Sharing Cities: A worldwide cities overview on platform economy policies with a focus on Barcelona
The platform economy is a form of economic production that uses a digital platform. This definition can be applied both to Uber and Airbnb and Wikipedia and Som Mobilitat. It is experiencing exponential growth and has become a top priority for governments around the world because of the disruptive impact it is having on cities, and also because of the opportunities that it is opening for the scalability of more sustainable and democratic economic models.
The book provides an overview of cities’ current political reactions and their public innovations in order to address the platform economy’s challenges and opportunities; a balance of the platforms’ democratic qualities, which provides a means for differentiating between models and characterizing those that are genuinely collaborative; and an analysis of the local case of Barcelona as a world benchmark for its vibrant ecosystem and innovative policies.
The first edition of this book was published in English for the Sharing Cities Summit in Barcelona. The third Sharing Cities Summit was held in Barcelona in November 2018, after two previous summits held in New York and Amsterdam. The event brought together political representatives from 50 cities on all five continents and ecosystem players with the goal of agreeing on between-city collaborations that fostered sustainable, democratic development of the platform economy. The second edition was published in 2019 in Catalan with added content.
Download the digital version of the book in Catalan and English:
Sharing Cities: Una visió global de les ciutats i local de Barcelona sobre polítiques d’economia de plataforma i col·laborativa (UOC, 2019) Sharing Cities: A worldwide cities overview on platform economy policies with a focus on Barcelona (UOC, 2018)