Pratiche di una città ‘in comune’: il caso di Firenze

The paper formulates some essential considerations on the theme of ‘owning in common’ through a survey carried out in Florence of some bottom-up experiences of re-appropriation and creative use of places. The result is a vital, complex and contradictory picture of ‘forms and formulas’ for rewriting the relationship between inhabitants and territory. It draws the geography of ‘another’ Florence, which experiments with new ways of re-knowing and reinhabiting cities and territories in a more sustainable, equitable and just way. However, the framework outlined is also characterized by some theoretical priorities, related to the real ability of these practices, in acting a collective and collaborative dimension of ‘owning the city’, to produce a vital change, organic and structured in an ecoterritorial key. The text fits into this debate by identifying a series of challenges inherent in the ‘treatment’ of this phenomenon via public policies, in a perspective of enhancing the ‘capacity of society to guide itself’ (Cognetti, 2014).