About the DGOV Council

(Reposted from the DGov Wiki)

The event will stretch over two full days in a co-creative, open space environment concluding with a dinner gathering for the participants on the first evening. After the opening sessions we will have an open space and facilitators helping us design the working circles. We will continue with the working circles in the morning of the second day. In the afternoon, we will openly share our learnings and insights in a public meetup format with fishbowl-debates.

You will be among a maximum of forty participants to gather with the intention to create governance models which take a human centric, horizontal approach to the management of shared-resources. We foster a community of participants which have an inherent interest in collaboration to exchange research and learnings to support their own projects while accelerating the innovation on distributed governance models.

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‘Shared Spaces’ features many concrete policy ideas for municipal leaders and lawmakers, as well as strategies and tips for urban commons pioneers. It was written by Jens Kimmel, Sophie Bloemen and Till Gentsch and designed by raumlaborberlin. The authors state:

We believe we need to actively protect and strengthen commons initiatives in European cities and build and promote a commons sector by transforming cities’ institutional and policy frameworks. Commons in the city involve people managing urban resources – such as space – together through which economic and, more importantly, social value is created. It is crucial to protect that value as it sustains the very social fabric of our cities. Urban commons strengthen existing communities and bring people together into new ones, they herald the era of pro-active citizenship and encourage participatory and democratic governance.

This paper is meant as an inspiration and tool for those involved or interested in the commons movement, as an urgent reminder for policymakers, as an invitation for politicians to think more concretely about the commons sector in their cities, and as the starting point for a constructive discussion about improving our cities by protecting and strengthening the commons in the urban environment.

You can read it in full, embedded below, or download the pdf here.

The post Shared Spaces: New Paper on Urban Commons (by Commons Network) appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The initiative started when a small group of members of Attac Berlin discovered that the Berlin Government had sold 24.9% of the shares to RWE and Veolia (each). The group organised a big event in a circus in Berlin to inform people, at the end of which an invitation was extended to those interested in founding an assembly of Berliner Wassertisch (Berlin Water Table). While many attendees were members of trade unions, political parties and other groups, as part of the assembly each person represented only themselves (a principle that remains to this day).

The five-year struggle (2006-2011) for the referendum was necessary because without it, the contract would have remained secret, denying campaigners the grounds to go to court. While no political party or media supported the fight, Berlin citizens were so outraged about the secrecy of the contract they voted in favour of the referendum.

To get the referendum granted in the first place, 25,000 signatures were needed, but the group got more than 36,000. Then the Berlin Government forbade the group to publish the secret contract on grounds that it would be against the German constitution, forcing them to go to the Berlin Constitutional Court, which ruled in their favour. And when the referendum was held, 98% of the more than 660,000 turnout voted for publishing the contract.

The pressure was so great that the Berlin Government bought back RWE’s shares in 2012 and those of Veolia in 2013. Thanks to the referendum, Berlin Water was remunicipalized in 2014.

Photo credit: Uwe Hiksch/Flickr

“The story here shows that a small committed citizens group can bring about a major change (remunicipalising water services in Berlin through  direct democracy). The fact that the referendum to disclose the private contract was not supported by political parties, unions, big NGOs, media and was a result of voluntary and unpaid efforts looks almost miraculous”

– Evaluator Satoko Kishimoto

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us.

Or visit berliner-wassertisch.net

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Berlin, Germany: Berliners defy government and win water remunicipalisation appeared first on P2P Foundation.

A series of Collaboration Incubator workshops are being put out into the world to gather like-minded people to combine forces for building global grassroots democracy. I am Philine Krosse, a ‘transformation architect’ from the Netherlands, who was following links one morning and stumbled upon the website of Vanilla Way.

Without a second thought, I enrolled for the Berlin workshop from 5 to 7 October 2018.

I felt I needed something of a different order to grow further’

Yet after enrolling, I thought, why would I want to contribute to this movement? Why did I feel so strongly that this movement was something through that I could develop myself further. Also, I have never considered helping building a global democracy? For many years, I had been pondering, searching and diving into the deep of the big questions. I learned a lot from different people, literature and by designing and developing initiatives for communal healing and transformation to make collective sustainable development possible. Since a while, I felt I needed something of a different order to grow further and improve my work.

I had an inspiring talk with Manuela Bosch, one of the initiators of the Collaboration Incubator  about the intentions and drive that lead to this program. She explained to me, that this program isn’t about building a global institution. It is about finding creative and innovative ways to address local issues that impact us all globally – issues that cross borders and therefore can’t be resolved solely by one institution, one country or the existing global institutional governing bodies.

