Working with Strangers in Saturated Space: Reclaiming and Maintaining the Urban Commons

The commons is increasingly invoked as a way to envision new worlds. One strand of commons research focuses at the local scale, on small groups in “traditional”, mostly rural societies; this research asks how commons are maintained over time. Another strand focuses on the commons at a global scale; this is political research that asks how commons can be reclaimed from a capitalist landscape. Here, I bridge these two approaches by theorizing the commons as reclaimed and maintained in the context of the city, through examining the experiences of limited-equity housing cooperatives in Washington, DC. I argue that the urban commons is marked by two distinct traits: it emerges in space that is saturated with people, competing uses, and financial investment; and it is constituted by the collective work of strangers. The challenges of reclaiming and maintaining an urban commons are substantial, but the need for them is urgent.