work, The City as a Commons, this chapter applies commons theory to public housing in the United States, which, despite decades of disinvestment and mismanagement, remains a significant community asset serving affordable housing needs. Using New York City’s embattled Housing Authority (NYCHA), the nation’s largest public housing agency, as a case study, the chapter argues that public housing, though not a classic common-pool resource, serves a broad swath of vulnerable urban residents and can be reimagined under an urban commons framework. Doing so ensures that, in a time of transitioning uses of public housing assets, residents have meaningful input concerning disposition of space within public housing campuses.The democratizing implications of commons theory respond to NYCHA residents’ essential exclusion (despite requirements in federal law) from revenue-driven decisions increasing private developers’ control over NYCHA properties through long-term land leases and public-private partnerships. A commons analysis, grounded in residents’ urban knowledge, experience, and need, and informed by the social function of property theory, adds normative and theoretical heft to residents’ equitable stake in decisions concerning public housing’s increasingly threatened spaces.