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Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities
How cities can build on the "sharing economy" and smart technology to deliver a "sharing paradigm" that supports justice, solidarity, and sustainability.
The future of humanity is urban, and the nature of urban space enables, and necessitates, sharing -- of resources, goods and services, experiences. Yet traditional forms of sharing have been undermined in modern cities by social fragmentation and commercialization of the public realm. In Sharing Cities, Duncan McLaren and Julian Agyeman argue that the intersection of cities' highly networked physical space with new digital technologies and new mediated forms of sharing offers cities the opportunity to connect smart technology to justice, solidarity, and sustainability. McLaren and Agyeman explore the opportunities and risks for sustainability, solidarity, and justice in the changing nature of sharing.
McLaren and Agyeman propose a new "sharing paradigm," which goes beyond the faddish "sharing economy" -- seen in such ventures as Uber and TaskRabbit -- to envision models of sharing that are not always commercial but also communal, encouraging trust and collaboration. Detailed case studies of San Francisco, Seoul, Copenhagen, Medellin, Amsterdam, and Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) contextualize the authors' discussions of collaborative consumption and production; the shared public realm, both physical and virtual; the design of sharing to enhance equity and justice; and the prospects for scaling up the sharing paradigm though city governance. They show how sharing could shift values and norms, enable civic engagement and political activism, and rebuild a shared urban commons. Their case for sharing and solidarity offers a powerful alternative for urban futures to conventional "race-to-the-bottom" narratives of competition, enclosure, and division.
The future of humanity is urban, and the nature of urban space enables, and necessitates, sharing -- of resources, goods and services, experiences. Yet traditional forms of sharing have been undermined in modern cities by social fragmentation and commercialization of the public realm. In Sharing Cities, Duncan McLaren and Julian Agyeman argue that the intersection of cities' highly networked physical space with new digital technologies and new mediated forms of sharing offers cities the opportunity to connect smart technology to justice, solidarity, and sustainability. McLaren and Agyeman explore the opportunities and risks for sustainability, solidarity, and justice in the changing nature of sharing.
McLaren and Agyeman propose a new "sharing paradigm," which goes beyond the faddish "sharing economy" -- seen in such ventures as Uber and TaskRabbit -- to envision models of sharing that are not always commercial but also communal, encouraging trust and collaboration. Detailed case studies of San Francisco, Seoul, Copenhagen, Medellin, Amsterdam, and Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) contextualize the authors' discussions of collaborative consumption and production; the shared public realm, both physical and virtual; the design of sharing to enhance equity and justice; and the prospects for scaling up the sharing paradigm though city governance. They show how sharing could shift values and norms, enable civic engagement and political activism, and rebuild a shared urban commons. Their case for sharing and solidarity offers a powerful alternative for urban futures to conventional "race-to-the-bottom" narratives of competition, enclosure, and division.
445 pages, Hardcover
First published November 20, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 14, 2020
An all right sharing economy overview, including the 5 case studies: San Francisco, Copenhagen, Seoul, Bengaluru and Amsterdam (who seem to be poster kiddies for sharing economy).
I'm not really persuaded that they are since Airbnb is largely pervasive around the glove and carsharing and the like are also heavily spread out (think Moscow). Obviously not all cases were reviewed here, just a handful of selected ones but still...
A nice touch in expanding the concept of sharing to not just things (cars, bikes) or places (flats) but also services (meeting rooms) and even experiences (leisure, dinner). That's a whole newish paradigm out there!
I'm not really persuaded that they are since Airbnb is largely pervasive around the glove and carsharing and the like are also heavily spread out (think Moscow). Obviously not all cases were reviewed here, just a handful of selected ones but still...
A nice touch in expanding the concept of sharing to not just things (cars, bikes) or places (flats) but also services (meeting rooms) and even experiences (leisure, dinner). That's a whole newish paradigm out there!
December 10, 2024
I started reading the book with great interest as part of my field of study, however, heavily loaded with examples and with concepts basically thrown in, the whole text became a salad bowl of unrelated, unmatching ingredients that in the end leaves a taste of cellulose. The book is supposed to be about sharing practices in cities. It talks about all sorts of sharing practices not necessarily pertaining to the cities, delves upon different literatures on culture, history, economics and more, giving a feeling that the authors want to show off how much they know, but seems like they don't know how to focus and edit a text in a way that is going to appeal to academic and non-academic audiences. I personally had a hard time filtering the unnecessary information, examples, histories etc. to cut to the chase and get what the book itself contributes. It's all over the place, often repetitious (in several instances "we talked about this in Chapter X and we'll talk about this chapter Y) , and if it wasn't for the few charts and summaries in the second half of the book, it would certainly leave the reader with more ambiguity than clarity. (Ambiguity in text may be desirable in certain instances, but this is not one of them.)
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December 6, 2017i only read a few chapters. it seemed interesting, but... it was heavily academic and so it didn't hold my interest.
February 7, 2018
An interesting view into the possible future of sociocultural and economic sharing policies: a future that is inherently radical and emotional.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews