In Governing the Commons (1990), the political economist Elinor Ostrom showed through field studies of fisheries, forests, pastures and irrigation systems that communities often manage shared resources sustainably without either private ownership or state control. She identified design principles, such as clear boundaries, collective rule-making and graduated sanctions, that allow durable self-governance of common-pool resources. Her work directly challenged the inevitability of the tragedy of the commons. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009.
It reframed shared urban resources, from land and water to public space, as governable through collective institutions, influencing commons-based and community-led planning. Ostrom's design principles inform contemporary work on the urban commons.