What if everything we ever tried were only prototypes of democracy? What if we don’t actually know how real democracy could look like? This thinking by Otto Scharmer (Theory U) inspired the tagline of the Collaboration Incubator: “Momentum building for global democracy”.  Within the Incubators, different existing local initiatives and movements are called to work on a vision and potentially also projects for a democratic society across boarders. Boarders not only in a geographical sense, but also in sense of sector, culture, class and any paradigm.

the required solutions are already existing, but there is a lack of cohesive effort

Participants of the Incubator in Berlin in May 2018 are putting their names up on the collaborative projects they want to support.

Facilitated through social technologies like Dragon Dreaming, Evolutionary Work and Social Presencing Theater, we are learning to maximize the knowledge, tools and resources that are available, to connect with others and organize change.  This is particularly powerful when combined with the increasing awareness of the importance of a more conscious lifestyle whether on an individual, community or organizational scale.  Our assumption is, that the required solutions are already existing, but there is a lack of cohesive effort that can only come from stepping out of our comfort zones for interdisciplinary organizing. This is what the people from the Vanilla Way network believe they can help to facilitate: connecting people with shared intentions and addressing issues that can’t be coordinated from top down with tools made for collaborative grassroots organizing.

we can only be as global as the reach of the network is

Enlarging the pool of diversity among the participants is one of the highest goals and greatest challenges.  Diversity comes for example by bringing people together from different socio-economic-religious-political backgrounds, but also from the wealth of experience an individual brings from their work and field of interest. The diversity topic is challenging, since first: we can only be as global as the reach of the network is; secondly: Diversity is dependent on our financial resources, too – this is why we i.e look for patrons for one-on-one scholarships and other ways of independent funding; and thirdly: Levering diversity depends more than ever on our own leadership capacity to deal with race, gender and inclusivity topics.

Through her work as trainer for the collaborative project design framework Dragon Dreaming, Manuela experienced that workshop participants are connecting fast and deep, but after meeting in a workshop focused on skill learning, it’s difficult to keep collaborating, even though good intentions are there. “There needs to be a reason for people to keep reconnecting. The activists and leaders I am speaking to, seem to have no more time to waste in workshops. At the same time people do want to network, connect on a deeper level and learn. Why not use the combined intelligence of a diverse group of people coming together interested in the collective change processes that are necessary? When we make time to travel and meet over three days, let’s work on the pressing question of what we can do for global issues! Could it be possible to work on a collective dream and also not let it’s realization be left to chance, but intentionally work on it? There is no guarantee to come to conclusion on this over the three days, but it’s worth to try!”

find good ways to use the resources we have wisely, plus all of our creativity

There seems to be an opening now, a commitment to come together and collaborate better. This program is contributing to what is already happening on so many levels and places. And, there is still so much work to do. Many active in organizing societal change feel there is no time to rest! Therefore another main goal of the incubator is about inspiring for self-care, so that we don’t burn out on the way. It is so important to find good ways to use the resources we have wisely, plus all of our creativity, to make sure that our power and energy endures all the way. The way of activism this Incubator supports is meant to be straight forward and honest, yet unexpected and joyful.

In the recent Collaboration Incubator in May 2018 in Berlin the participants learned through a Social Presencing Theater 4D Mapping Report to May 2018 Incubator experiment about the importance of borders. We learned, they are not only separating us. They really help us to collaborate better across our fields and different stakeholders. If we look at borders that exist in the natural world, for example the zone between the river and the forest, this is where the most biodiversity can be found. In permaculture this zone is called ecotone. Also personal relationships provide a classic example. Maybe others experience this, too: When we put too much attention onto another person, trying identifying with them and their actions, we are faster questioning whether we agree with them or not. The possibility of conflict can become greatly increased.

connect with many people, interdisciplinary and diverse, with less resources or effort!

When we focus on the third identity, though, the in-between or intersections that exists between A and B, our collaboration can be more effective, lighter and even deeply strengthen both individuals or fields. We don’t have to agree on everything, yet accept each other as the mutual partners and siblings in a global family, that we are. Each with our own skills, strength and knowledge to work on collective solutions. This way it might become possible to connect with many people, interdisciplinary and divers, with less resources or effort. It is the art of connecting through the heart in seeing and acknowledging each other and at the same time staying focused around our own work, own needs and shared vision.

Beyond envisioning and planning, practicing collaboration by creating a shared piece of tape-art in the Incubator in May 2018 in Berlin.

