Originally intended to protect defendants from unnecessary indictments, grand juries have recently been used to investigate and intimidate innocent activists. New York City legal activist Jerry Koch is only the latest victim.   

It might seem ironic that the only place you can’t practice your 5th amendment right would be a federal courtroom, considering its just such a place the amendment was designed for. It might seem ironic that a process designed to protect people accused of serious crimes can be used to imprison people for up to 18 months who have committed no crime without bringing charges against them. It might, unless you know about grand juries.

Grand juries are an old feature of the English common law, and were originally designed to make sure that prosecutors couldn’t bring cases about serious crimes against people without evidence. The grand jury determines, before the trial, whether the prosecuting attorney has enough evidence to continue with the case. Since it is an evidentiary hearing that could effect the outcome of the trial, the grand jury is completely secret, usually just with the prosecutor, the jury and the witness giving testimony in the room.

But throughout the 20th century, grand juries were used to bully political “enemies” of the state. From union organizers to Communist Party members to Black Panthers to enivronmental activisits, federal grand juries have been used by the government as a tactic of harrasment and information gathering. Witnesses subpeonaed to the grand jury cannot have their lawyer with them, and cannot refuse to testify. Despite fifth amendment rights, refusing to speak to the grand jury can result in contempt of court charges and the resister spending the length of the grand jury in jail, which can be as long as 18 months.

Thus, by acting on one of your most basic and core rights, in a room with no judge and no council present, you can be de-facto convicted of contempt (the prosecutor would need to bring you in front of a judge to rubberstamp the contempt charge) and thrown in jail to languish for the duration of the grand jury process.

Just such a prospect is facing a New York City legal activist and anarchist: Gerald Koch is being subpoenaed regarding a bombing in 2008, a bombing that broke a window and hurt no one, and that he was subpoenaed for once before, in 2009. Not because they suspect him of being involved, but because they think he may have overheard information about it in a bar. As Jerry has put it in a public statement:

Given that I publically made clear that I had no knowledge of this alleged event in 2009, the fact that I am being subpoenaed once again suggests that the FBI does not actually believe that I possess any information about the 2008 bombing, but rather that they are engaged in a ‘fishing expedition’ to gain information concerning my personal beliefs and political associations. 

Last year, four anarchists in the Pacific Northwest faced a similar grand jury over vandalism on May Day 2011: two spent five months in jail, a third spent seven, all of them spending much of that time in solitary confinment, despite the fact that they committed no crime. Jerry faces a similar possibility of jail time. By refusing to speak to a grand jury, they stand up for the safety of their friends and for their rights, and they face serious consequences for doing so. What does it say about our “free society” when it jails citizens for asserting their rights in a completely closed process absent a judge or a lawyer?

If you're in the New York area, Jerry's subpoenae date is 10:00am on May 16th, and people are going to pack the court room at 500 Pearl St. You can learn more about Jerry’s case, and how you can support him, at Jerry Resists.

Image by Brian Turner, licensed under Creative Commons.  

 
The April launch of the Digital Public Library of America brings the knowledge-sharing we love about local libraries to the internet. 

This article originally appeared at Shareable.

 

Harnessing the power of collaborative learning and DIY science, California’s Maker Faire aims to combat throwaway culture by giving young people the tools and inspiration to invent.   

This article originally appeared at Shareable.  

Since 2006, Maker Faire has provided a space for inventors, tinkerers, builders, crafters, and wannabe-scientists to showcase their creations with the intent of encouraging others to dabble in inventing something themselves. With large-scale kinetic sculptures racing and roaming the grounds, science experiments with electronics and activities like clothing and apparel re-purposing stations on site, participants are encouraged to touch, ask questions, and take what they learn into their own workshops for some fun experimentation outside of the Maker Faires' big top.

Sherry Huss, vice president of Maker Media, doesn't look the role of a lab-coat wearing mad scientist that one might expect to be a Maker Faire organizer. There are no beakers popping up and bubbling over in her office. She wears no tool belt as she navigates the work spaces of Maker Media's headquarters in Sonoma County, California. Yet, as anyone who has attended a Maker Faire may believe, Huss has the stuff that genius is made of. Every year, she meets with her small planning team and formulates the clever uses of time and space for what is referred to in their tag line as “The Greatest Show and Tell on Earth.”

“We do it the old fashioned way, with post-it notes and lay them out. And it somehow always magically works out,” says Huss. “You have to get your head into it because everything that is happening on site is intentional. There are very few things that just come together,” she added.

And what comes together for roughly 100,000 visitors after months of tireless planning is quite brilliant.

In addition to seeing a nearly 40 percent increase in new exhibitors each year, the contagious spirit of Maker Faire continues to spread from the Maker's Bay Area headquarters to the rest of the world. With annual events in San Mateo and New York, and over 100 mini-Faires or satellite events internationally (including Rome, UK and a rotating country Maker Faire Africa, among others), Maker Faire has an accessible, inclusive vibe that leads many to start tinkering with or concocting projects of their own.

“Making is all over. It’s not just the Bay Area,” says Huss. “We don't own the license on it...there are tinkerers everywhere.”

Space is free for makers, and event organizers only charge a small fee if an exhibitor plans to offer items for sale. Maker is also careful with the selection process, focusing on non-commercial exhibitors and ensuring that all of Maker Faire's inventive action is family-friendly and safe. Especially with so much up-close-and-personal, hands-on DIY participation.

“People are there showing their projects and sharing how they made them,” says Huss. “Our goal is to make Makers. People who come to the Faire get the confidence to become a Maker.””

Based on feedback from previous years' attendees, demos and hands-on craft projects and exchanging ideas have been the biggest draw. Naturally, organizers continue to foster the collaborative learning that happens at the annual events that span two days. This year's theme is Maker Spaces, which is sure to be a huge hit among DIY enthusiasts. Similar to model homes and the nifty kitchen design displays at big box stores, Maker Faire will showcase these Maker Spaces to plant seeds of empowerment in the minds of aspiring makers from all walks of life. What defines these spaces, however, is not simply the presence of tools and a simple tool bench, but the act of making itself.

“Just look at Mister Jalopy, chronicling the decline of the work bench in the garage,” says Huss. “Garages now are mostly just storage places. They used to have a work bench. The toaster broke, you didn't get a new one; you took it out and fixed it. I am hoping that this movement will swing it back that way.”

Although the days of dad tinkering with old radios and small appliances on his work bench in the garage were often solitary escapes, the makers and fixers of today tend to have a more collaborative focus. In addition to crews of several hundred helping hands, sponsors and organizations collaborate to ensure that the festivities go on without a hitch. In Detroit, they collaborated with The Henry Ford Museum and Research Center. In Kansas City, they had help from the Kauffman Foundation. Portland partnered with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

Huss isn't directly involved in programming for all of the Faires outside of New York and the Bay Area, but she provides training opportunities for those interested in setting up their own events, ensuring that the infectious Maker spirit spreads to the garages and minds of the aspiring tinkerer in all of us. After all, Maker is not just a one-time event. More than anything, Maker is a way of life that brings together communities in a too-often competitive culture, and encourages--above all else--collaboration, innovation, and fun.

“I think there is a lot of (interest) with continuing education and the Maker Space community,” says Huss. “Like the old grange where people came together; usually around food. It is so cool for people to come together to make things,” she concludes.

Image by Bridgette Vanderlaan, Maker Faire.   

This post originally appeared at Shareable. 

Forty percent of the food in the U.S. goes to waste. Let’s sit with that for a minute. Almost half of what we produce is going to the landfill. Meanwhile, over 50 million Americans live in food-insecure households. Ouch.

There are changes we can make in our own lives to adjust those numbers. By looking with a critical eye at what gets thrown away and reducing our own food waste we can raise awareness about the issue. We can also contribute to, volunteer with, support, and start organizations that save food from landfills and get it into the hands, and stomachs, of those going without.

Boulder Food Rescue is one such project. Powered 90% by bicycle--that figure only drops to 80% during Colorado’s freezing winters--BFR picks up food that would otherwise end up in dumpsters and distributes it to over 40 organizations including soup kitchens, low-income schools, elderly homes, low-income family units and homeless shelters. In the last year and a half, the organization has rescued over 250,000 pounds of food.

Boasting a team of over 120 volunteers, BFR has its system down to a science and those involved with the project would like to see their food rescue model adopted by other cities. They’ve created what they call The Package Deal; a step by step guide to starting a food rescue program complete with tips, resources and materials. Issues addressed include coordinating with stores, building a team of volunteers, finding recipients, utilizing the media, finding bikes and equipment, and creating a plan for long-term success.

An inspiring example of what’s possible with some planning and a lot of human-power, BFR is transforming its community and demonstrating the potential of resource sharing, starting with the food we eat.

 

Image by Boulder Food Rescue. Used with permission.  

Follow Cat Johnson on Twitter.   

  
That's me and my OpenROV co-founder Eric Stackpole working on a prototype underwater robot. 

This post originally appeared at Shareable. 

Don't get me wrong, I like collaborative consumption. I think Airbnb makes the world a more interesting place, allowing people have more authentic travel experiences. I love TaskRabbit. I use it all the time for errands. I've written about tool libraries for MAKE Magazine. I get it. Access is certainly more appealing that ownership. For my lifestyle, at least.

But I still think collaborative consumption is overrated compared to the other side of the sharing economy coin: collaborative creation. The true potential of a networked, peer-to-peer economy is just starting to show with the maker movement. And it's not just about what we can consume together, it's about what we can create together.

Sure, collaborative consumption can help you earn some side money, subsidize car ownership, or have a more human-centered vacation, but rarely can it help you learn new skills, build a small business, or drive a new industry. Collaborative creation is about building new forms of wealth, not just sharing it. Collaborative consumption isn’t designed to create high-skilled, meaningful livelihoods for users. From personal experience, I believe that the skill-building, job-creating potential of the maker movement is more important than a new way to consume. It can address one of society’s biggest problems -- high unemployment, especially among young adults like myself.
   
As Chris Anderson eloquently described in his new book, Makers, the Internet is the prototype, the model for how to create with wide participation. And now we're seeing the same surge of creativity with stuff, and it's changing the way we experience the objects in our lives. From 3D printing to makerspace communities, Etsy to Kickstarter, the maker infrastructure is maturing to a stage where literally anyone can make significant contributions.

I've had a front row seat to this emerging trend. I've been writing the Zero to Maker column for MAKE, chronicling my journey from total beginner to improving amateur. After losing my job in 2011, I felt I didn't have much of a choice. I knew I wanted to get out from behind the computer, but I also had zero technical experience. Luckily, I found the maker community to be friendly and empowering.

I started an open-source underwater robot project with my friend (and hero) Eric Stackpole. In the last year, OpenROV has grown from a conversation between me and Eric into an award winning open-source project as well as a fledgeling business. We're not making much money, but we're fine with that. We've found something much more valuable: a global community of collaborators who are working hand-in-hand to democratize ocean exploration. The experience is rich in community as well as what Eric and I refer to as "Return on Adventure."

 
 The OpenROV underwater robot in action. 

My Zero to Maker experience at TechShop has been a shining example of the true potential of the sharing economy - both collaborative creation and consumption. The tool-access afforded by the makerspace was critical in my development, because without the shared-resource model my plight would’ve been impossible. But the real value - the meat on the bones - was the way members and staff supported our project. OpenROV simply wouldn't exist without the communities that have supported us: TechShop, Kickstarter, and the larger maker community.

It’s the process of creation that instills meaning into the products we use. Consuming together can’t inject meaning in the products around us. Moving away from a culture of rampant over-consumption will take much more than changing our eating, driving, and buying habits.  It’s going to take a whole suite of new values, technologies, and experiences. The maker movement is an opportunity to build that re-imagined future.

