If the shared economy is no longer a niche economy, how will this affect the city? A paper describing the Urban Circular Passport, written for Plandag 2017: Shared Space.
Spatial effects scenario Sustainability as a Life Style
Urban Circular Economy and Passport
How will the city look like if the shared economy is no longer a niche market, but is part of the mainstream Urban Circular Economy (SCE)? As input for the SCE project, the design team interviewed several Antwerp and Rotterdam based entrepreneurs that develop new business models within the SCE. Out of this input three spatial scenarios were developed: Business Almost as Usual (BAU), Sustainability as Pocket Money (SPM) and Sustainability as a Life Style (SLS).
Furthermore, an instrument for the SCE was developed: the Urban Circular Passport. The passport shows to what extent one or more of the three SCE scenarios are developing or already taking place in a neighbourhood, city or region, and illustrates what could be the possible spatial effects. The Passport thus gives public and private parties in the SCE a better understanding of which scenario is most successful to become the mainstream scenario. The set-up of the Passport and draft passports for the cities of Rotterdam and Antwerp were described in the paper, with a focus on the sub-economics.
Conclusions
In brief, some conclusion of the paper. By testing the Urban Circular Passport on the cities of Antwerp and Rotterdam, the design team learned that the two cities for the three urbanization themes: (1) materials and logistics, (2) facilities, and (3) public, collective and private space, scored well on other scenarios.
For the two scenarios in which the shared economy is strongly connected to their business model (SPM and SLS), the design team found that but a few policies or public projects supporting these two scenarios. For the theme public, collective and private space there are some first attempts. From the side of the urban circular entrepreneurs or households, the spatial effects for all themes within these two scenarios are more clear. This causes a tension between the urban policy and projects on the one hand and the private developments within the SCE on the other. If not acted upon, it can be expected that this tension will increasingly cause conflicting spatial effects in neighbourhoods, cities or regions.
For this paper David Dooghe worked together with Lieve Custers, Buro Boris.