The goal of this course is to provide students with a body of knowledge that is able to guide them through the understanding, observation and analysis of urban law and policy. One of the aims of the course is to understand the potential and limits of urban governance systems aligned with the principles and methodologies of collaborative governance in order to address phenomena such as: urban congestion, conflicts and inequalities in an increasingly urbanized world. The course will also examine and assess different kinds of urban public policies appropriate to specific local conditions and tailored to the needs of the local urban context while applying a common conceptual framework. The course will include both traditional lecture-based modules and experiential modules that will offer students useful spaces and tools to learn in an applied research context.

The course will introduce students to the fundamentals of urban law, urban governance and urban management with particular attention to the innovative insights from the literature on democratic experimentalism and the governance of the commons as applied to urban areas. From this perspectives, we will study the framework of the urban commons, and the city as a commons, as an observation point to explore the crucial role played by social norms, social institutions, and social duties. In order to enrich the understanding about the process of transformation in which urban law finds itself, according to Jean Auby, legal scholars need to start from the observation of concrete realities of cities. As Nestor Davidson has written, the subjects that matter for urban law are fragmented in different disciplines and left to different legal categories: public, constitutional and administrative, local government property, public contracts, local public services, environmental law. The first part of the course will consist of preparatory work, constituted by classes deeply focused on acquiring the crucial legal knowledge related to the main issues relevant for urban law: Fundamentals of urban law; City Power; City Government; Urban Governance; Urban Management; Housing and community economic development; Co-production of services; Co-design of local public policies. After an introduction aimed at understanding the fundamentals of urban law and policy, the course will develop a specific focus on urban governance. This will include the study of the commons and the governance of urban commons, with emphasis on housing and community economic development. 

The second part of the course will consist of fieldwork to be carried out in the city where students will be able to experiment concrete implementations of urban law and policy to foster teamwork and soft skills. Students will participate in field trips in Rome neighborhood for the illustration of case studies of community cooperative development initiatives and the interaction with qualified stakeholders, and will also participate to field activity consisting in the development of an empirical exercises.