The State, the Individual, and the Commons: A Study of a Residential Park in Delhi

Kumar Aniket (with Bidisha Banerji)

 

  Conference on Nations, Narratives, and Networks: Rethinking South and Southeast Asia  
  Centre for South Asian Studies  
  University of Cambridge  
  22-24th September 2025  

Chittranjan Park
Delhi

Chittranjan Park
Delhi

Jacobs (1961). Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Horrifying public crimes can, and do, occur in well-lighted subway stations when no effective eyes are present. They virtually never occur in darkened theaters where many people and eyes are present. – Jacob (1961, p. 42)

But unless eyes are there, and unless in the brains behind those eyes is the almost unconscious reassurance of general street support in upholding civilisation, lights can do no good. – Jacob (1961, p. 42)

Street lights can be like that famous stone that falls in the desert where there are no ears to hear. – Jacob (1961, p. 42)

Putnam

  • Social capital lead to better outcomes

Ostrom

  • Common pool resources
    • key enablers of collective action
      • local knowledge
      • repeated interaction

Lefebvre

  • Social space
    • Humans produce space and the humans in turn are produced by space
      • perceived space (self-evident physical space)
      • conceived space (conceptual space)
      • lived space (emotions, memories, meaning,)

 

Putnam

  • Social capital lead to better outcomes

Ostrom

  • Common pool resources
    • key enablers of collective action
      • local knowledge
      • repeated interaction

Lefebvre

  • Social space
    • Humans produce space and the humans in turn are produced by space
      • perceived space (self-evident physical space)
      • conceived space (conceptual space)
      • lived space (emotions, memories, meaning,)

Problem

  • Urban areas have transient population
    • always on the move
    • repeated interaction requires a focal point
  • State provision & Market provision
    • crowds out initiative for self provision
    • reduced incentive to acquiring local knowledge

Key questions

  • How do we create a place in urban areas which has social meaning?
    • repeated interaction
    • incentive to acquire local knowledge
  • How do we create social space as commons?
  • How we create the right kind of social capital?

Methodology

Delhi government provides financial assistance to Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) for the maintaining community parks

  • Surveyed 64 residents of Chittranjan Park, Delhi that lives in vicinity of a park
    • Mixed methods
      • Likert-scale
      • Open-ended questions
      • Focus groups

 

 

 

 

Themes

  • Community formation
     
  • Informal norms & exclusion
     
  • Governance (RWAs)
     
  • Collective action

Park Usage

 

Park Activities and Challenges

 

Letting children play unsupervised and Community Space

 

Intermingling across ethnicity and socio economic factors

 

Sense of Belonging and Responsibility

 

Park Management and Inclusivity across gender and occupation

 

Insights

Community Formation in Transient Urban Landscapes

Several respondents described the park as a venue for

  • community events,
  • cultural celebrations and
  • everyday inter-personal encounters.

Repeated interactions between strangers

  • often cited as a source of trust
    • Quote:
      • “formed friendships through regular morning walks”

Despite the transient and fragmented urban nature of the site the Park appears to function as a site for social cooperation

  • Commoning: practice that links resources to communities of users (Feinberg et al., 2021)
     
  • Ostrom’s
    • emphasis on
      • repeated interaction and
      • local knowledge
         
  • Huron (2015)
    • urban commons often emerge through the “collective work of strangers in saturated space”
      • Commoning may emerge from proximate shared use

Trust, Informal Norms and Exclusion

Trust in other park users was reasonably high

  • satisfaction with norms around cleanliness, shared space, and noise.

Absence of formal rule enforcement mechanisms

  • led to the rise of informal norms
    • such as expectations around littering and behaviour, which act as tacit governance structures

Informal norms

  • produce exclusionary outcomes
    • pets and domestic workers were “not welcome” or “discouraged”

Critical urban commons literature

Governance and RWA

Polycentric governance

  • bottom-up organisation is supported by embedded local institutions (Schauppenlehner-Kloyber & Penker, 2016)
    • Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) acknowledged as the primary governance authority.

Perceptions of RWA effectiveness were mixed.

  • whole some respondents praised the RWA’s responsiveness,
    • others expressed a desire for more transparent

Collective Action and Willingness to Contribute

A significant number of respondents expressed willingness to contribute to park maintenance

  • either financially or through voluntary labour.
  • conditional on
    • greater transparency and
    • clarity of roles

Respondents were more motivated
when the park was perceived

  • as a as a shared community asset and
    • not just as green infrastructure

Conclusions

Positive

Park governed through

  • informal norms
    • RWA mediation and
      • collective participation

Users show willingness to contribute

Evidence of bonding social capital

Passive public utility transformed into an active site of political and social life.

  • emancipatory potential of urban commons

Negatives

Governance gaps lead to informal norms

  • Informal norms can be exclusionary
    • Reproduction of social hierarchies

Users show willingness to contribute

  • label and context dependent

Limited evidence of bridging social capital

Reproduction of social hierarchies in commons like space

 

Notes

Avdikos, V., Dragouni, M., Michailidou, M., & Pettas, D. (2023). Rethinking GLAMs as commons: A conceptual framework. Open Research Europe.
Ergenc, C., & Çelik, Ö. (2021). Urban neighbourhood forums in ankara as a commoning practice. Antipode.
Feinberg, A., Ghorbani, A., & Herder, P. (2021). Diversity and challenges of the urban commons: A comprehensive review. International Journal of the Commons.
Huron, A. (2015). Working with strangers in saturated space: Reclaiming and maintaining the urban commons. Journal of Urban Affairs.
Jacob, J. (1961). The death and life of great american. Cities. New York: Vintage Books.
Schauppenlehner-Kloyber, E., & Penker, M. (2016). Between participation and collective action—from occasional liaisons towards long-term co-management for urban resilience. Journal of Urban Affairs.

### Urbanism and Geopolitics

- [Jump to slide 1](#1)

- [Jump to slide 2](#2)

- [Jump to slide 3](#3)

- [Jump to slide 4](#4)

- [Jump to slide 5](#5)

## Title

The State, the Individual, and the Commons: A Study of a Residential Park in Delhi

Kumar Aniket