The program can be called a success, when every participant has been able to take away at least one key learning or key link to a resource crucial for their current work or life. The contribution to global distributed democracy can be a side-effect and will keep building its momentum through continuous commitment of many over time. “If we are going to support the creation of a giant collaborative field, will depend pretty much on the participants and outcomes of the Incubators and especially what will happen between the ongoing workshops. If the Collaboration Incubator is helping unleash the connections between the existing movements, so that they can better recognize their own qualities and give each other direct help, we will move into this direction”, the organizers of the Collaboration Incubator hope.

the wisdom and spirit that is already in our bodies, heads, hearts, souls can come to the surface more easily’

To share the knowledge and keep developing and integrating internet based technology to coordinate our efforts and make our network power visible is important. As an underestimated addition to this I believe in connecting people and their visions on a deeper level face-to-face. The wisdom and spirit that is already in our bodies, heads, hearts, souls will come to the surface more easily. After writing this article I know that this is my motivation and intention to participate.

Lead photo, Celebratory activity during Collaboration Incubator in Berlin in May 2018. All photos, ©Momo-C.Gumz .

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Join Stacco Troncoso and Ann Marie Utratel to play Commonspoly- the resource-access game where we win by working as a community. The event will take place at 18:30 on Monday September 17th, at SUPERMARKT Berlin – (Mehringplatz 9, 10969 Berlin). Sign up though the comment section here or through this Facebook event (yes, we hate Facebook too, but we had to do this short notice)

About Commonspoly

Hi there, we hope you had a safe journey, welcome to Commonspoly’s utopia!

Commonspoly is a free licensed board game that was created to reflect on the possibilities and limits of the commons as a critical discourse towards relevant changes in society, but to do it playfully. This game is an ideal device to introduce commons theories to groups in a pedagogical and enjoyable way. But it’s also great for boring, rainy afternoons!

And another thing, Commonspoly is an attempt to repair a misunderstanding that has lasted for more than a century. Back in 1904 Elizabeth Magie patented The Landlord’s Game: a board game to warn about, and hopefully prevent, the dangerous effects of monopolism. Years later she sold the patent to Parker Brothers, who turned the game into the Monopoly we know today: a game that celebrates huge economic accumulation and the bankruptcy of anyone but you.

Commonspoly turns the basic features of the traditional game upside down in an effort to imagine a possible world based on cooperation instead of competition. But is it possible to play a board game where the players have to find ways to work together, not beat each other? Well, the cycles between financial crises are shortening, global unemployment rates are skyrocketing, ice caps are melting, and we all have that hard-to-explain, creepy feeling… In this game, it’s a race against time and every player’s help is more than welcome! It’s not all bad news – we have some powerful, community-based tools to use in this struggle against the apocalypse. Let’s get down to business: we have urban, environmental, health and knowledge-based common goods to preserve!

We are working on a new version, which is going to be available this summer. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions: [email protected]

The post Play Commonspoly at SUPERMARKT Berlin – Sept 17th appeared first on P2P Foundation.

At the heart of our supply partner chain is a sewers cooperative from Croatia. With a fixed percentage of our net sales we support garment workers in South Asia in their fights for better working and living conditions. This way, we want to create a positive impact for both workers in the alternative and in the mainstream economy.[1]

After two successful crowdfunding campaigns[2] and almost three years of business experience, we are now planning to take the next step by developing an innovative web platform which ultimately shall be collectively owned and governed by every party involved in the value chain; from the producers of the raw material all the way to the people who buy the clothes.

From platform capitalism to platform cooperativism

Never was it more obvious than today that capitalism fails to deliver on its promise of benefiting the many and not just the few. By grabbing after the internet, capitalism has given birth to business platforms that increase inequality, undermine democracy and lead to monopolies. The likes of Airbnb, Uber, Amazon and facebook are transforming our workplaces, relationships and societies and we have virtually no control over them. While nearly all aspects of our lives are being shifted online, a new and fairer model for the digital economy is needed. A promising model in that regard is co-ownership, transparency and democratic governance as promoted by an emerging number of so-called platform cooperatives. Contrary to venture capital funded platforms and their systemic flaw having to excessively extract and maximize value only for their shareholders, platform coops seek ways of including everybody who is affected by the platform’s activities in the equation.[3]

Applying the platform coop model to the buyer driven and undemocratic garment industry

How the industry works

Global fashion online sales are expected to grow massively from €415 billion in 2018 to €615 billion in 2022.[4] Approximately 75 million people are employed in the textile, clothing and footwear sector worldwide. Most of them are women. The industry is buyer driven which means that corporate giants such as H&M, Inditex, Primark or Kik usually do not own any of the factories they produce with, yet they basically control them. Their buying power lets them dictate where to produce, what to produce and at what prices. This, together with the rise of fast fashion, a business practice where the brands change their collections in very short time frames, puts enormous pressure on farmers, factory owners and workers. Supply chain transparency is another big issue.

