Designing a New Civic Economy? On the Emergence and Contradictions of Participatory Experimental Urbanism

Can we remake local economies from scratch – not through political struggle but by design to solve wicked problems and transform urban governance? Such questions are raised an emergent trend within experimentation that emphasises participation commoning in designing peer-to-peer provisioning systems a platform logic. This article deconstructs the discourses animating what term “participatory experimental urbanism” reflects on this might mean for state restructuring times of neoliberal austerity. By following its policies prototypes as they move mutate across London Boroughs Lambeth Barking & Dagenham, examine two exemplary initiatives, Open Works Participatory City, tracing their beginnings Lambeth's “cooperative council” model ongoing assembling into novel public-common-philanthropic partnerships. Foregrounding contradictions latest turn towards governance-beyond-the-state, draw out implications future social innovation, design-thinking, city.