Sharing Cities and Commoning: An Alternative Narrative for Just and Sustainable Cities

Adrien Labaeye

doi:10.3390/su11164358

Abstract

Sharing Cities are emerging as an alternative narrative which promotes sharing as a transformative phenomenon for just and sustainable cities. This article shows that Sharing Cities are conceived within the alternative political economy of the commons. Bringing a theoretical contribution into dialogue with a practice-oriented book, this paper aims at checking the concept of Sharing Cities against the reality on the ground by reviewing 137 secondary cases: (1) Is communal (non-commercial) sharing a substantial phenomenon? (2) What is the role of technology—and more widely, of intermediation—in sharing practices? (3) If at all, what is being transformed by sharing practices? (4) Are commons depicted in each case? Results show that most cases display a communal form of sharing that is independent of digital platforms, i.e., that the sharing transformation affects all arenas of production and social reproduction across a wide variety of sectors, and it relies on translocal replication rather than up-scaling. With only 26% of cases apparently depicting a commons, this paper argues for a relational epistemology of urban commoning, shifting the focus to more-than-human commoning-communities. Thus, Sharing Cities are captured not only as a set of policy proposals and practices but as the performative depiction of an alternative worldview based on interdependence, ready for the Anthropocene.

Highlights

IntroductionThe Sharing Cities approach is emerging as an alternative to the smart city discourse on the opportunities created by digital technology at the intersection of cyber space and urban space [1,2]
Bringing a theoretical contribution into dialogue with a practice-oriented book, this paper aims at checking the concept of Sharing Cities against the reality on the ground by reviewing 137 secondary cases: (1) Is communal sharing a substantial phenomenon? (2) What is the role of technology—and more widely, of intermediation—in sharing practices? (3) If at all, what is being transformed by sharing practices? (4) Are commons depicted in each case? Results show that most cases display a communal form of sharing that is independent of digital platforms, i.e., that the sharing transformation affects all arenas of production and social reproduction across a wide variety of sectors, and it relies on translocal replication rather than up-scaling
The Sharing Cities approach is emerging as an alternative to the smart city discourse on the opportunities created by digital technology at the intersection of cyber space and urban space [1,2]

Summary

Introduction

The Sharing Cities approach is emerging as an alternative to the smart city discourse on the opportunities created by digital technology at the intersection of cyber space and urban space [1,2]. With the rise of digitalization, so-called sharing economy online platforms that enable collaborative consumption and production are reshaping urban economies [6]. The Sharing Cities narrative has been identified as an emerging counter-narrative to the neoliberal imagery of urban development [2]. With Sharing Cities, Duncan McLaren and Julian Agyeman [1] argued that a “sharing paradigm” rooted in the political economy of the commons—beyond market and state—can be a transformative force for more just and sustainable cities

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion