We’ve written about the commons a few times in the past, and this piece by Eula Biss is probably the best one. Although not directly related to cities, since she looks at the more traditional agricultural village-based commons, it’s an excellent explanation of the concept and its history, extremely useful as background for any discussion about other forms of commons.
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.
They are not new, but refill shops are growing in popularity. The UK for example, “now has hundreds of refill or zero-waste shops, helping people reduce packaging.” I’m posting this short article for a few reasons, first because it’s interesting to see how value-based commerce can often be better integrated into their neighbourhood while also including other good practices. Gather, whose founder is interviewed in the article, holds events to gather (pun intended) the community in her space but also built it up differently than other businesses.
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.