Perhaps the most encouraging news is that it's more accessible than ever to get involved. It seems that every maker I meet had a similarly warm welcome. Each feel a duty to pay it forward, which builds a culture of inclusion and possibility. The tools that seemed so intimidating when I got started, like 3D printers and CNC machines, each came with someone, either local or online, who did a great job teaching. Even something as crazy as an open-source underwater robot project was able to find a supportive home.

The experience has opened my eyes to the potential of collaborative creation. Lucky for you, anyone fluent in collaborative consumption already has many of the skills needed to thrive in the maker world. After all, they’re just two sides of the same movement.

David Lang is the co-founder of OpenROV as well as the author of the book-in-progress, Zero to Maker. 

 
Photos courtesy of Jeppe Hein and Shareable.
 

This article originally appeared at Shareable. 

Jeppe Hein, a Danish artist known for creating experiential art, has put an interesting twist on park benches by populating the town of De Haan in Belgium with his eye-catching “modified social benches.” The benches, which range from the super-comfy-looking to the seemingly unsittable, are intended to bring people together in unexpected ways and make them more aware of their surroundings.

While they look enough like traditional park benches to be recognizable as something you sit on, Hein’s benches have features that break the park bench mold: tight angles, slopes, missing pieces, loops, dips, closed circles and more. With their unusual shapes, the benches are conversation starters and people magnets and they add a fun touch to public spaces.

Of the benches Hein says, “With their modification, the spaces they inhabit become active rather than places of rest and solitude; they foster exchange between the users and the passers-by, thus lending the work a social quality.”

No choice but to sit ... together.


Is it a gazebo or a bench? You choose.
 

 
A bench and slide, great for families and hipsters.


The tête-à-tête taken to a new level.

This bench seats many and orders space in the park.

The nap bench.

Photo by Tax Credits, licensed under Creative Commons.  

This article originally appeared on 7x7.com and is reprinted with permission. 

September 17, 2010. At a monthly gathering of 50 executives, I listened to a one-minute piece of advice from each about Shareable, the nonprofit online magazine I cofounded a year earlier. We believe that sharing our resources is more fulfilling than our outdated earn-and-spend MO and that sharing can address issues like poverty and global warming. Due, in part, to the recession, a wave of sharing platforms have cropped up, making it possible to create an entire lifestyle based on sharing cars, housing, nannies — even money. In that meeting of the minds, one message broke through: If I want to lead a movement toward a new sharing economy, I need to show the world how I, myself, share in everyday life. So began my year of living the shareable life, which I chronicled on shareable.net. Unsure at the outset whether my experiment would make a difference, I began in January of 2011, armed with the knowledge of several Bay Area-based services that help people share. I tried about 30 ways to share and saved a ton of money. Here are the highlights.

Experiment No. 1: Sharing Cars
I donated my beloved 1986 Volvo surf wagon to charity back in 2009. For the most part, I rely on my bike and public transportation and use my wife’s car on weekends. But, when her car isn’t available, I rent cars the old-fashioned way — at Enterprise. Each time I rent, I’m forced to endure the robotic corporate ritual of being pitched insurance. I say no every time. Finally at my wit's end, I decided to rent my next car from a human.

Enter Getaround, an online peer-to-peer car sharing service that helps you find a car in your neighborhood or rent out your own by the hour or day. I’ve been able to find cars at half off the price of major rental companies, and Getaround handles the details. Of course, sharing isn’t always easy; Getaround is only available in a few places (SF Bay Area and Portland), and the process can be inconvenient. Once you make your rental request, the car owners must accept before you get the keys. They might not check their email. And they can turn you down.

My first Getaround rental was from Sara, an eco-minded paralegal who lived near my house. After storing my bike in her garage and eating strawberries from her aquaponic garden, she handed over the keys to her Toyota Scion, known as DaffodilPickle on Getaround. As I got in the driver's seat, I thought of my nightmare scenario — wrecking the car of this sweet person who is trying to do something nice for the environment. Assured that the car was insured by Getaround, I drove away thinking, “Holy shit. I just rented a car from a stranger!”

The bottom line: Going car-free saves money. AAA estimates that driving a big car costs 92.6 cents per mile in all. At the national average of 10,000 miles a year, that’s more than $9,000. By sharing cars in 2011, I saved $4,000. 

Lending Club offers solid returns for social lending. Photo by Jeremy Vohwinkle. L icensed  under Creative Commons. 

Experiment No. 2: Breaking Up with the Bank
After a long, tumultuous relationship with Wall Street, I broke it off permanently in 2011. The abuse was just too much. Our bank, Wells Fargo, had skimmed $1.8 billion in unnecessary overdraft charges from its clients, and my wife and I lost $10,000 in stocks thanks to mismanagement by our retirement fund manager.

So we cashed in everything we could. We sold stocks or bonds that seemed risky and decided to give LendingClub a try. Why not lend money to strangers? It may not sound like the safest bet, but the advantages of social lending are compelling.

Social lenders broker online deals between individual borrowers and lenders at better rates than what banks offer. For instance, instead of the sub-one-percent return I used to get from my savings account, I’m now earning nine percent, LendingClub’s average. This is within spitting distance of long-term stock market returns (around 12 percent if you invest passively in an index), but with much less risk and volatility. LendingClub makes it safe to invest, sorting loans by risk, return, and term. The service encouraged me to make small $25 loans to many people. I found the loans I wanted in 30 minutes.

In one year, I’ve invested about five percent of our retirement savings in LendingClub. No defaults yet. One late payment. Investing this way is more work than a savings account or a mutual fund — I have to regularly reinvest — but it’s worth it. In 2011, my LendingClub income was $508 at a 9.2 percent annual return. That’s $148 more than I earned in the stock market in 2010. (I’m a horrible stock market investor.)

Experiment No. 3: Redefining the Rental
I needed a hotel for five nights in New York. After searching first on Hotels.com and finding a string of rooms all priced at more than $300 a night, I decided to check out Airbnb, the San Francisco-based peer-to-peer service where you can find private vacation rentals and short-term stays or host travelers in your own home. It was there that I booked a one-of-a-kind stay in a cabin inside a loft — you heard right — for $75 a night in Brooklyn.

When I arrived at my cabin-in-a-loft, my architect-host Terri served me a frosty beer and her delicious, homemade organic vegetable chili. Sitting at her kitchen table, Terri told me how she hoped the cabin would be a cozy little getaway inside her big open space. She also shared her tips for local restaurants and offered me a homemade brownie for dessert.

Terri’s warm welcome set the tone for my stay, and I went home feeling uplifted. I felt good about the world. And I saved more than $1,000. 

Experiment No. 4: Coworking
In March of 2011, my nonprofit, Shareable, moved into Hub SoMa, a 20,000 square-foot open-plan office shared by companies including The Biomimicry Institute and Change.org. For folks who would otherwise work at home or in a coffee shop, the Hub is appealing because of its community-focused coworking space that brings a certain amount of serendipity to the office. On any given day, opportunity may meet you on the spiral staircase — that’s where I scored from Hub CEO Cory Smith a rubber stamp that says, “This once belonged to:” (perfect for a swap) — or at the host desk, where Roe Cummings gave me a great tip for a story on Shareable. I even landed a $6,000 grant for Shareable on a lead from a fellow member.

Here’s how it works: Pricing is structured much like a gym membership, letting you pay based on your level of use, from 25 hours a month to a full-time private suite. Next year, Shareable will pay just $4,700 for our three employees (who have memberships ranging from 25 to 50 hours a month). My membership is $119 — $56 less a month than my old desk in a depressing office.

Working out of Hub is flexible, low-cost, and has no administrative overhead. Plus Shareable doesn’t have to negotiate a lease or worry about utilities, cleaning, or security. It’s all included. Approximate savings: $2,000 a year. 

Hub SoMa offers a ready-made office space to be shared. Photo by Sarah Brooks.  L icensed  under Creative Commons. 

Experiment No. 5: The Nanny
My biggest savings came when our son, Jake, was born. We’re two working parents, and the idea of leaving him, just a tiny child a few months old, alone with strangers repulsed us. And we couldn’t afford a private nanny, which would cost us around $35,000 a year. We decided to investigate nanny sharing.

The trick is to find the nanny first. Once we had her, other parents felt more comfortable because they could see what they were getting into. For two years now, we’ve shared our nanny, Vilma, with two other families. She’s great. She stays with Jake on weekdays at our house. Our friends, Tam and Stuart, drop off their daughter, Taryn, three days a week. Maryann and Mark drop off Kayla on the remaining days.

I think we’ve been lucky. The arrangement is more flexible than daycare, and we found a nanny Jake loves. She provides a high level of care and is perfectly reliable. Of course, if Vilma calls in sick, one of us has to call in sick. But we’re not responsible for the other family’s childcare in case of a last-minute cancellation. We all save money, and our nanny makes more than she would working for just one family. It’s a win-win-win. Savings in 2011: $10,800. Plus, we’ve made new friends for potluck dinners, and I get to spend time with Jake on days that I’m working from home. Priceless.

My year of living the shareable life taught me some surprising lessons. The toughest to swallow is that the modern world isn’t designed for sharing — yet. In most states, renting your car to a neighbor may put you at risk of losing your insurance should your neighbor wreck it. And, in New York, it’s actually illegal to rent your apartment for stays longer than 30 days. Change is difficult. I’m no Pollyanna.

But the architect Buckminster Fuller once said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Those 50 executives were right: The world needs role models in order to make change. I hadn’t thought my blog would make a difference, but I was wrong. My story was picked up by Fast Company, Sunset, and NBC Nightly News, reaching tens of millions of people with the message that sharing is both good for the soul and a savvy financial move. At the end of the day, I reaped the personal reward of sharing with my neighbors. And I have an extra $17,000 in my pocket. 

This post originally appeared at Shareable.net.  

The future of the cultural commons looked dim in December 2002: Napster had been shuttered a year earlier, while record labels treaded warily into selling DRM-locked music online. The FCC dismantled regulations forestalling the consolidation of media ownership. And as the housing bubble inflated, privatization — of media, public space, scientific and technological research, even the military — became the watchword of the day.

A decade later, the cultural commons remains threatened, but stands on somewhat firmer ground. The record industry abandoned its futile efforts to lock music to users or devices, a costly lesson movie studios and book publishers seem determined to learn for themselves. An emerging generation of cultural producers acknowledge that “good theft,” as Austin Kleon puts it, is a fundamental part of the creative process. And Creative Commons — a once heretical notion to develop a copyright system for cultural works based on the principles of open source software development — is celebrating its tenth year.

Founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, then a Stanford Law professor, and a board of directors that included Duke Law School’s James Boyle and Eric Saltzman of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Creative Commons announced its first copyright licenses on December 16th, 2002. In an announcement, the organization’s Executive Director Glenn Otis Brown stated “One of the great lessons of software movements is that the choice between self-interest and community is a false choice. If you’re clever about how you leverage your rights, you can cash in on openness. Sharing, done properly, is both smart and right.”

The organization — and the larger free culture movement in general — is not without critics, now and then. Some are intent on rehashing arguments about the dubious economic and artistic value of retaining inalienable and irrevocable rights to intellectual property. Purists take exception to licenses that state “some rights reserved.” More pointed critiques question the efficacy and impact of Creative Commons, observing that the licenses remain untested in many courts, are often embraced by creators as their careers are either on the ascent or descent.

But anyone holding their breath for the Rolling Stones or Michael Bay to embrace Creative Commons might want invest in ventilators. Meanwhile, the purists’ definition and parameters of what constitutes free culture remain situated, as such notions often do, at the fringes of culture and academia.

