Commons and Cities. Which analytical tools to assess the Commons' contribution to the economic life of the cities?

Cities often manifest strong differences in their de-facto informal political cul-tures. Do these differences have anything to do with their own performance lev-els? Moreover, if so, what are the precise mechanisms by which they affect per-formance? Looking at the case of the urban Commons, particularly the Italian So-cial Centres started at the end of '70s, as a proxy of urban informal political cul-ture, and revisiting the mainstream business economics and its conceptual conse-quents, the present paper surveys the main questions and inherent analytical tool sets. The aim of the paper is to find a good framework for further analysis on Commons and metropolitan perspectives. For the institutionalists, the Commons have to be studied as alternative governance modes laying beyond the State and Market. While, following the dynamic capabilities view they could be treated as evolutionary inter-organizational solutions with a potential in terms of creativity and entrepreneurship. The conclusion summarizes the cases for analysing urban Commons with the dynamic capabilities approach.