Ways to gain power for workers

One way for workers to turn their often poor labour conditions into good or at least better conditions, has always been by organizing in independent labour unions and subsequently force the employers to negotiate collective agreements. However, this is easier said than done because anti-union practices are widespread in the global garment industry. Even though fundamental rights to join a union and bargain collectively are guaranteed in the big brands’ code of conducts and through various certification schemes, reality on the ground often looks very different.[5] Hence, the percentage of unionised garment workers in today’s main producing countries is very low.

Another way for workers to gain collective power and a higher level of self-determination is by organizing into worker cooperatives. Here, the workers collectively share the ownership of their workplace. Consequently, their work benefits themselves and their local communities rather than just filling the pockets of external shareholders, bosses or factory owners. However, there are currently just very few garment factories operating as a worker cooperative. In the first step of the value chain though, there is already a considerable amount of smallholder cotton farmers who are organized in cooperatives, primarily because together it is easier for them to sell their product and it also allows them to reach a higher price.[6]

Revolutionizing our garment value chain by becoming a platform coop

As of today, our immediate supply chain consists of three main partners. We buy 100 percent organic cotton for our fabric via Fair&Organic from India. The Social Cooperative Humana Nova receives these fabrics and sews them into t-shirts. Printex finishes these shirts with screen prints using water based eco-colours. Counting in the employees of the small manufacturers Fair&Organic works with, the combined number of people working for these three partners is likely to be around 50 to 60. It is safe to say that at least half of them in one way or another work for us during the realisation of a certain project. We should of course not forget all the additional people involved in logistics and transportation as well as in the raw material production. The products offered on our platform/website are only possible through the combined efforts of farmers, mill workers, fabric cutters, patternmakers, sewers, truck drivers, just to scratch the surface.

Now, imagine if all these hard working people were to become co-owners of the dna merch platform.

The co-ownership model would not only allow them to raise their voices concerning issues that affect them (e.g. delivery times, labour costs/wages and working hours), it would also make them eligible to a share of the surplus revenues generated by the platform.

And now try to imagine if all the other people in the value chain will become co-owners as well, those who will be using the platform to buy t-shirts and other garments either for their own use or to source and retail. If implemented properly in a truly inclusive way, this will lead to a fully democratised value chain in which both consumers and producers are empowered likewise. The technology for them to finally meet on eye-level and practice solidarity through direct interaction and trade is available. With the dna merch platform we want to put it in practice.

But why would it be so empowering to facilitate that sort of direct interaction between consumers and workers/producers? Two popular beliefs in today’s mainstream sustainability debate are that a) consumers have the power to make globalization fair and sustainable by shopping ethically and consciously, and b) that companies, to build trust in consumers, should certify their supply chains and guarantee universal standards through the means of independent audits.

While there is absolutely no doubt that our day-to-day shopping decisions matter and can drive companies to adjust and change their policies in a progressive way, it is way too easy to put all the responsibility in the end consumer’s pocket. We think it is hardly possible to always filter all products according to their social and ecological footprint and always make a conscious and ethical decision without going crazy, especially when the majority of products are known to be produced under poor conditions. What’s most important though, is that an approach which solely relies on the consumer power tends to treat workers in the global south as passive subjects who depend on our goodwill and help. Hence, it hinders us from seeing them as people just like us and makes it harder to create relations on eye level.

Audits are problematic, too. The vast majority of them has proven to be merely a paperwork exercise and does not lead to sustainable improvements of working conditions. A study from 2016 titled “Ethical Audits and the Supply Chains of Global Corporations” concludes that audits “are ineffective tools for detecting, reporting, or correcting environmental and labour problems in supply chains [and] they reinforce existing business models and preserve the global production status quo.” As with the consumer power argument, the biggest problem with audits is the passive position that the workers are put in.

We believe that it is the people themselves who know best what needs to be improved at their workplace or their favourite product. So, equipping people with the right tools to connect directly with each other, and putting them in a position where they no longer depend on powerful and manipulating intermediaries like most of today’s corporations are, they will figure out ways that benefit all those involved. With the dna merch platform coop we are determined to set out and prove it.

Lean proof of concept: Focussing on our status-quo

With our platform we want to address three dominant problems of the garment industry, i.e. lack of fairness and democracy, non-transparent prices and supply chains that hinder buyers from making informed decisions, and the fact that there is currently no easy way for workers and consumers to directly connect with each other.

To get things going we will make use of what we already have, a transparent supply chain for t-shirts with a self-organised sewers cooperative at the core, our existing website with a lot of transparent information and a network of customers comprising of trade unions, music bands, retail shops and crowdfunding supporters. We have various functionalities planned for the platform and will add and test them step by step along the way. First, we will add options to start one’s own crowdfunding campaigns and group orders. The idea is to make it possible for bands, organizations and individuals to initiate t-shirt pre-order campaigns to collectively pre-finance the production costs. If wished, users can add a margin on top of the costs to raise money via a public campaign.