 

The pragmatic critiques hold more weight: A decade in, the organization and its licenses has achieved only modest success in the courtroom. Creative Commons has been ported to over 70 jurisdictions globally, it has only been upheld in a handful of court cases.

More important, perhaps, is the cultural capital accrued by the principles that Creative Commons champions. These concepts are taking root in the mass psyche, albeit incrementally. They’re espoused by bestselling author Jonathan Lethem, whose Harpers essay “The Ecstasy of Influence,” a manifesto comprised of scraps from other texts, makes a powerful case for the artistic value of preserving a free, widely accessible, and endlessly mutable shared cultural heritage. Lethem writes:

Artists and their surrogates who fall into the trap of seeking recompense for every possible second use end up attacking their own best audience members for the crime of exalting and enshrining their work. The Recording Industry Association of America prosecuting their own record-buying public makes as little sense as the novelists who bristle at autographing used copies of their books for collectors. And artists, or their heirs, who fall into the trap of attacking the collagists and satirists and digital samplers of their work are attacking the next generation of creators for the crime of being influenced, for the crime of responding with the same mixture of intoxication, resentment, lust, and glee that characterizes all artistic successors. By doing so they make the world smaller, betraying what seems to me the primary motivation for participating in the world of culture in the first place: to make the world larger.

The free culture movement that Creative Commons helped kickstart has provided legal support and ample publicity to struggling creators like filmmaker Nina Paley. It’s been embraced by unlikely institutions such as The World Bank, whose Open Access Policy requires that its research papers are licensed under a CC Attribution license. News outlets such as Wired and Al Jazeera release works of photojournalism to the commons, while the likes of Naturerelease genomic research under the license.

As was the case a decade ago, the future of Creative Commons and the free culture movement may be predicted by developments in the open source community. In recent years, git, a version control system for software development, has become a prevailing way for coders to collaborate, share, and build upon each others’ work. The most mainstream iteration is GitHub, a public hub for developers to easily connect, collaborate, and iterate on code. Using GitHub, modifying an existing project to serve your own needs or goals is as easy as clicking the “fork” button.

Increasingly, GitHub is not only hosting code. Designers are posting editable templates and Illustrator files to the site, while GitHub Pages hosts writing by forward-thinking bloggers, journalists, and authors.

The notion of a platform that makes it easy to create new and modified versions of creative works, while retaining chains of attribution back to those that have come before, may seem radical to some, untenably geeky to others. But as Creative Commons has demonstrated for the past decade, software development is a creative and collaborative process from which artists and other cultural creators can learn much, to enrich their work by preserving and building upon our shared cultural heritage.

Images by Tyler Steinfanich and Dawn Endico, both licensed under (you guessed it) Creative Commons.  

 

This post originally appeared at Shareable.net.  

Rural electricity and telephone co-ops are one of the great sharing success stories in American history—largely due to coordination by the federal government. In 1934, only 11% of farmers had electricity compared to 90% in Europe. Private electric companies refused to serve many rural customers or price gouged them when they did. The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was formed in 1935 to fix the problem by providing technical assistance and loans to electric cooperatives. Less than 20 years later, practically all farms had power due largely to electric co-ops.

The REA was such a success that the same strategy was used in the 40s to make telephone service available in all rural areas. The Rural Telephone Administration matched the success of the REA. To this day, 1.2 million rural residents are members of a telephone co-op.

The US government's success in boosting rural economies through cooperative development is a largely forgotten story that couldn't be more relevant today. For instance, in creating jobs.

Member owned cooperatives are a proven economic development strategy the world over, and were recognized as such by the United Nations which declared 2012 The International Year of the Cooperative. The democratic ownership and management of cooperatives creates stable enterprises and jobs. Yet, none of the $20 billion in loan programs available to rural cooperatives are available to urban ones. This is despite the fact that 80 percent of Americans now live in cities, with some of the highest poverty rates in the country.

Last year, when cooperative groups were visiting Congressional offices on the Hill in support of USDA programs, Congressman Chaka Fattah, who represents an urban district in Philadelphia, asked why co-ops in urban America didn’t have similar support. A year later, a bill developed by Fattah and cooperative groups—the National Cooperative Development Act—aims to bring technical assistance, revolving loans, and startup capital to co-ops in cities across America, recognizing that co-ops are a vital and long-term economic development model.

HR 3677 would set up an organization based out of the Housing and Urban Development Administration and administered by a separate non-profit to implement the kinds of support needed specifically by co-ops. The bill would also set up a revolving loan fund for loans for machinery, buildings, and the other startup costs. Currently with 13 cosponsors, the bill will be reintroduced in 2013 in the new session by Congressman Fattah, with more bipartisan support, according to his office.

“The fact that cooperatives are seeing a resurgence in urban areas shows the strength, diversity, and staying power of the movement. I really believe that cooperatives are an excellent means for economic development and community enrichment,” said Congressman Fattah, whose family shops at the Weaver’s Way grocery co-op in Northwest Philadelphia and sees the co-op model as a solution to urban food deserts, amongst other problems.

Compared to the rest of the federal budget, the program is tiny—$25 million in HUD support over five years. But it's a start, and would be official recognition that co-ops are still an excellent way to create strong local economies and local jobs in the era of globalization.

A lot of the grants would be re-granted through the cooperative development centers that work as hubs, knitting together state-wide networks.

One critical thing that the Rural Utilities Service (part of the US Department of Agriculture's rural development area) does is direct co-ops through the maze of low-interest loans and grants not specifically directed at co-ops, but for which co-ops are eligible: programs to fund telemedicine, biorefineries, programs specifically for people of color and women, grants for high energy costs, and a lot more. Those programs totaled $21 billion last year for rural America, capital that in cities is often very hard to come by but does exist in other nooks and crannies of the federal budget.

“A really big problem for growing cooperatives is that they often have difficulty expanding their operations because they cannot raise sufficient capital. Either because they can’t raise the funds from their existing members or they may not be able to get loans from organizations that don’t quite understand the cooperative business model,” said Congressman Fattah.

“A second key problem is lack of knowledge… Many new cooperatives are filled with people who have the energy and enthusiasm to start the cooperative and get it moving, but they may not have the specialized knowledge that is needed to ensure that the co-op continues operations long after that initial burst of enthusiasm runs out.”

Peter Frank is the Advocacy Manager for Cooperation Works, the national network of co-op development centers. He is working on the national campaign for HR 3677, getting cooperators in various states to spend some of their times making visits to elected officials and getting to know their Congressperson.

Frank is also in year five of organizing a food co-op in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia. He and a group of organizers have put together a community membership of 270 people, and are aiming for 750 members by the time their business opens. The idea is indeed catching on in Philadelphia, with its tight-knit neighborhoods and participatory culture: there are currently seven food co-ops starting up in various neighborhoods.

“When you set up a co-op, you’re not just setting up a business, you are setting up a democratic organization to run that business,” said Frank. Accounting is different. Membership is new. The bylaws are different. You don't dazzle a couple of investors - you build support from the community, member by member, worker-owner by worker-owner.

Looking at the success of co-ops in rural America, you can see a pattern of latticework: members of one supplies-purchasing co-op are often members of another co-op to take their produce to market—a mutually reinforcing system of deepening relationships and community resiliency. In the recent economic downturn and this summer's drought, the number of cooperatives had shrunk while co-op employment went up; the USDA speculated that a number of co-ops chose to merge rather than close.

It's very similar to the 50-year experience of the largest system of cooperatives in the world, Mondragon—256 interlinked companies with over 83,000 employees, operating in Spain under the slogan "Humanity at Work." In the recent documentary Shift Change, Mondragon emerges as successful precisely because humanistic business principles are simply better for the community, longer-lasting, and more able to withstand the winds of economic change.

As American cities turn to alternative models of finance and ownership in the blindingly obvious breakdown of our free-market, private enterprise system, co-ops do seem to be emerging. Telephone co-ops plunged ahead for 20 years before the federal government got involved.

Hopefully, this time, it won't take so long. The forward-thinking New York City Council this year funded Brooklyn's Center for Family Life to train two community organizations in co-op development (they've already help start 6 co-ops so far, all with a focus on immigrant communities.) But federal funding dwarfs what cities need, especially cash-strapped cities whose populations are paying fewer local taxes.

Compared to the default method of economic development—which usually involves giving tax breaks to lure an out-of-town corporation—local co-ops may be one of the best ways to bring quality jobs back to America.

Want to start a co-op? See Mira Luna's article on Howto Start a Worker Coop. 

Image by the USDA, licensed under Creative Commons.  

 

This post originally appeared at Shareable.net.  

Ahh, Thanksgiving, a day dedicated to community, abundance and gratitude. In an ideal world, this could be the theme of every day, but we all know how it goes: life is a fast-moving train and expressions of gratitude oftentimes get left at the station. Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to give thanks and to give back. Below are some ideas for having a community-driven, gratitude-inducing, Shareable Thanksgiving.

Share Food  

Invite people you'd like to get to know better to share a Thanksgiving meal. How to Host a Stranger Dinner offers advice on how to organize it.

Put your meal to music, throw a Thanksgiving concert in your home. How to Host a House Concert provides the how-to’s.

Meals on Wheels serves over one million meals a day to seniors in need. Volunteer to deliver to someone in your community.

Volunteer to help at a soup kitchen. DoSomething.org has some ideas on how to get started.

Host a potluck, Thanksgiving-style. How to Reinvent the Potluck provides tips on using a potluck as a means of planning more sharing and community-building projects.

Some areas have community meals, open to anyone who wants to spend Thanksgiving with their community at-large. These gatherings are a great way to meet your neighbors, connect with your community and share in the abundance of the holiday. Contact your city officials or search the web to see if there's a Thanksgiving community meal in your town.

Share Skills & Stuff 

Have a skill you’d like to offer to others? This skills-based volunteer program connects those who have something specific to offer (carpentry, coding, gardening, graphic design etc.) with those who can benefit from a particular skill-set.

Many homeless people have limited access to personal care items. This Thanksgiving, Family-to-Family’s Stuff a Shirt for the Homeless campaign is encouraging people fill a new or lightly-used bag or shirt with supplies including toothpaste, soap and shampoo. There is also a need for baby bags, with diapers, wipes and clean clothes. The organization will help you find a drop-off point near you.

Many are still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Volunteers are needed to help with everything from clothing and food drives to drywall removal and debris clean-up. New York Cares and the HandsOn Network are two of the many organizations that are coordinating volunteer efforts.

Help out at a homeless shelter. The National Coalition for the Homeless has extensive resources and a database to find a shelter near you.

Many volunteer opportunities are based on local needs. Check with organizations in your area to find out what you can do to help your community with its immediate needs.

Use Thanksgiving as a springboard into year-round volunteer work. VolunteerMatch connects volunteers with a number of nonprofits and community programs.

Practice Gratitude 

Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to introduce the idea of gratitude to children. The Imagination Tree has arts and craft ideas to get the gratitude ball rolling. The UC Berkeley News Center offers ways to teach kids gratitude instead of entitlement. How to Teach Your Kid to Share has some interesting ideas and resources related to sharing, community and abundance.

Take time to think, feel and express gratitude. Need a prompt? Four Reasons to Thank Everyone in Your Life provides a great jumping off point.

And Explore Other Ways to Share During Thanksgiving 

Shareable’s How To Share guide has lots of resources and how to’s on sharing, a number of which can be modified for Thanksgiving.

Tell us how you're having a Shareable Thanksgiving in comments. And enjoy the holiday!

Image by David Goehring, licensed under Creative Commons.  

