Urban open spaces as a commons: The credibility thesis and common property in a self-governed park of Athens, Greece

Abstract

Although abandoned, unused or underused urban open spaces can play an important role in urban well-being, the traditional approaches of state management and privatization have failed to revive them, due to the lack of necessary public funds, low private investment interest or the vagueness of property rights. Therefore, a solution might be to manage this land as a commons, where local users collectively undertake governance of the resource. The current paper explores a successful initiative, the Navarinou Park initiative in downtown Athens, in an attempt to consolidate the experience gained and to draw policy recommendations for the success of such actions. In this endeavour, the paper employs Ostrom’s Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) framework to analyse the park as a commons and then, building upon this, proceeds to explore the credibility of the institution along the lines of the credibility thesis and its underlying theory, with particular reference to the Formal, Actual and Targeted (FAT) institutional framework. The paper concludes that Navarinou Park is a functional, long-standing and credible institution, successfully serving the manifold needs (recreational, environmental, social and political) and interests of the local population. Thus, in line with the Credibility Scales and Intervention (CSI) checklist, an advisable intervention would likely comprise a subtle blend of condoning and co-opting; governments to leave the daily praxis undisturbed while fostering a regime within which this praxis is permitted to flourish.