26 BCBusiness august 2015 * sourcE: "sHaring is tHE nEW buying," vision critical, 2014
at your door, with little clue as to how long the
wait might be or who your driver is. Or being
refused a ride from downtown to a distant sub-
urb because the driver doesn't want the long,
empty ride back. Or trying futilely to œag an
empty cab in the rain.
It's a tough one for local politicians to deal
with. That's true everywhere in North America.
The National League of Cities (a U.S. association
representing more than 2,000 municipalities)
published a 44-page report in mid-April docu-
menting the struggle cities are going through
with all the new "sharing economy" busi-
nesses—in particular, house-sharing and ride-
hailing services. Cities are the places where
these kinds of network-intense operations
thrive, so civic oŠcials are being hit full-on by
the change. "We are on the cusp of a monu-
mental shift taking place in cities around the
world," the report begins, as it documents
how 11 cities are welcoming, resisting, ignoring
or drafting new rules for "sharing economy"
businesses. "From innovative technologies
and business models to rede-ned concepts of
equity and safety, the sharing economy is
impacting cities."
People who work with traditional taxi com-
panies are also acknowledging there's more
than just a small-scale earth tremor going on.
The technolo¡y plus the rhetoric of sharing plus
changing de-nitions of work plus a new mind-
set among workers are blowing up old models,
and not just for the taxi business. "We've had
the agrarian revolution, the industrial revolu-
tion. And now this one," says Leonard Smith,
director of organizing for the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters in Seattle. His union
is working with both taxi drivers and ride-
hailing drivers in Seattle to -gure out a set of
rules that apply to both groups, an unusual move
that the Teamsters in several cities are making.
One of the biggest challenges for cities, and
OF SHARERS
MENTIONED
CONVENIENCE AS
A REASON FOR
SHARING. MORE
THAN HALF
MENTIONED
PRICE*
75%
(Moscow)
Air BNB (London)
Craigslist Rent the Runway
Share A Desk
Task Rabbit
Lending Club Indie Gogo Kick Starter