 

This post originally appeared at Shareable.net.
 

The Public Banking Institute blog cites a powerful example of how a public bank can help a city bounce back from a devastating natural disaster. As Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts unfold, there's a lesson from history about the role of strong local financial institutions in increasing urban resilience.

In April of 1997, Grand Forks, North Dakota, was hit by record flooding and major fires that put the city's future in jeopardy. One of the first economic responders was the Bank of North Dakota (BND), currently the only public bank in the U.S.

What's a public bank, you ask? Public banks are owned by citizens through their government. They have a public interest mission, are dedicated to funding local development, and plow profits back into the state treasury to fund social programs and cover deficits. Rather compete with private banks, BND partners with private banks to meet the needs of North Dakotans. BND is one reason North Dakota has low unemployment and runs budget surpluses while most states are deeply in the red.

As a public bank, BND was able to respond to the '97 flood in ways that a privately owned bank could not or, perhaps, would not. While Sandy's wrath cost dozens of lives and an estimated $60 billion, Grand Forks' suffered $3.5 billion in losses -- a lot of damage for a town of 50,000, which saw flood waters inundate a staggering 75% of area homes. Fortunately, no one died.

Right after the flood, the Bank of North Dakota got to work, established a disaster relief loan fund, set aside $5 million to assist flood victims, and set up additional credit lines of around $70 million:

• $15 million for the ND Division of Emergency Management

• $10 million for the ND National Guard

• $25 million for the City of Grand Forks

• $12 million for the University of North Dakota, located in Grand Forks

• $7 million allocated to raise the height of a dike at Devil's Lake, about 90 miles west of Grand Forks

Other financial institutions hurried to catch up and match the offer, as BND worked with the Department of Education, the Federal Housing Administration, the Veterans Administration, and other federal and state agencies to provide student and home loan relief to flood victims. Due to quick recovery efforts, Grand Forks lost only 3% of its population during recovery while similarly devastated East Grand Forks, across the river in Minnesota, a state without a public bank, lost 17%.

That's what is possible with a public bank: people come first. But it's not all altruism. As a local financial institution, The Bank of North Dakota's future was partly tied to a healthy recovery.

I wish New York and New Jersey speedy recoveries. If you live there, I encourage you to start or get behind a public bank initiative to shore up local resilience. Twenty states, including New York, have initiatives underway to create public banks. The Public Banking Institute has a guide to local initiatives here.

In the mean time, here's ten ways you can help the recovery effort.

Image by DVIDSHUB of a much smaller flood in Minot in June 2011, licensed under Creative Commons. The Bank of North Dakota was similarly involved in relief efforts in Minot, including providing low-interest loans for residents and businesses affected by the flood.     

 
An Ithaca Hour 

[Editor's note: Aside from looking cool, community currencies are a grassroots answer to economic uncertainty and the high concentration of wealth amongst a very few. They encourage local spending and remind us to consider where money goes after it leaves our wallets. If we buy a rake from the local hardware store rather than a franchise superstore, for instance, we help sustain a neighbor as opposed to an already-rich business owner several states away. By keeping money circulating amongst community members, local currencies reward businesses invested in the community and encourage a self-sustaining interdependence. Local currencies are not meant to replace the almighty dollar, but they do offer some assurance to small and midsize businesses facing a weak economy. As Joel Stonington noted in an Utne.com piece, "Local Currencies Aren't Small Change," money can be used to serve people rather than to rule them, creating abundance, stability, and sustainability. The article below explains how to develop your own community currency and was originally posted on Shareable.]  

 

 
The Lewes Pound, a local currency in the town of Lewes, England. As Thomas Paine said, "We have it in our power to build the world anew." 

“Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies ... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.” - Banker Mayer Amschel Rothschild

The centralized creation of money and credit has a profoundly negative effect on local economies, sovereignty, and cohesiveness. Bankers value profit at all costs, while locally-controlled institutions tend to hold other values - like community, justice and sustainability - more highly.

Communities can regain control of the flow of money and credit by issuing their own currency as a complement to conventional money, as electronic barter networks, debit cards, mobile phone payments, Timebanks, LETS, or old-fashioned cash.

By altering the flow of resources, community currencies take power away from multinationals and put it in the hands of more accountable local entities. While community currencies can't be too similar to or compete with national money, most countries allow it and some, like Venezuela and the E.U., support their development. Mediating underemployment and poverty are often prime motivators, or specific purposes like small-business incubation, caregiving for seniors, community gardens, or providing healthcare for the uninsured, according to CNN.

 
The Brixton Pound 

Starting a community currency is not for the faint of heart. It takes a dedicated team years of effort. Learning from others' experiences is essential. Here are some tips I gleaned from the experts and through my own experience.

Find a group of people with common ground that are easy to get along with.
It's important to share goals and values with your core group, otherwise your project will be pulled in many directions. You may split into separate projects at some point; that's often better than trying to duke it out with people who want to do their own thing. Focus on quality volunteer recruitment. Don't get discouraged when people come and go.

Define your goals and prioritize them.
Do you want to support local business or low income folks? Do you want encourage ridesharing or reward senior care? You may have many goals - currencies can have an effect on many problems - but be clear about your priorities and target audience as this will shape all of your decisions, including what kind of currency you use.

“A currency is never an end in itself, but has to be seen as a facilitator of flows within the system of a whole community and economy," said John Rogers, who teaches how to start currencies at Value for People in the U.K. "Its essential systemic role is to match underused assets and unmet needs.”

The community meetings I held attracted all kinds of personal agendas and wingnut plans that had no practical application. Your goals will be your compass.

Pick your tool appropriately and make it easy to use.
Currencies are not one-size-fits-all. It is crucial that you pick the right tool, with the option to expand into multiple tools later. It should be as easy to use as the other kind of money. REAL Dollars of Lawrence, KS ended because businesses didn't have an easy way to spend them. Vermont Businesses for Social Responsiblity switched to open source software for their business to business exchange to customize their interface and make it as simple to use - a very smart investment. The books at the end of this article can help you decide what type of currency might work best.

Know your community.
If your tool is online, but your community is mostly offline, it won't get used. Bernal Bucks of San Francisco chose a swipe debit card with loyalty points. A more rural area like Corvallis, Oregon is more of an off-line community, so a paper currency isn't too slow for this small town.

How does your community use money, what are its assets and what does it need? Design a plan based on the reality of your community, not just on your own ideals. Whether you are working with businesses, nonprofits or community members, survey them or conduct focus groups to test the new currency before you finish your design.

Do your homework and get a mentor.
Choose a group that's done a project similar to yours. Look up case studies that have worked (there are many mirages of success). Community Currency Magazine is a good resource for case studies and interviews and the Complementary Currency Database can help you search for mentors in your area. Many people sail out on a currency expedition without a map. Learn from others mistakes. Your membership and partners will trust you more if you've done your homework.

Define your governance and organization structure.
Like any project you need good governance. John Rogers harps on this point: “Some people tell me off for going on about the importance of governance in getting community currencies to fly. They say a well-designed CC ‘should run itself’. That’s a nice theory, but I don’t know any CC that has stood the test of time without some form of governance at work, i.e. someone making decisions.”

People will expect responsible and transparent governance for a resource as valuable as a currency - that trust determines its value. Encourage diverse community participation and representation in your governance, especially from your members. If you want to operate as a volunteer or worker cooperative, see my article on worker coops. Bay Area Community Exchange is a hybrid of a member and a worker coop, though many currencies are either run as traditional nonprofits or business bartering exchanges. 

Your decision to be a business or nonprofit will be determined by your goals, and currency type. Only entities that have charitable or educational aims can be nonprofits. That's not to say your business can't operate like a nonprofit, but you won't be eligible for grants and donations, though you may be able to get small investments, like Sonoma Go Local did from its community and business members.

Define your geographic area.
It may be helpful to incubate your currency in a smaller community, like Bernal Bucks did in a small neighborhood of San Francisco. However, a wider geographic area may provide the diversity of services and goods that makes a currency useful. Too wide an area though, like the Southwest, may be meaningless and not effective in building trust and solidarity. Ideally, it would be an area diverse enough to provide most of the necessities of life, and small enough to allow direct exchange, community-building and accountability. Regional currencies, like the Cheimgauer in Germany and Berkshares in Massachusetts have done well partly for this reason. If you don't grow food in your community, you may want to expand your reach to farming areas. If you haven't lived in your area for long, ask for advice from long time locals who may have sense of the resources and their flows.

Outreach through events.
Hosting events to promote your currency and attending other groups' events raises consciousness, develops alliances, recruits members/users and volunteers, and builds community. Think about your target user audience and meet them where they are at. Swapmeets and skillshares are useful demos of the currency that give a more concrete feel. Offer to speak, host a booth, or organize trading at relevant conferences, festivals, markets and other events to promote your currency to potential members that are allied in values.

Bay Area Community Exchange organized a large sustainable living festival with over 40 workshops and 300 attendees using member skills and hours. The event increased trading and registrations by a factor of 10 or more for the month before the event and a couple weeks after. A similar boost happened around its Timebank Holiday Fair. Corvallis Hours, a bastion of homesteading, hosts an annual Harvest Festival where members have a market for “selling” their homemade goods for Hours.

Develop partnerships and take them seriously.
Find allied organizations to help recruit members/users, develop programmatic partnerships and raise your status in the community. An ally may serve also as a fiscal sponsor to bear the burden of organizational tasks while you focus on organizing. Choosing partnerships should depend both on your goals (e.g. pick an environmental organization to support gardening or a social justice organization to reach low income groups) and their ability to provide support, such as event space, outreach, trainings or programmatic development. A good way to begin a partnership is to do a presentation to their staff and then ask them if there is one small thing they'd like to achieve by using the currency, like a website upgrade, and help them do that. Partnerships work best as a two-way street.

Ithaca Hours gained credibility and usefulness by partnering with local public transit for bus passes. Berkshares partnered with local banks for savings accounts and currency distribution. Hour Exchange Portland and other successful timebanks have worked with local healthcare organizations to accept credits from low-income members – a highly valued service that increases the value of the currency.

Keep the circulation flowing.
Bernard Leitaer, who is often considered the godfather of community currencies and helped design the Euro, says “...this is where a lot of community currencies have failed. They have neglected to close complete circulation patterns, and as a result...it tends to pool in particular parts of the system.” To keep the energy flowing, identify unmet needs and underutilized resources in your community, especially those not served by the conventional system. Be a match-maker. If seniors need companionship and your pet shelter needs socialization for its animals, or you have unemployed people without job skills and a nonprofit or business startup that needs volunteers, you may have a match.

One of the biggest mistakes is assuming the currency will do everything itself. One or more exchange coordinators are vital, particularly in the beginning. Visiting Nurse Service of New York’s Timebank has a bilingual or trilingual coordinator for each targeted community. Regular communication through email, newsletter and your website reminds members what's offered and needed, and the importance of mutual aid. Otherwise, members forget and default to using money. Many currencies publish quarterly newsletters with directories of offerings.

 

Working on circulation means creating ways to both earn and spend currency. Equal Dollars of Philadelphia developed a food market, clothing store and bike shop. They partnered with local nonprofits so members could earn hours by volunteering, paid their staff partly in Equal Dollars, and made micro-loans in Equal Dollars. MORE Timebank in St. Louis created a community college, where people could spend hours by taking classes, and earn hours by teaching. Another way to increase circulation is to target entities with high demand goods like beer (Detroit Cheers currency) or services, but make sure they don't over-commit themselves. One popular health food store ended up frustrated with loads of hours that they couldn't spend and quit. Set up limits to make it more sustainable, like using vouchers during slow business hours only or on over-stocked goods.

