A comparison of tenurial change and privatization in two Garden City communities: Sunnyside Gardens, New York City and Garbatella, Rome

The paper problematizes public housing privatization. It compares the trajectory of tenure change in two garden communities – Garbatella, Rome and Sunnyside Gardens, New York City – which privileged public and private ownership, respectively. The cases are currently dealing with tenure change. Sunnyside experienced the enclosure of gardens and citizens’ attempt to reclaim what was held in common in order to bring back the communal spaces. Garbatella is a place where growth over time of rights, powers, immunities, and privileges is manifested in long-lasting processes of appropriation of public housing goods. Despite their different stories, Sunnyside helps to problematize the process of public housing privatization in Garbatella which is further complicated by tenure complexity, State-induced rent gap and institutional displacement. The analysis of tenure change, done by using the ‘incidents of ownership’ notion developed by Marcuse, contributes to the understanding of what public housing privatization means in social and spatial terms. Housing privatization leads to an erosion of the in-between space where individual and collective aspiration meet as a precondition for the reproduction of what is held in common: spatial goods such as open spaces and housing – a fundamental aspect of our citizenship.