Commoning toward urban resilience

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the potential of urban commons for building community resilience. We focus on the issue of adaptability to socio-ecological issues, which depends on the social capital built by the local community of practice. We measure this capital through the variables of volunteer involvement, perceived trust, and social cohesion in an agent-based model, which simulates the dynamics of participation in collective activities. We anchor our model with the case of KasKantine in Amsterdam, a cooperative and restaurant run by volunteers. Our model shows that both trust and social cohesion emerge from the interactions in the cooperative, especially when group sizes are kept small. This contributes to the adaptability of such social-ecological systems, helping their communities build social resilience.