Use your currency to fund your currency.
Hey, the government does it, why can't we? As long as members agree it's a good use of resources, don't be shy about using your currency to pay staff, reward volunteers, put on events, or do marketing. Ithaca Hours uses its currency as a reward for attending organizing meetings and swapmeets. Bay Area Community Exchange supports its volunteers by giving hours for outreach events, trainings and tech projects related to its key functions. This is controversial amongst community currency theorists, because the other side of the coin is corruption and inflation. The Red de Trueque, a currency used by a third of Argentina's residents during its economic crisis, collapsed because of fraud and mismanagement due to a lack of transparency and accountability.

Currencies are notoriously hard to fund. Relying on external donations, as did Berkshares, can make the short-term sustainability of your project slightly more likely, but the long-term more precarious. Using your currency to fund your project is also good practice in learning how to use it. Membership or transaction fees are also a good practice. However, it's helpful to lower the barrier to entry as much as possible in the first year or two so you have more members offering diverse skills and goods to increase your currency's value (fees may slow that process). Think about the option to pay member dues with volunteer work to support your currency project. A sparse directory with few members is not likely to encourage trading, as the now defunct Berkeley BREAD discovered. One of its most active members realized the currency she was earning with her counseling services, would not be useful for anything she needed and she quit being a provider. Alternatively, if you have lots of useful stuff in your store, people will flock to it.

Don't give up but be willing to change directions midstream.
Currencies take at least a few years to establish. In the meantime, you'll have fun, make friends and get some of your needs met. The Ithaca Hour project was the result of diehard tenacity and a small Americorps stipend that kept founder Paul Glover going for 3 years in the incubation stage. Some made it by adapting their strategy as they went along, like finding out the type of currency or organizing strategy was not appropriate for the community context or goals and  changing directions. New Earth Exchange in Santa Cruz went through several incarnations over the last several years to find the right one instead of being stuck on their first idea. Now they are pioneers integrating an online business bartering exchange with a paper currency called Sand Dollars.

Have fun! It's a lot of work. Have fun doing it and you are sure to grow.

Online Resources: 

Community Currency - from Good Idea to Sustainable System by John Rogers

Community Currency Guide by Hallsmith and Leitaer

Community Currency Magazine 

Complementary Currency Database 

Books: 

People Money: The Promise of Regional Currencies by Kennedy, Lietaer, & Rogers

Local Money: How to Make it Happen in Your Community by Peter North

Creating Wealth: Growing Local Economies with Local Currencies by Hallsmith and Lietaer

Consultants: 

John Rogers http://www.valueforpeople.co.uk/ 

Paul Glover http://www.paulglover.org/currencybook.html 

Mira Luna mira (at) sfbace.org

Philip Belpasso playing the flute at Zuccotti Park, Wall Street Protest March, September 26, 2011, Financial District, New York. Photo by PaulSteinJC, licensed under Creative Commons. 

This post originally appeared on Shareable. Introduction by Neal Gorenflo, Publisher of Shareable 

One of the legacies of socialist “Red Vienna” in the 1920s is a huge stock of quality housing owned by the city available at below-market rates. This not only makes affordable housing widely available, it keeps a lid on overall housing prices. This undoubtedly adds to the appeal of prosperous Vienna, voted as the world’s most livable city in 2011.

Even though this historical anecdote is relevant today, considering the damage done by a speculative housing market run amok, we never hear about it. Mainstream discourse about cities is dominated by free-market, pro-growth ideas that has continued unabated even after the flaws of capitalism were made glaringly obvious by the 2008 financial meltdown. The Floridas and Glaesers of the world carry on with their growth-talk as if the crisis never happened (and global warming doesn’t exist). If you believe the future will be made in cities, then this trading in failed ideas doesn’t bode well for the future.

What’s missing in this dialogue is a profound but ignored truth: The commons is the goose that lays the golden eggs. Without the commons, there is no market or future. If every resource is commodified, if every square inch of real estate is subjected to speculative forces, if every calorie of every urbanite is used to simply meet bread and board, then we seal off the future. Without commons, there’s no room for people to maneuver, there’s no space for change, and no space for life. The future is literally born out of commons.

Another pollutant in the popular discourse about cities is the idea is that they are the solution to our great crises. This is wildly naïve. Rapid urbanization is a symptom of systemic problems, not a solution. Our global trade regime is driving the enclosure and destruction of our remaining commons and ruining local agricultural markets, making it impossible for rural populations to survive. As Mike Davis observes in Planet of Slums, rural poverty is driving much of the migration to cities, not mythical opportunities. The poor are being pushed more than pulled.

Cities hold great promise, but they are not yet the engines of transformations we need them to be. We need new ideas.

Harvey’s new book Rebel Cities tempted me and I was richly rewarded. His analysis of the market’s role in creating social inequalities offered a more convincing view of urban processes than I’ve gotten anywhere. It was as if gum were cleared from my eyes.

And while Harvey is a Marxist, he’s no demagogue. Rebel Cities offers enlightening critiques of liberals, anarchists, and even commons advocates. When it comes down to it, Harvey stands for something as American as apple pie—cities by the people, for the people. I will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone who shares that idea, whatever you call them.

I asked my friend Chris Carlsson, a co-founder of Critical Mass, to interview Harvey as he explored similar themes in his book, Nowtopia. Below is a recent e-mail discussion between Carlsson and Harvey which I think you’ll find fascinating no matter your political persuasion. Alone, Harvey is not the complete tonic, but I hope the interview broadens your view of cities like Rebel Cities did for me.

 

The gentrification blues at work on a Noah's Bagels in Seattle, Washington. Credit: Tedeytan. Licensed under Creative Commons.
 

Chris Carlsson: Who did you write Rebel Cities for? 

My aim was to write a book for everyone who has serious questions about the qualities of the urban life to which they are exposed and the limited choices that arise, given the way in which political and economic power asserts a hegemonic right to build cities according to its own desires and needs (for profit and capital accumulation) rather than to satisfy the needs of people.

In so doing, I wanted to provide indications of the kind of theoretical framework to which I appeal and I, therefore, use seemingly abstract (often, but not exclusively, Marxist) concepts. But my aim is to use these concepts in such a way that anybody can grasp them. (I don’t always succeed, of course.) I then hope that people might become interested to seek a deeper knowledge of the sort of framework that I use. For example, in “The Art of Rent,” I use a seemingly arcane concept of monopoly rent, but I hope by the end of the chapter people can understand very well what it might mean and wonder how it is that a society that lauds competition as foundational to its functioning is populated by capitalists who will go to great lengths to secure monopoly power by any means and how they capture unearned rents by resorting to that power.

If people want a broader understanding of my framework, they can use many resources including my own Enigma of Capital, and A Brief History of Neoliberalism, and my website lectures (including those on Marx’s Capital and the Companion to Marx’s Capital). I hope, however, that Rebel Cities is understandable enough without going through all of those materials first. In my view, one of the biggest problems for anti-capitalist social movements in our times is the lack of an agreed-upon framework to understand the dynamics of what is going on; if I can somehow incite activists to think more broadly about what they are doing and the general situation in which they are doing it (and how particular struggles relate to each other), then I would be very happy.

 

You write: “The chaotic processes of capitalist creative destruction have evidently reduced the collective left to a state of energetic but fragmented incoherence, even as periodic eruptions of mass movements of protest … suggest that the objective conditions for a more radical break with the capitalist law of value are more than ripe for the taking.” 

For many people, targeting the “capitalist law of value” is terribly abstract. Can you rephrase that in terms that people can see and feel in their everyday lives? 

I could substitute the phrase “capitalist law of value” with the phrase “the maximization of profit in a context of global competition” and then point to the devastating history of deindustrialization (more destruction than creation) from the 1980s across city after city, not only in North America, but also Europe and elsewhere (e.g. Mumbai and Northern China).

But I wanted to use the term “value” very explicitly to raise the question of what it is that capital values and how radically that contrasts with other ways of thinking about the values that might prevail in another kind of society. The capitalist law of value is what animates the activities of Bain Capital, etc. and we have to see that value system as profoundly opposed to human emancipation and well-being, that there is a distinctive “law of value” that capital internalizes and imposes that overrides all other values that stand in its path.

The values that capital internalizes do not contribute to the well-being of people and indeed may threaten our survival. The more people come to recognize the value system of capital the more we can mobilize “our” alternative values against it. To see the fight against capitalism as a fight over values is very important. It has, at various times, animated a theology of liberation that is profoundly anti-capitalist. It is for this reason that the capitalist class does not want to talk of or admit to the distinctive “law of value” that animates its actions. Apologists for capital claim they are for family values, for example, while capitalism promotes policies that destroy families. They claim they are in favor of freedom, but omit to say the freedom they favor is that of a few to exploit and live off the labor of the many, of the Wall Streeters to be free of regulation to gain their inordinate bonuses through predatory practices.

  Many people joined in to help make the protest signs used for the march on Wall Street, September 26th 2011, Zuccotti Park, Financial District, New York. Photo by PaulSteinJC, licensed under Creative Commons.  

Most of the people reading this website are involved in various types of co-ops, collectives, and projects that are proudly based on values beyond mere monetary profit. But you don’t think this is enough. You argue: “… attempts to change the world by worker control and analogous movements — such as community-owned projects, so-called “moral” or “solidarity” economies, local economic trading systems and barter, the creation of autonomous spaces (the most famous of which today would be that of the Zapatistas) — have not, so far, proved viable as templates for more global anti-capitalist solutions, in spite of the noble efforts and sacrifices that have often kept these efforts going in the face of fierce hostilities and active repressions … Indeed, it can all too easily happen that workers end up in a condition of collective self-exploitation that is every bit as repressive as that which capital imposes …” 

You properly point out that efforts to create socialism in one country, let alone one city, or one small enterprise, have always failed. Why do you think people ignore this overwhelming history and keep trying to make it work anyway? 

This is one of the most difficult paradoxes embedded in the history of the left (its thinking, its project, and its activities). We can all understand the urge to control our own lives, to achieve some degree of autonomy at work, as well as in the neighborhoods we inhabit; and that basic urge which is, I believe, both widespread and broadly acceptable to many elements in society, can be the basis for a broader politics. When capital collapses as it periodically does, then workers frequently mobilize (as in Argentina in 2001-02) to save their jobs, and there are some long-lasting examples of cooperative systems and of worker control that are encouraging (e.g. Mondragon).

The problem is that these operations operate in a context where the capitalist law of value (Yes, that is why this is so important.) remains hegemonic such that producers are subject to the “coercive laws of competition” that eventually force such independent efforts towards autonomous forms of organization to behave like capitalist enterprises. This is why it is so important to eventually think and act in such a way as to challenge the hegemony of the “capitalist law of value”.

Lefebvre thus notes that heterotopic practices (spaces where something radically different happens) can only survive for a while before they are eventually re-absorbed into the dominant practices. This says that, at some point, we have to mount a challenge to the dominant practices and that means challenging the power of a deeply entrenched and thoroughly dominant capitalist class and the law of value to which it adheres (as represented by, for example, Bain Capital). You are right that this is a somewhat abstract idea; but if we cannot embrace it, then we will simply be ruled by other abstractions (such as those of “the market” or “globalization”).

You dismiss Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons with the point that he is studying cattle herders with privately owned herds, undercutting the very presumption of a commons in land and resources. But you also look critically at Elinor Ostrom’s ideas about the commons, mostly because of her relatively small samples of communities self-managing common resources.  Though she short-circuits the banal opposition of state and market, she ducks (as do most anarchists and autonomists, as you argue) the problem of organizing complex, territorially dispersed economic relationships. “How can radical decentralization — surely a worthwhile objective — work without constituting some higher-order hierarchical authority? It is simply naïve to believe that polycentrism or any other form of decentralization can work without strong hierarchical constraints and active enforcement.”  

