Sharing Cities A case for truly smart and sustainable cities
Duncan McLaren Julian Agyeman @mclaren_erc @julian_agyeman
Lecture given at Sustainability Science Centre, University of Copenhagen 14th December 2015 Sharing cities: an outline
• Historic forms of sharing • The sharing economy of San Francisco • The sharing paradigm and flavors of sharing • Civic sharing in Seoul, ‘Sharing City’ • Inclusion in the public realm in Medellín • Diversity in Amsterdam • The counter-culture of Christiania, Copenhagen • The politics of the urban commons • Smart but stupid in Masdar • Principles and recommendations for Sharing Cities
The scope of sharing
• We share things (cars, tools), services (sites for meeting, sleeping), activities and experiences (political activity, leisure)
• Which can be material or virtual - tangible or intangible
• Enabling consumption (digital music), or production (community gardens)
• Sharing can be simultaneous (public space) or sequential (recycling materials) – rivalrous (solo use excludes another e.g. car share) or non-rivalrous (open source software)
• Distribution of shares: sharing in parts or sharing in turns
• We share with other private individuals, in collective groups and as citizens The Rituals, Pleasures Together and Politics of Cooperation
The evolution of a sharing species
Mark Pagel, Wired for Culture: The Natural History of Human Coopera on. London: Allen Lane, 2012.
Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolu on University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Mar n Nowak with Roger Highfield, Supercooperators: Altruism, Evolu on, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed. Free Press, 2012
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gin s, A Coopera ve Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolu on. Princeton University Press, 2013.
Declining social capital and its impacts: Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000
Senne , Richard. Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Poli cs of Coopera on. London: Penguin, 2013.
Wilkinson, Richard, and Kate Picke . The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Be er for Everyone. London: Allen Lane, 2009 Harper Business, 2010
Cri ques of the commercial sharing economy (see for example): Morozov, Evgeny. “Don’t Believe the Hype, the ‘Sharing Economy’ Masks a Failing Economy.” The Guardian, September 28, 2014. Yglesias, Ma hew. “There Is No ‘Sharing Economy,’” Slate, December 26, 2013.
Coopera ve models of sharing: Orsi, Janelle, Yassi Eskandari-Qajar, Eve Weissman, Molly Hall, Ari Mann, and Mira Luna. Policies for Shareable Ci es: A Sharing Economy Policy Primer for Urban Leaders. Oakland, CA: Shareable and the Sustainable Economies Law Center, 2013. Schor, Juliet. “Deba ng the Sharing Economy.” Great Transi on Ini a ve. October 2014. “a new lens through which to understand … urban sustainability” - Brent Toderian, former Director of City Planning, Vancouver.
“a remarkably comprehensive overview of many dimensions of the sharing movement and the sharing economy. … Every mayor, city policy-maker, and ci zen change-maker should read this” - Janelle Orsi, SELC, San Francisco.
“If you want to understand the possibili es and challenges of the sharing paradigm to transform the way ci es are designed, read this book” - Rachel Botsman. Published by MIT Press December 2015
Understood as offering new ways to create and use collective commons of physical and virtual resources, spaces, infrastructures and services, the sharing paradigm makes it clear that sharing is much more than simply a novel way of allocating access to conventional goods and services A tale of two discourses: the sharing ‘economy’ vs the sharing paradigm
Sharing ‘Economy’ Sharing ‘Paradigm’ Economic activity Social, cultural, political activity Economy underpins society Society underpins economy Environment as source of Environment as fundamental resources arena of evolution Autonomous individuals Interdependent and vulnerable people Transactional Relational Market-based ‘solutions’ Political and behavioural ‘solutions’
On Care Ethics, see Virginia Held, 2006. The Ethics of Care: personal, political, and global. OUP. Sharing(domain(( Concepts( Examples(
Material(( Industrial+ecology+ Circular+economy,+recovery+and+ recycling,+scrapyards++ tangible) Production( Collaborative+ Fab8labs,+community+energy,+job8sharing,+ facility( production+ open8sourcing,+crowdfunding+
Product( Redistribution+ Flea+markets,+charity+shops,+Freecycle,+ markets++ swapping+and+gifting+platforms+
Service( Product+service+ Ride8sharing,+media+streaming,+fashion+ systems+ and+toy+rental,+libraries++
Experience(( Collaborative+ Errand+networks,+peer+to+peer+travel,+ lifestyles++ couchsurfing,+skillsharing++
Capability( Collective+ The+internet,+safe+streets,+participative+ commons+ politics,+SOLEs,+citizen’s+incomes++ +++++++Intangible*
! The Sharing Spectrum (Source: McLaren and Agyeman, 2015; capabilities concept after Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum)
Seoul’s Sharing City project aims to “share lives among dispersed people, recover trust and relationships, and shape a warm city in terms of people’s heart.” Kim Tae Kyoon, Social Innovation Director, Seoul
“Medellín constructed avant-garde public buildings in areas that were the most run-down, provided house paint to ci zens living in poor districts, and cleaned up and improved the streets – all in the belief that if you treat people with dignity, they will value their surroundings and take pride in their communi es.” Joseph S glitz
Interculturalism and contact theory: Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Addison- Wesley, 1954) Thomas Pe grew and Linda Tropp, “A meta-analy c test of intergroup contact theory” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90(5) 2006 Oliver Christ et al “Contextual effect of posi ve intergroup contact on outgroup prejudice.” PNAS, 111(11) 2014 Empathy: Krznaric, Roman. Empathy: A Handbook for Revolu on. London: Random House, 2013. Ri in, Jeremy. The Empathic Civiliza on: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010. Piracy: Kester Brewin, Mu ny! Why We Love Pirates and How They Can Save Us. London: Vaux / Kester Brewin, 2012.
