In his recent paper, Commoning as a Transformative Social Paradigm, author, activist and commons scholar David Bollier argues that the commons, which he describes as “at once a paradigm, a discourse, an ethic, and a set of social practices,” holds great promise in transcending the conundrum of imagining and building a “radically different system while living within the constraints of an incumbent system that aggressively resists transformational change.”
As coworking explodes in popularity, its parallel movement, co-living, is being touted as the next disruption of surplus space. At its essence, co-living offers shared living space and amenities, more housemates than the typical roommate situation, access to a network of properties, and flexible lease options that allow long and short-term residents to live side by side.
Last week, Shareable hosted the #FutureOfCoworking Twitter chat. Inspired by the depth and quality of conversation in the comments of my article, Look Out Coworking, Here Comes Big Money, the chat was a way to share ideas and experience, and continue learning from each other.
One of Shareable’s core projects this year is to produce a new book and digital database comprised of case studies and model policies to support the growth of Sharing Cities.
A family-friendly placemaking campaign in Providence, RI. Photo by PPS The placemaking movement is all about creating hands-on, collective solutions to improve a neighborhood, city, or region—to make it more shareable. It capitalizes on existing community assets and results in public spaces that improve people’s health, happiness, and well being. As the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) website explains,
Aprovecho is a 40-acre center 15 miles south of Eugene, Oregon dedicated to researching and teaching sustainable living practices and green skills. Rosie Kirincic works there with six other staff members. She lives with four of them on-site. Those six people are coordinating the construction of a 2,500 square foot community-meeting hall using natural building methods. They manage rotating crews of work-traders who come to help with the project through the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) organization.
The sharing movement is evolving quickly and in many directions. The growth of platform and worker co-ops, increased awareness of the commons, the evolution of coworking, an explosion of tech-enabled sharing services, and more are opening up promising if not challenging frontiers.
Who is a company? If we speak of the men and women of Boeing, say, or Wal-Mart or Market Basket, a supermarket chain in New England, where this question is being posed most emphatically of late, are we referring to the company’s employees? Its founders? Its founders’ grandchildren, even if they play no role in the company’s endeavors? Its shareholders, even if they hold the company’s stock just for a few months or, in the case of high-frequency trading, a fraction of a second?
David Bollier is a policy strategist, activist, and a leading voice in the commons movement. In a new book, Bollier and commons activist Silke Helfrich, both members of the Commons Strategies Group, collaborated to underscore the fact that commons are not things, resources or goods; they are social structures, processes and patterns.
A few times a year, we round up the top new books about cities, sharing, collaboration, social tech, movement trends and more. Here are 21 books worth checking out for Shareable summer reading.
As open source advocates and newlyweds, Marcin Jakubowski and Catarina Mota decided to reinvent the home-building wheel a few years back. In the process, they have been developing an entirely open-source toolkit that makes the design and construction of eco-friendly, off-grid modular housing easier, cheaper, and faster through use of modular designs, rapid-build construction, social production, locally-sourced materials, and open-source machines.
Earlier this month, Shareable posted a short article about the Little Free Pantry in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Created by Jessica McClard, the Pantry is an easy way for people to share surplus food and household goods, and access items they may need.
The Library of Things movement is emerging in communities around the world. These spaces give people access to a huge spectrum of items, from board games, party supplies and tennis rackets to saws, kitchen appliances, turntables, clothing and tents, without the burden of ownership.
Copylove started in 2011 as a local informal network for investigations into commons and feminist practices. Later, it turned into a public and open investigation via www.copylove.cc (only in Spanish) led by Sofía Coca (ZEMOS98, Sevilla), Txelu Balboa (COLABORABORA, Euskadi) and Rubén Martínez (Fundación de los Comunes, Barcelona) in which we tried to extract, from the experiences we had, what kind of ties and relations are established within a community of agents, whose practices and ways of doing generate commons for the whole community. Copylove was a way of getting deeper into all that we consider that reproduces desirable conditions of existence: affection, processes of interdependence, mutual aid, community love, care, etc. When we say Copylove, we mean everything we produce and reproduce that can take us closer to “good living”, to a sustainable living, and not simply in monetary...
Are you curious about the sharing movement but not sure where to begin? Or, are you a sharing maven and want to inspire your friends and family to integrate sharing into their lives? Either way, we have the perfect resource for you to experience how sharing, in both big and small ways, can turn your life around.
ORIGIN is a sophisticated intelligent ICT system for the management of energy in a community. In this video you will hear from our researchers at Heriot-Watt...
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