Do you think the state, currently a wholly-owned project of “the existing democracy of money power,” can be made to serve other interests than capital accumulation and economic growth? 

The state is not a monolith, but a complicated ecosystem of administrative structures. At the core of the capitalist state lies what I call a “state-finance nexus” which, in our times, is best represented by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve; and I think it was deeply illustrative that these two institutions, in effect, took over the U.S. government entirely in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse. It is notoriously the case within the state that the Treasury has the final say over many projects in other departments.

In parallel with the state-finance nexus is the military industrial complex which is a bit of a misnomer because it is really about the concentration of military and police powers backed by a justice system that is shaped in support of capitalist class power. These make for a distinctively capitalist class state apparatus. Obviously, that form of state power has to be confronted and defeated if we are to liberate ourselves from submission to the capitalist law of value.

But, beyond that, there are many aspects of public administration providing essential public services — public health, housing, education, and the governance of common property resources. In our own society, these branches of government often become corrupted by capital, to be sure, but it is not beyond the power of political movements of the left at the local, national, even international levels to discipline these aspects of the state apparatus to emancipatory public purposes.

Ironically, neoliberalism, by turning the provision of much of this terrain of state action over to NGOs, has opened a potential path to socialize these aspects of the state to the will of the people if the limitations of the NGO form could be overcome. The frontal attack from the left against state power has to target the state-finance nexus and the military/police complex and not the sewage department or the organization of the Internet and air traffic control, even as it has to be alert to how all departments of the current state are likely to be used as vehicles for furthering capital accumulation. The current situation is that the capitalist class is heightening its powers of control through militarization and the state-finance nexus while not bothering with much else.

 The first day of Occupy Wall Street, September 17, 2011. Wall Street barricaded and Zuccotti Park taken. PhotobyDavid Shankbone, licensed under Creative Commons.
 

At the end of your book you write, “Alternative democratic vehicles such as popular assemblies need to be constructed if urban life is to be revitalized and reconstructed outside of dominant class relations.” How do you see the Occupy Wall Street movement evolving in the absence of public space? 

It is clear that the vicious police response to Occupy Wall Street is an indication of the paranoid fear of Wall Street that a popular movement might arise to threaten the power of the state-finance nexus and, as has happened in Iceland and now in Ireland to indict and eventually jail the bankers.

Militarization is, for them, the necessary answer, and part of that militarization is the control over public space to deny that the Occupy movement has a public space for its operations. In that case, the liberation of public space for public political purposes becomes a preliminary battle that will have to be fought. The assemblies provided a brief whiff of what an alternative democracy might look like, but the small scales and limited arenas make it crucial to experiment with other democratic forms of popular governance capable of looking at the metropolitan region as a whole … how to organize a whole city like New York or Sao Paulo.

A street scene in Berlin's Schöneberg district showing the interplay between blight and gentrification. Credit: Sugar Ray Banister. Licensed under Creative Commons.

 

Going beyond physical space, you helpfully point out that, “There is, in effect, a social practice of commoning. […] At the heart of the practice of commoning lies the principle that the relation between the social group and that aspect of the environment being treated as a common shall be both collective and non-commodified—off-limits to the logic of market exchange and market valuations.”  

How do you see this logic of “commoning” emerging from the actual social movements of our time, which seem preoccupied with ethical shopping on one hand, or addressing racism, patriarchy, homophobia, and other identitarian questions on the other? 

The essence of a great urban and civic life, for me, is the free intermingling of all manner of people opening up the possibilities of all manner of encounters. If, for often good reasons, women, LGBT youth, or other so-called “identitarian” groups cannot freely use the public and supposedly “common” spaces of the city, then it is critical that movements emerge to liberate those common spaces for their participation. Such movements can provide a vital opening for a broader common politics. The problem comes when that is the only preoccupation for that group and what begins as a demand for inclusion becomes a movement for exclusions. Alliances are needed and the more it becomes acceptable to liberate public spaces for all public purposes, the more open become the democratic possibilities to go a-commoning, to build a commons and achieve a politics of the commons throughout the city or metropolitan region as a whole. But there are counter-movements that have to be combated. Right now, exclusionary fascist movements (like Golden Dawn in Greece) are precisely occupying space by space urban neighborhoods (e.g. in Athens); they are occupying spaces in the name of an exclusionary politics. This is an extreme case, of course, but I think it critical that the relation between the commons and the balance between enclosures and exclusions, on the one hand, and openings and free uses, on the other, be perpetually open for discussion and political struggle. These are the sorts of battles in which we all have to be involved. There is no automatic harmony to be had and I actually think a certain level of perpetual conflict around urban life is a very positive feature.

 

Artists and “culture workers” have historically been leading voices of dissent, but we see a lot less of that now. Most people are beholden to one or another institution of the “nonprofit industrial complex” as the Incite! Collective put it in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. The types of dissent remain safely within boundaries that do not challenge the logic of markets and money. 

You write, “It is one thing to be transgressive about sexuality, religion, social mores, and artistic and architectural conventions, but quite another to be transgressive in relation to the institutions and practices of capitalist domination that actually penetrate deeply into cultural institutions. […] The problem for capital is to find ways to co-opt, subsume, commodify, and monetize such cultural differences and cultural commons just enough to be able to appropriate monopoly rents from them.” 

How do highly individualized and competitive artists and culture producers find common ground to fight for a world beyond remuneration? 

I don’t quite agree with the view that the cultural workers are passive. The context has changed (which is what I am pointing to as culture becomes an industry and a vehicle for capital accumulation and building asset values) which means that dissidence has to take a different form of expression. Subversion, rather than confrontation, has to become the main tactic and I see quite a lot of evidence of a willingness to do that. We have, incidentally, very much the same problem in academia. My colleagues have quite a lot to learn about how to go about that and, in the cultural world, that sentiment for subversion is far more widespread.

 

You write, “The struggle for the right to the city is against the powers of capital that ruthlessly feed upon and extract rents from the common life that others have produced. […] Capitalist urbanization perpetually tends to destroy the city as a social, political, and livable commons.” Americans are fairly religious about the idea of private property. Even progressives don’t like to challenge the prerogatives of property ownership.  

Do you think there can be any meaningful way to halt gentrification and the debasement of thriving urban neighborhoods that it brings, short of creating collective ownership of neighborhood properties? 

The thing that often amazes me is the wide array of instruments already available for left experimentation in all manner of arenas of social life. This is very true of housing with all sorts of possible property arrangements that offer ways to secure housing for low-income populations. Yet these instruments are neglected and underutilized, in part, I suspect, because of ideological barriers but also due to lack of political and other forms of support for them.

Much can be done within existing structures, but, again, the problem is how, for example, limited equity co-ops might be reabsorbed into the dominant practices unless there is an active social movement to keep them in place and expand them. Otherwise, we are in the situation of winning a skirmish here or there (e.g. against gentrification) but losing most of the battles and having no impact on the anti-capitalist war. So when and how are we going to learn to fight the war against the dominant practices?

You point to the need to integrate an understanding of the process of urbanization and built-environment formation into the general theory of the laws of motion of capital. Other writers have analyzed the breakdown of Fordist mass production and the evolution of capitalism into a system based on a “social factory.” 

I think we should get away from the imagery of the factory entirely. The issue of the urban is quite different because it is not only about production, but about realization of values through consumption, consumerism, spectacle (e.g. Olympic Games which have sent many cities into economic difficulties and played a key role in the Greek collapse of public finances). One of the things I get from Marx’s theories is the relation between production of values and the realization of values through exchange in the market and both are equally important and the urban is “where it all comes together”.

 

A public square in Helsinki offers plenty of space for activists to gather. Credit: La Citta Vita. Used under Creative Commons license. 

You note, “Public spaces and public goods in the city have always been a matter of state power and public administration, and such spaces and goods do not necessarily a commons make.” How can public spaces become a commons? 

Language is a commons and part of what political life is about is changing the languages we use to relate to each other and to understand the world around us (which is why I want to talk about the capitalist law of value). But the commons has to be materialized and objectified (e.g. in print) and discussed (e.g. in an assembly or a chat room). Commoning embraces all of these features. It is not only a physical space, but bodies on the street still have a political priority (as we saw in Tahrir Square) and this is particularly important to the degree that the capitalist class has almost total power over all other forms of political power (money, the repressive apparatus, key elements in the state apparatus, political elections, the law, etc.).

Finally, you argue that “Decentralization and autonomy are primary vehicles for producing greater inequality through neoliberalization.” How do social movements fight this trajectory while holding on to their own autonomist and egalitarian practices? 

What is so odd in these times is that much of the left agrees with much of the right that decentralization and opposition to all forms of centralized power is the answer. This is why I talk of the “fetishism of organizational forms” that prevails on the contemporary left. The market is, of course, when individualized, the most decentralized decision-making system you can imagine and it is exactly the organization of such a competitive decentralized market that produces, as Marx so clearly proved, highly concentrated capitalist class power. It does so because “there is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals.”

If all the world were organized into a series of independent and totally autonomous anarchist communes, then how would the global commons (e.g. biodiversity) be preserved, and what would prevent some communes from becoming much more prosperous than others, and how would the free flow of people and goods and products from one place to another work (most communes have some principles for exclusion)? Interestingly, most corporations are into networked models of administration and there are all sorts of parallels between left and right which pass unrecognized, as well as overlaps between corporate practices and anarchist visions.

There is a lot to be said for a decentralized basis for political action. But, at some point, it has also to jump scales and organize at least at the metropolitan bioregional level to take on those wretched dominant class practices that seem to survive unscathed in the midst of the current plethora of oppositional social movements.

***

David Harvey (born 31 October 1935, Gillingham, Kent, England) is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). A leading social theorist of international standing, he received his PhD in Geography from University of Cambridge in 1961. Widely influential, he is among the top 20 most cited authors in the humanities. In addition, he is the world's most cited academic geographer, and the author of many books and essays that have been prominent in the development of modern geography as a discipline. His work has contributed greatly to broad social and political debate; most recently he has been credited with restoring social class and Marxist methods as serious methodological tools in the critique of global capitalism. He is a leading proponent of the idea of the right to the city, as well as a member of the Interim Committee for the emerging International Organization for a Participatory Society.

Chris Carlsson , co-director of the multimedia history project Shaping San Francisco (a wiki-based digital archive at foundsf.org), is a writer, publisher, editor, and community organizer. He has written two books (After the Deluge, Nowtopia) edited six books, (Reclaiming San Francisco, The Political Edge, Bad Attitude, Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration, Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco, 1968-78, and SHIFT HAPPENS! Critical Mass at 20). He redesigned and co-authored an expanded Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco’s Mission Bay. He has produced Shaping San Francisco’s weekly public Talks and conducted its award-winning bicycle history tours since January 2006. He has given hundreds of public presentations based on Shaping San Francisco, Critical Mass, Nowtopia, Vanished Waters, and his “Reclaiming San Francisco” history anthologies since the late 1990s, and has appeared dozens of times in radio, television and on the Internet.

 This post originally appeared on Shareable.net

  

The Rainbow Mansion. Photo by dweekly on Flickr.

In 2006, Jessy Kate Schingler and four other young engineers landed jobs at NASA’s Ames Research Center. They suddenly needed a place to live in Silicon Valley, but rather than opt for cheap housing with a long commute, they pooled their resources and rented a palatial 5,000 square foot property in Cupertino. The Rainbow Mansion was born.

