ryday. In a post published by the P2P foundation, Darren Sharp defines how sharing cities are about creating pathways for participation that recognise the City as Commons give everyone in the community the opportunity to enjoy access to common goods and create new forms of shared value, knowledge, and prosperity. And he tells us about the importance of this kind of vision as an alternative to the “the top-down, technologically deterministic vision of the future we so often hear about in discussions of Smart Cities and the Internet of Things – – a vision , he states, “dominated by sensor networks, data mining and myriad opportunities for corporate and government surveillance.”
A good example of how this new trend in sharing cities is gaining momentum is Christchurch, a city in New Zealand, where in the aftermath of an earthquake in 2011, an experiment in urban regeneration is being done. Another example is the Agrocité in the suburbs of Paris.
The discourse of sharing will definitely shape our cities in novel ways, so long we are attentive to the excesses of big companies acting under the same “sharing” umbrella, and we dare to act to find fairer alternatives.
Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.