Community land- tling: Jota Samper, “Gran ng of Land Tenure in Medellin, Colombia’s Informal Se lements: Is Legaliza on the Best Alterna ve in a Landscape of Violence?” Informal Se lements Research, 30 January 2014. Available at h p://informalse lements.blogspot.se/2011/01/v- behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html.
Co-produc on of water and sewerage connec ons: Salim Alimuddin, Arif Hasan, and Asiya Sadiq, “The Work of the Anjuman Samaji Behbood and the Larger Faisalabad Context, Pakistan.” IIED Working Paper 7 on Poverty Reduc on in Urban Areas. 2001. Available at h p://pubs.iied.org/9073IIED.html Squats should “be recognized and supported for what they are: vibrant social centers at the very heart of the ‘commons’, ac vely including the excluded.” Miguel Mar nez, “Squa ng for Jus ce, Bringing Life to the City.” ROARMAG, May 13, 2014. Christiania pic “The Danes are proud of [Chris ania today] … Christiania pic A er all, these are people who built their own homes, who stood up to the government and criminal elements for decades, who took in the poor and disadvantaged, who were eco-friendly and racially diverse before anyone else, and who sent the world a strong image about the crea vity and tolerance of Denmark. Tom Freston, “You Are Now Leaving the European Union.” Vanity Fair, 12 Sept 2013. MLP?
On MLP see: Frank Geels,Processes and pa erns in transi ons and system innova ons: refining the co-evolu onary mul -level perspec ve, Technology Forecas ng and Social Change 72 (2007): 681– 696), Figure from: Rob Roggema, et al Incremental Change, transi on or transforma on? Op mising change pathways for climate adapta on in spa al planning” Sustainability 4(10) (2012), 2525–2549. Three strategies for transformation
Revolution Subversion Re-invention
Challenge conventional Using its own tools to Designing alternative approaches and power redesign system rules systems in any spaces directly. Implies mass and relationships. left (relatively) mobilisation around a Requires uncomfortable untouched by the common cause. collaboration and conventional system. alliances. Difficult to mainstream.
“Smash the system” “Flip the system” “Ignore the system”
See also: Erik Olin Wright, Envisaging Real Utopias. Verso, 2010. Three strategies for transformation RevolutionSharing can be a Subversionsubversive Re-invention, bo om-up - simultaneously counter-cultural and intercultural - reinven on of consump on as a collabora ve, shared, iden ty- Challenge conventional Using its own tools to Designing alternative approaches and power redesign system rules systems in any spaces directly.redefining, process of co- Implies mass and relationships. left (relatively) mobilisation around a Requires uncomfortable untouched by the commonproduc on of services and cause. collaboration and conventional system. alliances. Difficult to mainstream. products supplying fundamental “Smashneeds the system” “Flip the system” “Ignore the system”
See also: Erik Olin Wright, Envisaging Real Utopias. Verso, 2010. On Occupy, anarchism and network poli cs:
David Graeber, The Democracy Project - A History. A Crisis. A Movement. Penguin, 2013.
Manuel Castells, Networks of Outrage and Hope. Polity Press, 2012.
On values shi s: Dan M. Kahan, “The Logic of Reciprocity: Trust, Collec ve Ac on, and Law” John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy Working Paper 281: 31 (2002).
Zipcar: Fleura Bardhi and Giana Eckhart, “Access-Based Consump on: the case of car-sharing.” Journal of Consumer Research 39 ?(2012): 881–898
Couchsurfing: Paolo Pariga and Bogdan State, “Disenchan ng the World? The Impact of Technology on Rela onships.” SocInfo 2014, LNCS 8851: 166–182
Freecycle and Craigslist: Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collabora ve Consump on. London: Harper Business, 2010.
See also: Yochai Benkler, “Sharing Nicely. On shareable goods and the emergence of sharing as a modality of economic produc on.” Yale Law Journal 114(2) (2004): 273–358
Smart city cri ques: Adam Greenwood, Against the Smart City. Verso 2013. Richard Senne , “No One Likes a City That’s Too Smart.” The Guardian, 4 December 2012 Hug March and Ribera-Fumaz, “Smart Contradic ons: The Poli cs of Making Barcelona a Self-Sufficient City.” European Urban and Regional Studies, 20 November 2014 Michele Provoost, “From Welfare City to Neoliberal Utopia.” Strelka talk, 2013. Available at h p://vimeo.com/64392842 Five rules to guide them all
• Build trust • Stimulate intrinsic motivations • Empower users • Protect civil liberties and privacy • Design for justice and inclusion Breaking the limits of the sharing ‘economy’: new targets for regulations, finance and norms
Sharing ‘Economy’ Sharing ‘Paradigm’ Lending Club, Kickstarter Credit Unions TaskRabbit, Taskrunner Repair Cafes Grooveshark, Sofar Sounds Public art and graffiti MOOCs SOLEs i-Citizen, Apps for Democracy Occupy and Avaaz Uber, Lyft Public transit, bikesharing Feastly Foodbanks Airbnb, Couchsurfing Squatting, co-housing Wikipedia, Linux Cooperatives and Unions
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Find us on Twi er: Julian is at @JulianAgyeman Duncan at @mclaren_erc
Purchase Sharing Ci es at: h ps://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sharing-ci es