It was more than just a luxury home full of brilliant young minds. Dubbed “an intentional community”, The Rainbow Mansion was an experiment in a new type of cohabitation. The house began hosting hackathons and salons in its library, inviting Silicon Valley’s best and brightest to participate. “Right away it set itself in motion,” Schingler says. “It had this sort of accidental mystique about it.”

In the six years since, the Rainbow Mansion has housed 60 people from 12 countries, along with employees from Google, Apple, and Tesla. One of Schingler’s cofounders, Chris Kemp, became CTO of IT at NASA. And Schingler herself has become an advocate of coliving, the practice of bringing extraordinary people under one roof to live, work, and change the world together.

In today’s America, almost 50 percent of adults in the United States are single, and more than a quarter of “households” are just an individual living alone. An increasing amount of social interaction happens online, rather than face-to-face.

Living alone may allow us to focus on our own goals without distraction, but it robs us of the type of communication that only happens when people are relaxed and at home together. The spaces between work and life—which, in decades past, would have been filled with conversations over the dinner table—are collapsing. Coliving hacks this trend, infusing the blurring boundaries of work and leisure with new opportunities for inspiration, learning, and social innovation.

Here, “home” is reinvented with a new purpose. It’s a community, an ethos, a series of opportunities for collaboration. And while most young professionals are flocking to urban centers like San Francisco to live in modest apartments, some are building a new American dream in once empty suburban McMansions and luxury downtown digs. In this new scheme, your network isn’t just your Facebook friends or business contacts; It includes your friends, influencers, ad hoc family, and your shared home.

Defining Coliving: What It Is and Isn’t 

The underlying concept of coliving will be nothing new to anyone who’s had roommates: sharing a house, sharing the rent, living with near-strangers for a shared purpose. “Roommate situations are typically based on who can afford to pay the rent and who has one or two things in common,” says Chelsea Rustrum, an entrepreneur and coliving advocate. In a coliving home, the connections are stronger. Even if residents don’t know each other prior to moving in, “we have this vision in common of how we want to change the world,” she says.

Inspired entrepreneurialism is a central tenet. Residents are carefully chosen for their ambitions and ideas, and are often working on individual projects. “We want to be around people who want to make a difference,” says Schingler. But “making a difference” comes with infinite possibilities. Within a single house there may be scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, engineers and everything in between.

Coliving is influenced heavily by coworking, a practice in which independent professionals share a workspace rather than working individually at home. With no boss, no distractions and a building full of inspiring peers, synergy is the quick result of this separate-yet-together environment.

Coliving spaces often include a coworking area. For example: TheGlint, a hilltop townhouse in San Francisco’s Twin Peaks, has a dedicated space furnished with desks and computers. But “it’s not just a live-in coworking space,” says TheGlint cofounder Damian Madray. He points to events like ArtFlux, a “participatory art experience” hosted in TheGlint’s gallery. Coliving houses regularly host events, from lectures to dance parties to hackathons, all designed to enhance creativity, professional development and good old-fashioned networking. Serendipity and collaboration abound.

The coliving movement may freely use terms like “commune” and “cooperative”, but this ain’t your grandma’s commune. Contemporary coliving builds on communal living practices, embracing a networked tech, business and science-fueled culture built upon innovation and realizing a better world through collaborative design.

Entrepreneurialism With a Conscience 

"We never really stop working," says Damian Madray. “I don't think an entrepreneur life is like that — work and life — to be honest. You're always working and you're always playing. You're always playing because you love what you do.”

Madray, a young entrepreneur from Guyana, was inspired by his experience living Palo Alto’s Blackbox Mansion. In 2011, he and some friends aimed to create a similar community in Twin Peaks. Rustrum, inspired by her sojourn and research into Berlin’s Palomar5, joined the community early. “If you put the right people there, I think it has the potential to be very, very, very powerful,” she says.

But how to find those people? Schingler distills the issue into a challenge: cultivating “eliteness” without being exclusive. “How do you say, ‘I want people whom I consider elite around me, but I’m willing to keep myself open-minded enough to find that eliteness in unexpected places?’”

For many coliving spaces, the simplest solution is an opt-in one: A question for applicants to answer before they can be considered. TheGlint asks applicants to explain how they will “redefine heroism” with their work. Residents are carefully selected to feed the spirit of socially responsible innovation.

In a culture dominated by gadgets, it takes a little extra passion to come up with a business model that produces more than just profit. “What does Instagram do?” Madray asks. “It applies filters and makes you feel good. End of story. What if for every photo shared, some kid in Africa gets a glass of water? What if you apply some social good to it?”

Collaborative Inspiration 

When you’re living with a group of people, Rustrum says, “you’re a family whether you like it or not. That’s how we all relate to living together.”

Once the barriers of unfamiliarity begin to break down, people begin to work in harmony and think along similar lines. “You see through people's outer shell and into more of who they are,” says Rustrum. “You develop deeper, more real relationships and have the potential to actually work together, actually help each other. Not just in professional ways but in personal ways also.” This is the magic of coliving: It connects people in a multitude of ways, building trust and creating infinite opportunities for collaboration.

“It’s hard to explain the creative serendipity that goes on,” says Todd Huffman. He cites his own startup, which he runs out of the Langton Labs coliving space, as an example. His group is working to build a very advanced 3D microscope; it just so happens that four of his Langton roommates have PhDs relating to microscopy.

When a complex issue arises, he can simply walk down the hall and ask an expert.

The collaborative spirit created around the dinner table easily extends to computer desks and lab tables. Huffman describes Langton as “a commune with engineers instead of hippies.” A member of San Francisco’s arts-driven warehouse community with a population of scientists, artists, engineers and world travelers, Langton hosts events ranging from TEDx to dance parties to dorkbot, a celebration of “people doing strange things with electricity.”

Coliving spaces develop unique cultures based on the location and people chosen, their mission statement, and house activities. The underlying culture gives birth to serendipitous connections between residents who share similar values and passions.

Sharing the weight 

From the ground up, the coliving movement is designed to offer stability, inspiration and opportunity to independent, ambitious young professionals — the backbone of tech startups, who are often expected to live on peanuts and take huge risks with little chance of reward.

“I find that a lot of startup stuff is like, ‘All right, you're just a lowly entrepreneur who hasn't made it yet. Therefore you deserve to live in dorms, in hostels, and compete in competitions and eat ramen and pizza.’ That's not my philosophy at all,” says Rustrum. “If you surround yourself with a nice place and decent healthy food, the belief that you’re able to do whatever you want to do.”

Like coworking spaces, coliving houses capitalize on a shaky economy, locating in spaces that property managers can’t rent. In downtown San Francisco, warehouse communities like Langton Labs are re-appropriating vacant manufacturing spaces to offer residents private rooms and shared workspace for around $1,000 a month, highly affordable for the city.

An International Coliving Network 

The coliving community is likely to continue growing quickly. With the success of Couchsurfing, AirBnB, and global coworking networks like Loosecubes, the time may be right for a network of coliving houses around the globe.

For location-independent professionals and those who travel frequently, this is a fond dream: Imagine having a home wherever you go, well-appointed and populated by people you can truly enjoy. Imagine landing in a new city and having an extensive professional network already in place, or scooting off to another country for a month to work on a project in a new space. It’s all quite possible, and the concept of a coliving network is already in development.

Jessy Kate Schingler’s Embassy Network is preparing for an alpha run of houses in the fall of 2012. A membership model designed for both long-term residents and short-term travelers, the network will allow members to pay “rent” that gives them reservation access to any home in the network.

Chelsea Rustrum, inspired by the effectiveness of coworking and coliving as well as the power of travel, is spearheading a project called Startup Abroad. It’s designed to bring entrepreneurs outside their comfort zone and daily distractions for an intensive, two- to four-week experience. The first session is scheduled for August 2012 in Bali.

Damian Madray points out that an international network can help to inform innovators, helping them to look beyond first-world applications for their ideas. “If you solve a problem in a developing country, then those solutions can be applied to other developing countries,” he says. “Guess what? There are more developing countries than there are first world countries.”

Coliving’s Past and Future 

Coliving has clear similarities to traditional communes and co-ops. Langton Labs, in particular, bears a strong resemblance to 20th-century cooperative living. It has a flat organizational structure, and most decisions are made on a group email list. “In building a community, we didn't pick an existing model and emulate it,” says Todd Huffman. “We designed everything from the ground up, and in doing so, have ended up evolving in parallel and developing mechanisms that are very similar to cooperatives or communes.”

Unlike many prior communal living experiments, coliving spaces are externally oriented. They’re generally located in urban areas, often open to the public on a regular basis, and easy to move in and out of. The ideas brewing behind these doors are quickly realized and implemented in the world outside.

Much of this is related to the 21st-century vision of sharing, which allows for a high level of individualism and experimentation. Previous community models were focused on equality, with participants renouncing privileges to adopt a group-oriented mentality. In today’s open-source world, collaboration relies on contributions from a diverse pool of individuals, and welcomes exceptionality.

This phenomenon occurs across human culture: As our social organization has morphed from tight-knit groups to loose, technology-driven networks, we are supporting each other more and competing less. Sociologist Barry Wellman calls this networked individualism: our new found ability to work together without losing sight of our internal goals.

Accordingly, the coliving movement seeks out exceptional people, asking them not to give themselves up to a single cause, but to support each other’s exceptionality. This may be the key to a new definition of “home,” one which provides comfort and friends along with inspiration and innovation.

As our social and professional landscapes shift, our concept of home is shifting too. By rebuilding their homes on a foundation of creative collaboration, coliving participants may next redefine the world by the same terms.

 

This post originally appeared at Shareable.net

Every August for one week, the Burning Man festival takes place in a temporary city of its own creation, called Black Rock City after Nevada’s Black Rock Desert where it is located. This year, Black Rock City’s population will be 60,000 — bigger than Carson City, the state capital of Nevada.

Our real-world cities, meanwhile, are struggling to provide the services citizens need, limited by declining tax income, record debt, and increasingly complex social issues. Cities have no choice but find ways to do more with less. Many seek to harness the creative energies of citizens to fill the gaps, asking them to take a more active role in governance, service provision, and even in creating new services.

It’s easy to write off Burning Man as a hippie love fest in the desert. It has its own problems like any city, but that's selling it short, especially in one regard - its remarkable ability to foster participation. The event -- which for 26 years has expected participants to practice sharing, gifting, and radical self-reliance -- is an effective proving ground for experiments in community self-organization. In fact, participants build most of the city without any direct oversight from organizers.

Given that cities need its citizens more than ever, can the lessons of Burning Man’s Black Rock City, which pushes citizen participation to the limit, be applied to modern cities? Of course they can. Here are a few ways you can support participation, sharing and community in your own town.

First, Adopt the Right Mindset: There are No Spectators 

Michel Bauwens, the founder of the Peer to Peer Foundation, believes that the proper role of government in our emerging networked society is that of partner in social production. This means that in a myriad ways government helps citizens help themselves. This turns the existing model of government as a top-down service provider on its head. Instead, government works in a bottom up fashion to empower citizens to provide for themselves.

Burning Man does exactly this. It fosters a culture of participation through its Ten Principles and provide basic infrastructure such as roads, sanitation, and safety, which, by the way, rely heavily on volunteer labor. Participants fill in the blanks beautifully with a seemingly unlimited number of options for care, connection, artistic expression, education, sustenance, and fun. At Burning Man, there are no spectators. Likewise, we increasingly need cities where every citizen is intimately involved in creating their city on a day to day basis.

