Support for Sharing Infrastructure in Malmo

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Discussion

From Karin Bradley, interviewed by Shareable's Nithin Coca:

"Malmö in Sweden stands out as one of the cities that has really worked proactively with a sort of infrastructure for sharing. Kind of stretching what the municipality can do. ... Is it okay that the municipality is lending out tools for free, just the lend out books for free? But they were kind of "yeah, and we just do it anyway." I think that was interesting to me that they were kind of pushing the boundaries of what you can do within the framework of the municipality.

In Malmö as well as in Gothenburg, the local governments are proactive when it comes to facilitating for a collaborative consumption in the more non-commercial aspects of the sharing economy. It's not about facilitating for Airbnb but rather they are providing and funding spaces like repairs spaces or bicycle kitchens, swap shops and infrastructure where citizens can share resources, skills, and collaborate. There are several such examples in Malmö where the municipality either owns the space, has initiated it or given funding to organizations that runs the space.


* What was different about Malmö's leadership that allowed for this?

They said they felt that they had a political backing from politicians to do this kind of thing, to experiment, and push the social and environmental questions. The economic situation is really quite tough. They came from a quite well functioning harbor city in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, strong working class structure. When the harbor and lots of other industries moved away, it was really hit by economic problems, and there's also lots of immigration to Malmö compared to other Swedish cities. So they became quite poor and they are really aware of the big social tensions and social injustices within the city.

Since they had very little funding, they need to be very wise with how they use it. So they would try to pool social justice funds with environmental funds, and then sharing is a really good way to combine social and environmental questions. This is one explanation they had.

They’ve also had a fairly stable Social Democrat and Green Party coalition for many, many years — so the public servants don't need to so much afraid about doing something that would wrong the next political term, whereas in Stockholm, it has been shifting every mandate period, there’s a new political majority." (https://www.shareable.net/blog/researcher-karin-bradley-examines-how-city-policies-impact-sharing-and-consumption)