Over time, we want to extend the product portfolio and offer not just customized printing on standardized garments but also enable e.g. young fashion designers to realize their first collection through the platform.

In terms of our organizational restructuring process from a German civil law partnership towards a platform coop with a legal structure yet to define, we aim to have an established organisation by mid of 2019 with at least 5 co-owners each from our producer part and the consumer/retailer part of our value chain (e.g. 3 workers from the sewers cooperative, 2 from the print shop, 1 band, 2 crowdfunding supporters, 1 fashion designer, 1 graphic designer)

Our biggest challenges and questions

1.       How exactly could a membership and governance structure look like in practice?
2.       How can we convince our stakeholders to embrace the undertaking of becoming a platform coop?
3.       What are the arguments and incentives that are valid for everybody?
4.       Which ones differ between the various actors?
5.       How will we ensure real participation of the coop members?
6.       Which tools and forms of communication will we need?
7.       How exactly will the business model look like?
8.       Transaction fees, membership fees …
9.       Coop shares
10.       Sales of own collections
11.       Consulting services for onboarding further producer partners
12.       Commission fees for fashion designers who win contracts through the platform from other users?
13.       How exactly can we make use of the Blockchain technology and other recent inventions that foster decentralisation?
14.       Which tools are readily available that we can make use of?
15.       Which impact on membership will the power imbalance in our supply chain most likely have, e.g. the fact that other than the     sewers cooperative all other partners are conventionally structured businesses?
16.       Should co-ownership of the platform become a prerequisite for being able to access all services and functionalities of the platform?

Call to action

We need and want more people to get involved in this!

Please get in touch by briefly mentioning what aspect interests you the most and where your expertise lies. We definitely need people with a technical background, people with experience working in coops, people with knowledge of the garment industry, social media and marketing experts, organizational theorists and probably a lot more that we cannot think of right now : )

Also, please feel free to reach out if you just want to comment on the idea as such or on one of the questions and challenges mentioned above or if you would like to add another one.

We are grateful for every input and consideration that you share with us!

You can best reach us via email or you can directly comment on the document here.

Doreen & Anton

[1]

[2] See https://www.startnext.com/dnamerch and https://www.startnext.com/dna-merch-vol-2

[3] For more info visit https://platform.coop

[4] See https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/ecommerce-fashion-industry

[5] See e.g. http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Global-Brief-1-Ethical-Audits-and-the-Supply-Chains-of-Global-Corporations.pdf

[6] See e.g. https://www.ica.coop/en/media/news/small-scale-farmers-achieve-a-26-higher-share-of-consumer-price-when-organized-in

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Growing together with others: an interview with Ela Kagel of SuperMarkt

In this conversation Ela Kagel describes how the collectively-run project SUPERMARKT emerged and developed over the last years. Based in Berlin, the aim of the project is to provide a space in which a curated program goes along with the self-organized work of local and international initiatives. Putting a thematic emphasis on open source technologies, collaborative practices, and alternative economies, the notion of the commons plays a central role for SUPERMARKT. It allows for connecting a critical approach to digital culture with aspects of governance and economic development. The diverse program is considered to be an on-going experiment for the translation of global and theoretical issues into daily community practice – and vice versa.

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Darren Sharp: Commercial sharing platforms like Uber and Airbnb have reshaped the transportation and housing sectors in cities and raised challenges for urban policy makers seeking to balance market disruption with community protections. Transformational sharing projects like Shareable’s Sharing Cities Network seek to strengthen the urban commons to address social justice, equity, and sustainability. This article presents a summary of my recent journal paper “Sharing Cities for Urban Transformation: Narrative Policy and Practice” for a special issue of Urban Policy and Research. In the paper I show how narrative framing of the sharing economy for community empowerment and grassroots mobilization have been used by Shareable to drive a “sharing transformation” and by Airbnb through “regulatory hacking” to influence urban policy.

Op-ed: The city has become an important battleground for the sharing economy as commercial platforms like Uber and Airbnb leverage network effects and urban clustering through two-sided marketplaces. This poses a range of complex urban policy challenges for governments, especially in relation to infrastructure planning, public transport, housing affordability, and inequality. These commercial sharing platforms continue to disrupt legacy services, raise tensions between private and public sector interests, intensify flexible labor practices, and put pressure on rental vacancy rates.

