A Shareable City enables residents to efficiently and safely share all kinds of assets — from spaces to cars, skills and utilities — to create stronger, healthier and more connected communities. From a policy perspective, a Shareable City looks at multiple aspects of urban planning and community well-being through a collaborative economy lens and proactively supports these goals.
At Collaborative Lab, we believe that 2014 will be a big year for Shareable Cities. Why? Here are some of our favorite reasons. If you have others to add, please tweet them to @ShareableCity and let us know!
Top 10 Reasons Why 2014 Will Be the Year of #ShareableCities
10. The collaborative economy is full of hyper-local solutions that are also scalable. They’re an ideal fit for “mayors ruling the world.”
9. There is a death of traditional “jobs” in cities but no shortage of #collcons livelihoods. The collaborative economy is intertwined with the future of work, employment and entrepreneurship.
7. Cities are *full* of idling capacity. Collaborative consumption enables us to unlock wealth in these assets, throughout cities of all sizes around the world.
6. There are increasing #collcons linkages with megacities in emerging markets and the developing world. Though the concept is still nascent in many places, there is enormous potential.
5. Unfortunately, more climate-related and other disasters are predicted. Emergency and disaster-response models that incorporate collaborative economy organizations, such as BayShare in San Francisco, can help.
4. City budgets aren’t increasing. Collaborative consumption is about efficient resource utilization and sustainability. It enables cities to “do more with less.”
3. Seoul, South Korea is the world’s most shareable city. News about its “Seoul Sharing City” vision and plans will expand globally. Cities everywhere should take note!
2. There is increased urbanization worldwide; more people live in cities than anywhere else, and than ever before. This leads to greater density, which makes it easier to share and yields more assets that can be shared.
1. Collaborative consumption is a local, flexible, resilient, sustainable, resourceful solution that works. What other solutions, ideas or alternatives exist that meet so many local needs at once and in ways that build local communities and economies?
This post first appeared on the Collaborative Lab blog on January 8, 2014.
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Published Jan 13, 2014 6pm EST / 3pm PST / 11pm GMT / 12am CET