Within REFLOW, six pilot cities tested diverse approaches to circularity in cities by focussing on the flow of resources in urban settings and on the “making” aspect to empower citizens and engage various governmental and industrial partners.
Excellent short introduction on the city of Bologna, Italy, and why its history lends itself very well to a culture of co-ops. Over the last few decades, it’s been in the habit of various instances there to have the city act as both a “top-down catalytic developer” and as “backers of bottom-up grassroots movements,” combining the two approaches and cultivating complementary initiatives, which results in stronger partnerships that strengthen the local ecosystem.
Here’s an excellent written version of a talk given by Adrian McEwen (in 2015), one of the co-founders of DoES Liverpool, which is “(sort of) a makerspace (and more) in Liverpool.” His talk, The Dark Matter of Makerspaces, covers quite a bit of ground and offers some great tips and insights, not only for people running makerspaces but any kind of community space, or even many community-focused organisations.
One way of dealing both with consumerism and tighter budgets is to have access to shared resources. In this interview with Gene Homicki, co-founder and CEO of myTurn, we can learn a bit more about how people are starting and running libraries of things.
In the field of pastry, there are different flavours of doughnuts, in the field of economics, it seems there are various sizes of doughnuts. The original idea was for planetary and country-sized circles, “the goal of the Doughnut is to meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet, but what does this mean for the neighbourhoods, cities, districts or nations where we live?” Last year we looked at how Amsterdam is circling, how cities, in general, can do it, and at doughnut reading clubs.