Bold experiments for transformative urbanism like the Sharing Cities Network, launched by Shareable in 2013, tell a new story about the sharing economy. This global network was created to inspire community advocates to self-organize across dozens of local nodes and run MapJams and ShareFests to make community assets more visible, help convene local actors, offer policy solutions to local governments, and re-frame the sharing economy’s potential to drive transformational urban change. At the same time, Sharing Cities have gained formal support from various municipal governments including Seoul and Amsterdam through policies and programs that leverage shared assets, infrastructure, and civic participation to create economic and social inclusion.

The narrative framing of the sharing economy by different actors plays an important role in shaping urban policy. The Sharing Cities Network has developed a narrative of the sharing economy as a transformational global movement founded on inclusive sharing and support for the urban commons to address social justice, equity, and sustainability. Airbnb claims to “democratize capitalism” to support the “middle class” in its story of the sharing economy and uses this to mobilize hosts to influence urban regulatory regimes amidst a growing backlash against commercial home sharing’s impact on housing affordability, racial discrimination and “corporate nullification,” or intentional violation of the law, arising from its business practices.

The Sharing Cities Network encourages local actors to organize face-to-face and online in multiple cities simultaneously and connects diverse stakeholders including individuals, community groups, sharing enterprises, and local governments. Yet the Sharing Cities Network remains open to co-optation and contestation from commercial sharing platforms with thousands of staff, millions of users, and sophisticated public policy coordination at their disposal.

The Sharing Cities Network emerged at a time when the commercial platform Airbnb was encountering widespread regulatory pushback from numerous city governments including Barcelona, New York, and Berlin. In 2013, Airbnb began using grassroots lobbying tactics through the industry-funded organization Peers that it co-founded and co-funded with other for-profit sharing economy companies. Peers used Airbnb hosts to lobby New York state lawmakers, with similar efforts taking place in other jurisdictions in coordinated attempts to modify hotel laws in favor of short-stays home sharing. Airbnb honed its experiments in mobilizing grassroots support in San Francisco where it funded a successful campaign to defeat the Board of Supervisors Proposition F ballot to, amongst other things, cap the number of nights a unit could be rented on shortstays platforms to a maximum of 75 nights per year. Airbnb spent over $8 million to defeat the ballot using a sophisticated blend of mixed media advertising, door knocking and host activation, as political organizer Nicole Derse from 50+1 Strategies who co-led the “No on F” campaign observes:

The campaign had all the modern bells and whistles you’d expect of an effort backed by a Silicon Valley giant. Still, we also ran one of the most aggressive field campaigns San Francisco has ever seen. Over the course of 11 weeks, our staff and volunteers knocked on more than 300,000 doors, made some 300,000 phone calls and had over 120,000 conversations with real voters. We got more than 2,000 small businesses to oppose Prop. F. In fact, our Airbnb hosts took the lead in this campaign, hosting house parties, organizing their friends and neighbors, and leading dozens of earned media events. 

These campaign tactics draw on social movement theorist Marshall Ganz’s “snowflake model” of distributed leadership and small-group community organizing that were used to great effect during former U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign. Washington DC-based startup incubator and seed fund 1776 have described Airbnb’s approach to defeat Proposition F in San Francisco as “regulatory hacking” — “a strategy combining public policy and alternatives to traditional marketing for startups to successfully scale in the next wave of the digital economy.” Chris Lehane, ex-aide to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, was hired by Airbnb to orchestrate the “No on F” campaign and give it the appearance of a grassroots effort that made hosts “the face of its defense.”

The Sharing Cities Network created the conditions for grassroots actors to demonstrate that another sharing economy grounded in cooperation, solidarity, and support for the urban commons was already underway through a “sharing transformation” in communities around the world. At the same time, Airbnb used “regulatory hacking,” political campaigning, and grassroots mobilization to remove policy blockages to commercial home sharing in key city markets to further its growth ambitions. The Sharing Cities Network succeeded in framing a new story about the sharing economy based on community empowerment that was co-opted by Airbnb’s Shared City narrative and its development of Home Sharing Clubs. These dynamics of “transformation and capture” are further explored in the new paper “Sharing Cities for Urban Transformation: Narrative Policy and Practice.”

Header photo by Timon Studler via Unsplash

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Nithin Coca: In 2009, the world hit a watershed moment. For the first time in human history, a majority of people were living not in rural areas, but in cities. Since then, the growth in cities has only accelerated, and the United Nations estimates that 66 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050.

A new report, “Rethinking the City,” by the Ireland based Complexity Labs, an online platform for research and content on complex systems, argues that we’re undergoing a period of urban transformation that requires us to develop new, technological systems for managing, organizing, and designing urban environments. Their findings are summarized in this video.

