Collective Action and the Urban Commons

Urban residents share access to a number of local resources in which they have a common stake. These resources range from local streets and parks to public spaces, to a variety of shared neighborhood amenities. Collectively shared urban resources suffer from the same rivalry and free-riding problems that Garrett Hardin described in his Tragedy of the Commons tale. Scholars have not yet worked up a theory about how this "tragedy" unfolds in the urban context, particularly in light of existing government regulation and control of common urban resources. This Article argues that the tragedy of the urban commons unfolds during periods of "regulatory slip-page "-when the level of local government oversight and management of the resource significantly declines, leaving the resource vulnerable to expanded access by competing users and uses. Overuse or unrestrained competition in the use of these resources can quickly lead to congestion, rivalry, and resource degradation. Tales abound in cities across the country of streets, parks, and vacant land that were once thriving urban spaces but have become overrun, dity, prone to criminal activity, and virtually abandoned by most users. Proposed solutions to the rivalry, congestion, and degradation that afflict common urban resources typically track the traditional public-private © 2011 Sheila R. Foster. Individuals and nonprofit institutions may reproduce and distribute copies of this article in any format, at or below cost, for educational purposes, so long as each copy identifies the author, provides a citation to the Notre Dame Law Review, and includes this provision in the copyright notice. has gestated for much longer than originally anticipated and is the product not only of my own thinking over the past few years, but also the product of thoughtful conversations with many colleagues and friends. My deepest gratitude to the following individuals who have commented on the Article at various stages of its development: assistants, Jacob Press and Jeffrey Douglas, who brought an exceptionally high level of creativity and skill to each task assigned to them. Finally, I am thankful for the research support provided by Fordham Law School. 57 NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW dichotomy of governance approaches. These solutions propose either a more assertive central government role or privatization of the resource. Neither of these proposed solutions has taken root, I argue, because of the potential costs that each carry-costs to the local government during times of fiscal strain, costs to communities where the majority of …