Crowdsource The Budget 

Almost none of the hundreds of art projects exhibited at Burning Man are fully funded by the festival. Many of them are crowdfunded through Kickstarter or Indiegogo. This requires active community participation, and it also organically vets projects ensuring that the best ideas are likely to be funded.

The city of Vallejo, California is taking this idea for a spin, testing out participatory budgeting for 30 percent of its funds. Community members decide which projects to fund, and must work together to get the funding approved.

"If you live in northern Vallejo and you want a bus shelter, then you know what, you've got to partner with people in other parts of the city who want bus shelters too," Councilmember Marti Brown told The Atlantic Cities. "People are going to have to learn how to think like that. It encourages people to work with groups they've never worked with before."

Vallejo is the first to try participatory budgeting city-wide, though it’s now being considered in San Francisco. Want to see participatory budgeting in your city? Get involved.

Build Your Own Bank 

Burning Man famously bans all exchange of money, recommending that people share and “gift” their resources within the community. That’s not likely to happen in the rest of the world very soon — but with the recession, the housing boom-and-bust and the financial crisis all tightly linked to the banking industry, an ever-growing number of people are ditching their Wall Street banks for citizen owned banks like credit unions and public banks. A new report suggests that a public banking could reverse the effects of recent consolidation, bolster the treasuries of government banks, and put financial controls back in the hands of the people.

Though common in Germany and elsewhere, The Bank of North Dakota is currently the only state-run bank in the United States, and it’s been hailed as an “economic miracle.” Could each city or county set up a local bank to create its own community miracle? It certainly could.

Share Your Profits 

There’s another way to share your money and your values with your community: Join a local cooperative and encourage your city government to support the growth of the cooperative sector. Coops are owned and controlled by either workers or customers. They are more democratic, community-minded, and more stable job creators than most private businesses.

Did you know that 120 million Americans belong to at least one cooperative? That 25 percent of the nation’s electric grid is cooperatively owned? 2012 is the International Year of Cooperatives, and this proven, fast-growing business model is offers many advantages over conventional, tightly controlled private businesses.

Worker-owned businesses like The Evergreen Cooperatives are addressing poverty and unemployment, helping money stay in the community where previous charity initiatives have failed. National coops are booming too, including chains like ACE Hardware which help mom-and-pop shops stay open.

Hitch, Surf & Crash 

Want to live well on a budget at Burning Man? Pool your resources with a “camp” of anywhere from five to 500 people, who share kitchens, showers, shelters and even transportation so that everyone can afford access to these necessities.

Want to live well on a budget in your city? Use the same logic: join a car-sharing program, try out a coworking space, share your lodging and, if you’re traveling, rent somebody’s empty room instead of shelling out for a hotel.

Many cities are beginning to adopt community bike programs (of which Black Rock City also has one), but beyond that, there is plenty of room to expand. City-run sharing networks could generate income while saving residents money.

Think it’s a good idea? You might need to start your own. And encourage your city to adopt sharing-friendly policies.

Plug In to the Resource Grid 

Just a few months ago, Burning Man launched a tool called Spark. Designed to facilitate collaboration between attendees, the site allows anyone to create a free “ad” for services or resources needed or offered (on a gift basis). Today’s ads include a call for carpenters, an offer to “freeze anything” and several musicians looking for performance opportunities.

Resource sharing is complicated mostly because it can’t be done over longer distances. Sites like Craigslist, Freecycle and Taskrabbit are good places to start active collaboration on projects, and new platforms are being developed that will further facilitate getting things done without buying a bunch of supplies. One new platform-in-progress, Social Alchemy, is being developed by Burners Without Borders’ leader Carmen Mauk and hopes to be a collaborative project management tool — for example, helping relief workers in disaster areas find the equipment and labor they need to do their work more efficiently.

You might need to start your own local sharing network using a service like ShareTribe — but first, check Craigslist, Freecycle and your local tool lending library to find out what’s already going on.

Reprogram Your Government 

Burning Man organizers lay out the roads and some infrastructure, then allow the population to build its own city. In the rest of America, we don’t have as much creative control — but many of us are exercising much less control than we could, often because of the difficulties of dealing with bureaucratic government bodies.

Do you want transparent, efficient government? Participatory budgeting? Streamlined voting? Easy access to your representatives? It’s all made more possible with technology. Code for America is a group that works with city governments, helping them transform their information infrastructure to improve citizen engagement, efficiency and transparency. Can you help your city adopt new social technologies? Yes, you can.

“As our futures are increasingly becoming urban, cities need to start experimenting with citizen participatory process,” says James Hanusa, New Initiatives Consultant to Burning Man. He points to the Urban Prototyping project, which seeks citizen participation in redesigning San Francisco public spaces, and the Burning Man Project, which supports the application of Burning Man's Ten Principles in many communities.

These ideas just scratch the surface. Much more can be done to make cities as participatory as Burning Man. And while the above innovations increase citizen participation, they lack one thing Burning Man offers.

Black Rock City is manifested by thousands of people in the spirit of celebration. The passion of participants is unmistakable. They are drawn into the civic drama by the drama of their own self-actualization. They experience — sometimes for the first time — what it’s like to be accepted completely in public, and so are willing to give their best to the city that invites the best in them. This is the way the city is made, and how it makes people.

The true flowering of cities may not occur until the civic is married to the celebratory. This too is within reach.

  

Jessica Reeder is a member of the Black Rock City Department of Public Works, and occasionally writes for the Burning Blog.

Image by Christopher, licensed under Creative Commons.  

 

  

At first, there seems a discrepancy: we hear incessant talk of low job growth and economic distress, but see people tapping expensive smartphones and buying the latest social-mobile app. Indeed, the technology and design industries seem unaffected by the recession, set to continue on the same course of planned obsolescence they’ve been on for decades. But a second look reveals that advances in these sectors are helping people adjust to life in a pared-down economy, in a world where the environment has become a main concern. Our recession isn’t happening in a vacuum, and advances in design and technology, paired with an economy in flux, are changing the definition of both work and the workplace.

From an architectural perspective, office layout has been changing since before the recession, away from cubicles and toward flexible, open-plan designs. Companies that depend on innovation have designed headquarters that encourage play and serendipitous meetings. Pixar’s office drives foot traffic toward a central area, encouraging impromptu idea sharing. Cisco, inspired by the use of common space in universities, freed its employees from traditional desks with wireless technology and unassigned work stations. The shift encouraged collaboration, increased employee satisfaction, and reduced infrastructure costs.

More recently, office designs have prioritized environmental efficiency. At Skype’s headquarters, independent work spaces line the perimeter of the LEED-certified building, near natural light and away from noise. Like Pixar, meeting spaces and break rooms are centralized, encouraging spontaneous collaboration. At Google’s LEED-certified offices around the world, traditional cubicles and meeting rooms have been replaced with playful spaces, from egg-shaped pods to unassigned space-age seating. Additionally, environmental, community, and employee wellness are supported with bike-to-work incentives and local, sustainably produced food in the cafeterias.

From open-plan and environment-centered office design it’s a short leap to another innovation: coworking. A dearth of steady jobs has created a new league of freelancers, and the desire to reduce carbon footprints has made telecommuting more appealing than ever. Sure, there’s the local coffee shop, but coworking offers a way for freelancers and telecommuters to stay local and tap in to the perks of an office by sharing costs, space, and resources. Aside from the benefits of sharing an eco-friendly printer, coworking offers potential for collaboration and networking, and can lead to serendipitous partnerships. Shareable has compiled a list of resources for tapping in to the movement.

Paul McFedries of IEEE Spectrum reports that sharing is “the driving force behind a new economic model called collaborative consumption, where consumers use online or off-line tools to rent, share, and trade goods and services.” Coworking can also be a manifestation of collaborative production, found in projects like Longshot!, a magazine that encourages contributors to work together in satellite offices. From this angle, it looks like social, mobile, and local have gone way beyond smartphone applications—they could be the way we work in the future.

Image: Zonaspace coworking in Saint Petersburg, Russia, by коворкинг-пространство Зона действия. Licensed under Creative Commons.
 

 

Once you start looking for the commons, you’ll find them everywhere, from roads and water to money systems and the stock market, to the Internet and the oceans. As commons-based thinking grows in influence, we present this guide to some of our favorite resources and writings on the commons. Also see our series of articles on the commons in the September-October 2010 issue of Utne Reader.

The nonprofit organization On the Commons is one of the best single sources on the commons, featuring resources on a host of topics and writers including former Utne Reader editor Jay Walljasper and activist/strategist David Bollier.

The website Shareable emphasizes sharing more than commons as its buzzword, but it covers similar ground. One notable project is the Shareable Futures series, featuring stories and essays that touch on commons themes by writers including sci-fi scribes Cory Doctorow and Bruce Sterling.

If you enjoyed the interview with commons pioneer Elinor Ostrom in the September-October Utne Reader, check out her “8 Keys to a Successful Commons” that ran with the original interview in Yes magazine.

Former labor secretary Robert Reich weighs in with a way to help the ailing economy—invest in the common good—in his article “From Consumers to Commons” in The American Prospect.

David Bollier extends this line of thinking to drugs and treatments in “Restore Medicine to the Commons” from the Boston Review.

As we prepare to reform copyright and intellectual property law for a digital era, commons thinking is forming some of the legal foundation. Cornell Law Review dedicated an entire issue to the cultural commons, which extends from Wikipedia and Linux software to the Associated Press and jam-band fan communities that trade concert recordings. Using Elinor Ostrom’s research as a starting point, a host of writers point the way to possible futures.

Last year, a study found that commons-based forest management can be good for people, the forest, and a warming earth. Read about it at New Scientist or Treehugger—or see the report itself, “Trade-offs and Synergies Between Carbon Storage and Livelihood Benefits from Forest Commons,” by Ashwini Chhatrea and Arun Agrawalk, from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Let’s pick doomsday scenarios. I’ll take worldwide oil spill, and you can pick a cocktail of avian flu, swine flu, and rubber chicken flu (uh, not real). Jeremy Adam Smith over at Shareable loves the apocalypse as much as anybody, especially when he can connect the dots between nuclear attack, global warming, and asteroid impact. The common denominator? Humans have been proposing some pretty “awesome” plans for coping with all three forms of disaster. For example:

Of course, there's no time to worry about boring, real stuff like oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Today, we've watched enough movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact to know that the real threat comes in the form of an asteroid strike.

In case this scenario comes to pass, one entrepreneur is courageously making sure people with way too much disposable income will stay safe in the wake of apocalypse. He's selling spaces at $50,000 a pop in a network of underground bunkers.

Source: Shareable

There’s a great post on Chicago’s Book Bike over at Shareable. Paul M. Davis profiles Gabriel Levinson, who , since 2008, has ridden “his custom-built Book Bike into public parks across Chicago every weekend, weather permitting. Heading from park to park, Levinson distributes books donated by publishers to anyone interested.”

Here’s some more:

Levinson only appears at public parks and free events, ensuring that there is no barrier to entry. As he explains, “the mission is to build and cherish a private library regardless of class or economic state, which is why the Book Bike is only at public parks. It’s a place where every single person, whether you have a roof over your head or don't, has the right and privilege to be.”

“I believe that one of the greatest gifts of being alive, of being human, is that of literacy. If you can read, your world suddenly becomes wide open, all knowledge is at your fingertips and there is no telling where that can lead someone in life. ‘Teach a man to fish’ is such a tired maxim. Why can’t the common phrase be ‘teach a person to read’?”

Levinson has two goals: to create more readers and more consumers for beleaguered publishers. “The idea is that I’ll put a book in your hand,” he says. “Maybe you’ll want to buy a book next time around. My hope has been, in addition to that, people will be inspired to go buy more books.”

Source: Shareable