Cities, by their very nature, are incredibly complex. Change often happens faster than officials can react — leading to problems like informal settlements, inadequate services, or high rent and gentrification.

In fact, cities might not even be the right framework to think about urban areas anymore. In February of 2016, Parag Khanna’s TED Talk on megacities showed how the growth connectivity meant that clusters of cities were bound together. In many parts of the world, however, there is little coordination across megacities and regions due to our outdated institutions.

Complexity Labs argues that the dominant system for managing cities — an industrial era centralization and bureaucracy — is not able to scale to the challenges of rapid urbanization. At the same time, the decisions cities and megacities make today will impact the global economy and environment well into the future.

One of the structural changes that the report authors call for a shift towards distributed systems and peer-to-peer interaction, arguing that technology and online platforms for coordination will allow for distributed scale in ways that was not possible before.

We see this happening already around the world as Sharing Cities in which both formal and informal networks allow residents to share resources, knowledge, and take part in local governance, are developing innovative ways to address urban challenges. For example, in Berlin, Germany, food sharing is connecting farmers, foragers, and residents to reduce waste and build community across the city. In Gothenburg, Sweden, the digital ridesharing platform Skjutsgruppen has 70,000 members sharing vehicles and rides via a nonprofit network. Other places have started involving citizens directly in policymaking — Taiwan created ride-share policies after receiving input from residents. In the U.S., people in Oakland and Boston are taking part in participatory budgeting projects. Shareable’s new book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons” has a number of case studies and policies of similar initiatives around the globe.

As more and more people move to cities, and put stresses on existing institutions, the future of megacities depends on the growth of genuine Sharing Cities, platforms, and a more collaborative economy. It’s time to rethink cities — and rethink how sharing can scale through the use of technology.

Header image of Tokyo by Steven Diaz via Unsplash

The post How to Rethink the Cities of the Future appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Andreas Arnold: Germany’s capital city Berlin has a thriving sharing and collaborative economy, thanks in part to think-and-do tank OuiShare. Since 2012, the group has facilitated a lively exchange of dialogue and action in many different formats, which has led to a strongly connected network of over 200 different projects and more than 1,000 individuals. In 2014, a group of sharing experts launched SharingBerlin and took the community building efforts to a whole new level. For two years, an exhibition and networking event called Share Fair (2014, 2015) brought together around 65 important players from the scene. After mapping Berlin’s collaborative economy ecosystem, the group started to engage with local politicians and the government to create an official Sharing City. While this hasn’t panned out yet, sharing projects continue to flourish in Berlin. Even without the official recognition of Berlin as a Sharing City, projects have been flourishing in the fields of food, mobility, money, and more.

1. Food

Mundraub (“theft of food”) is the largest online platform for the discovery of foraged food. It allows people to map locations, connect with others, and create actions to pick free fruits and vegetables. The group also organizes a harvest and offers plant care and other activities. Meanwhile, the organization Foodsharing offers tools for people to share leftover food. Another community food initiative is AufHaxe. The group’s mission is to encourage “cooking and partying in your neighborhood.” People are split into teams, and each team can choose to prepare an appetizer, a main dish, or a dessert, and invite another team over for one course. After each course, the teams split up and move to another team member’s home for the next course. At the end of the day, each team member eats three courses (each one at a different house), connects with 12 people, and participates in a huge party with all the members. Some of the food prepared at these cooking events come from FoodAssembly, a platform that connects organic farmers and buyers at local markets.

Photo of community harvest courtesy of mundraub

2. Mobility

The P2P cargo bike-sharing platform Velogistics is a community treasure. It facilitates a commons-based culture of sustainability and DIY by connecting borrowers and lenders who want to share cargo bikes, usually for free. The founders of the platform also maintain Werkstatt Lastenrad (“workshop cargo bike”), a site with information on DIY building and repairing of cargo bikes. Workshops like Regenbogenfabrik (“rainbow factory”) and local bike stores offer donation-based repair sets and knowledge for self-service. If you need to borrow a bike, you can choose between the free bike sharing group BikeSurf or other bike rentals like Call a Bike and nextbike.

Photo of a cargo bike ride along the old airfield of Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, courtesy of Andrea Künstle/velogistics.net

3. Item Sharing

The LEIHBAR (meaning “rentable”) runs a library of things, via a digital platform. It offers a network of pickup stations (mainly 24/7 convenience stores, community gardens) and provides users  convenient and time-saving access to items of daily use. Drills, projectors, tents, and many other items can be rented via the website for a small fee, making the user experience comparable to professional car sharing. The project’s social impact lies in its system design for circular economy. Partnering with tool producers (ex. Bosch), LEIHBAR convinces sales-orientated companies of circular business models and incentivizes longer product life times, reparability, and modular design. The longer the products last and the better they can be repaired, the lesser the toll on the environment.

