This great piece by Sheila Foster, From Vacancy to Decommodification: Co-Cities and the Enabling State, was part of a symposium on decommodifying urban property, held by the LPE Project (Law and Political Economy). In it, Foster shows how the commodification of property can be replaced by a community-oriented vision, and how homes and shared resources can be managed in land trusts, instead of as private property dealt on the speculative market.
We’ve spoken about the concept of the circular economy a few times already, but it’s definitely worth another look when a mainstay of economic discourse such as the Financial Times comes out with not only one piece but a whole report on the topic.
The way media coverage is shared around networks often means that we end up talking a lot about larger cities, but those are not the only places where inspiring change is happening. In this excellent piece at Shareable, we discover some fantastic work being done by co-ops in the small town of Morganton, in the foothills of western North Carolina.
Excellent article at WIRED UK, proposing that people hate the idea of car-free cities until they live in one. Which sounds about right. I’m sharing it here for two reasons. First, the topic itself; fewer cars, more and better public transport, more cycling, this combination tackles a number of huge issues for cities. Less pollution, less traffic, better health for citizens, fewer carbon emissions, etc. The second, less obvious reason, is as an example of an unpopular but essential change becoming the new normal.
The climate crisis will play out (is playing out) in various ways, two of them are more frequent and more extreme weather events, and another is temperatures rising unevenly. Some countries, and especially some cities, are already being hit hard.
