Public-commons partnerships (PCPs) offer a means for communities to work in partnership with public bodies to gain collective ownership over key services and infrastructures which affect their lives. These can include cooperatively owned and managed resources like housing, local markets, energy and other utilities, that de-privatise and de-commodify essential public goods and services.
In the context of austerity and fiscal crisis, PCPs represent an opportunity to protect, improve and democratise key services and infrastructures. They are part of a wider turn toward alternatives to conventional, profit-led urban economic development, including ideas of community wealth-building, the foundational economy, and new municipalism. As part of an effort to kickstart economic systems transition starting at the local level, these approaches include support for the ‘social and solidarity economy’ of common, democratic ownership forms. To achieve this, they need new institutional forms, and PCPs have been advanced as a powerful model for harnessing public powers and finances to support the expansion of common ownership and control of the local economy.
Dr Timothy Joubert’s project will explore how PCPs currently take shape through the everyday practices of local government and community stakeholders in England. He will undertake case studies of potential and in-formation public-commons initiatives in Leeds and Sheffield, with a focus on common ownership of energy and housing - two urban ‘systems’ that play a pivotal role in tackling contemporary challenges, from the cost-of-living crisis to the climate emergency.
The goal of the research is to identify barriers to the wider use of PCPs, and devise solutions to help communities take greater ownership of their key infrastructures. Dr Joubert aims to contribute to an emerging research agenda on alternatives to capitalism by identifying how larger PCP projects and wider public-commons ecosystems can be developed.
He said: “I’m delighted to be joining the School of Geography and Planning at Sheffield as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. I hope this project will generate greater understanding of the potential for public-commons partnerships to deliver a more democratic local economy that gives residents real control over their lives, while furthering practical knowledge on how policy-makers and activists can deal with the challenges to their development and realisation. The School offers a great environment for this research with scholars engaged in cutting-edge research on urban economies, municipal statecraft, and community action, with a wealth of knowledge and experience in researching urban alternatives.”