This article examines the processes of urban commoning and its co‐produced features of urbanity, making the claim that, through these processes, informality becomes translated into institutionalized city planning. Commoning is analysed through a comparative study that utilizes contingent features of urbanity and three modalities accommodating the informality–formality meshwork during urban change. The article contributes to research on urban transformations by integrating commons, informality dynamics and the constitution of state institutions. This focus is elaborated with reference to collective gardening practices in the context of two of the less studied European cities, Narva in Estonia and Tampere in Finland. The results of the study indicate that urban commoning takes place through delegating a public mandate and enacting uncertainty, two processes that informalize city government practices. Particular differences appeared in regard to the institutional porosity that enables unregulated spaces of collective gardening to be mobilized as part of urban politics. We argue that networked movements appear as an essential part of the urban logic of action producing meaningful connections in an informal–formal meshwork and bringing together multiple sites in the commoning process.

Spatial planning faces challenges in addressing interactions between land and sea. This paper elaborates on land–sea interfaces, which can integrate certain socio-cultural values and related tensions into maritime spatial planning (MSP). In this article, three regional case studies from Estonia, Latvia, and Poland analysed important intersections between the formations of cultural values and spatial dynamics within MSP processes. These cases make it possible to address current challenges, contested boundaries, and spatial planning possibilities to embrace the vibrant and complex ways the sea becomes connected to societal change. The study indicates the multiplicity of land–sea interfaces, which should be involved in MSP through situated places of terraqueous interactions, means of public participation, and meaningful boundaries within mobilised co-existence. The actual and possible tensions in allocating new functions of maritime spaces indicate the importance of coastal landscapes and communities. Thus, MSP practice can employ the land–sea interfaces to advance regional planning through participatory engagements, which reveal sociocultural linkages between society and environment on coastal areas.

The recent Covid‐19 pandemic highlighted rural–urban interactions, in particular the fact that cities are dependent on the accessibility of non‐metropolitan and rural spaces and vice versa. This article seeks to understand how these interactions contributed to emergent relational spaces of rurality during the Covid‐19 crisis. The article analyses politicised mobilities between localities and rural–urban linkages that are tied to the sustainability of rural change. The study focuses on two countries: Estonia and Finland, exploring thematic narratives on second‐home practices and related politics during the outbreak of the Covid‐19 crisis. The explored regions were the South Savo region in Finland and the island of Saaremaa and northern coastal villages in Estonia. The analysis indicates ways in which the mobility restrictions and disturbances triggered by the Covid‐19 pandemic attributed certain demands and hopes to rural areas and led the shift in rural–urban interactions. The article contributes to the understanding of co‐existences between im/mobilities and multi‐local living and sustainability in rural change.

The cultural sustainability of coastal landscapes relies heavily on the community’s self-organisation in fish foodways. The theoretical framework concentrates on cultural sustainability, foodways, land–sea interactions, and community of practice. The data presented in this article were part of the SustainBaltic Integrated Coastal Zone Management plan, consisting mainly of semi-structured and focus group interviews with stakeholders, supported by background information from various available sources. The results are outlined by descriptions of self-organisation, community matters, and food forming cultural sustainability of coastal landscapes. The self-organisation in community of practice among coastal fishers is slowly progressing by negotiating common resources and voicing concerns about ecological, economic, and social sustainability. Foodways, which comprise the indispensable ingredient for sustaining a way of life that has produced traditional coastal landscapes, are always evolving.