Share NY

Today Greg and Jillian headed to the inaugral Share NYC conference at NYU. Hosted by Arun Sundararajan, Luke Williams, and Cynthia Franklin, #ShareNYC featured speakers and panels discussing current hot topics in the sharing economy. The event joined together "entrepreneurs, government leaders, academics, business executives, VCs and students for a unique day of discussion and thought leadership about the emerging collaborative, peer-to-peer and sharing economies." Unfortunately the event was not live-streamed, however Twitter gave us a pretty decent play by play on the main points of discussion.

The first Share NYC conference seemed to be a success and continues to confirm the interest society has in the sharing economy. It's excellent to see such a young economic model hashed out by groups of educators, regulators and enthusiasts while still in development. Did you have an opportunity to attend #ShareNYC? What did you think? Are these conferences developing the sharing economy or not?

Could the Renting and Sharing Economy Save Indian Cities?

Some seem to think so. Gautam Bhatia's recent article in the Times Of India talks about how government planning (or lack of) has failed Indian cities and the Sharing Economy has the potential to fix that. 

"If our cities have lived up to the expectations of our planners, it is because there were none. The current city is merely an agglomeration of accidental forces - migrating labour, entrenched middle classes, daily human toil, public expectation, random division of physical space, and attempts at law and order. "

Bhatia believes that Indian cities should follow China's lead in discouraging private home ownership and instead create rental housing.

"The Indian city needs similar serious physical and psychological measures. Buying a home in the centre of town and private car ownership are now both archaic and unfeasible. The future city can no longer be seen as a collective of purchasable products, but rather, as a service: a dense habitation where all facilities - home, car, office, shop - are available on rent. A permanent place where residence is impermanent. "

Check out the rest of the article here and let us know what you think.