Photo of item delivery, lending locker, and pick-up station at an urban garden, courtesy of LEIHBAR

The community-based sharing store concept LEILA has already become well-known worldwide and has inspired at least 10 other cities to launch similar projects. Members of the community donate and share items that can be borrowed by others. To ease drop-off and pick-up, the store established a reliable infrastructure run by its members. Users who cannot find a desired item via this channel still have a chance to browse the local P2P platform Fairleihen.

4. Work

At the cooperative CZY WRK, digital workers, freelancers, and artists are welcome to share mutual work assignments, profits, and certain securities to overcome down-periods. The group believes strengthening its network will benefit all participating individuals.

Closely entangled with CZY WRK is the coworking space SUPERMARKT, which is recognized as one of the key players of the German platform cooperative movement. The group’s conferences and workshops like “Co-op Futures” (June 2017), “Platform Co-ops — Start your own!” (Dec. 2016), and “Community Value” (Sept. 2016) regularly bring together local and international influencers. Another flagship in the Berlin coworking scene is Betahaus (meaning “beta house”). Established in 2009, it offers various rooms, event spaces, and woodworking facilities, where a lively maker community found its origins. Still quite new, the Agora community’s spin-off CRCL hosts a coworking space and a community garden.

5. Money

The nonprofit organization Mein Grundeinkommen (“my universal basic income”) raffles off unconditional basic incomes of 1.000 €/month. Each person who wins receives a monthly transfer for the duration of one year, so 12.000 € in total. The team is interested in finding out what happens, if a society has the financial resources to focus on life-goals rather than on just basic needs. As of now the project has fulfilled the dreams of 105 universal basic income winners who are eating more healthy food, able to afford education, travel, and save.

Photo of the Mein Grundeinkommen team, courtesy of Christian Stollwerk

6. Communities

Das Baumhaus (“The treehouse”) is an open socio-cultural project connecting, inspiring, and empowering its members and local changemakers working for transition to sustainability. The project space was crowdfunded and collaboratively developed by more than 300 people of the community. Nowadays the team fosters the community with regular cooking sessions, concerts, workshops, and other events like the yearly Emergent Berlin gathering.

Photos of the space, community dinner, and concert, courtesy of Das Baumhaus

Another excellent example for a thriving community in Berlin is Prinzessinnengarten (“princess garden”). After occupying some wasteland in the center of the city in 2009, the group — along with friends, activists, and neighbors — cleared away rubbish, built transportable organic vegetable plots, and reaped the first fruits of their labor. Thanks to the openness and entrepreneurial skills of the team, the urban garden gives room to a self-managed, cozy restaurant underneath the trees. The restaurant is supplied by vegetables and herbs grown in the garden. There’s also a nursery, beekeeping area, repair workshops, flea markets, and an access point to pick up LEIHBAR items. It also features several spin-offs like Material Mafia, a recycling project for construction material.

Photos of Prinzessinnengarten: community gardening, nursery and plant sale, neighborhood event, courtesy of Marco Clausen 

7. Bottom-up mass movements

Driven by its own bottom-up community building over the last couple of years, Jolocom focuses on establishing private key applications that allow users to connect to online networks and manage private data to be shared with the platform at the same time. The principle of “own your data” is maintained on a blockchain. Similarly Resonate is a blockchain-based service for streaming music that is cooperatively owned by the people who make it great: musicians, fans, and developers. Both examples show how network value can be distributed among the community to generate new benefits like privacy, cost-effective access for users, and fair payments for producers.

Photo of demonstration for safer bicycle lanes courtesy of press archive Volksentscheid Fahrrad

The list of interesting projects could go on and on, because the collaborative ecosystem draws its power from people who question the status quo. This practice is not just common for the sharing movement, but for general bottom-up cases in Berlin. It explains why Volksentscheid Fahrrad (meaning “referendum bicycle”), the civil society’s answer to the mobility and bicycle policy of the city administration, has been very successful. The campaign has received 100,000 signatures from bicycle enthusiasts who are demanding better bicycle lanes, bicycle parking spaces, and car-free zones. One step behind, but promising as well is the movement BürgerEnergie Berlin (“civil energy Berlin”) reaching out to purchase the Berlin electricity grid.

Photo of a demonstration for residents to purchase the electricity grid courtesy of BürgerEnergie Berlin

Please visit Berlin and experience our local collaborative economy. I’ll be happy to guide you through the ecosystem.

Header graphic courtesy of Andreas Arnold

The post 7 Reasons Why Berlin is a Successful Sharing City appeared first on P2P Foundation.