Sharing Cities Briefing by Friends of the Earth

Agyeman et al. (2013). Sharing cities

This paper highlights the importance of the shared public realm in the history and development, and more recently, in the re-imagining of politics. We argue that the neoliberal, hegemonic model of development in the modern world prioritises private interests at the cost of shared interests. Instead, we suggest that a cultural rebalancing is overdue: one that gives much greater recognition and credit to the shared public realm in our cities (both physical and metaphorical); one that supports a revival of ‘conventional’ sharing – namely of the city as a whole as shared space – as well as a blossoming of novel forms of sharing; and one that recognises and affirms the ways in which the opportunities afforded to individuals in cities are founded on the collective efforts and actions of whole communities.

To demonstrate the opportunity in sharing, after a brief consideration of the historical roots and development of sharing, this paper explores four key questions:

• what is currently – or could be – shared;
• why is sharing desirable;
• what enables and drives sharing; and
• what opportunities are there to both enhance sharing and overcome barriers to it?