Apple 2 campus taking shape, NCARB names names, and cities sell out: News Round-Up for September 2, 2014

2014-09-09T18:04:00-04:00

Friday, September 5:

Beijing public transit commuters can now pay fares with empty bottles: Beijingers can insert a recyclable bottle and receive equivalent rebates in train fares or mobile phone credits.
Community Bus Stops Transform Brazil: Thousands of Brazil's bus stops are unmarked, leading fed-up residents to install their own signage under the Que Ônibus Passa Aqui? (Which Bus Stops Here?) program, one of the world's biggest community projects.
Town Becomes a Beer Ad, but Residents Don’t Feel Like a Party: Crested Butte, Colorado, population 1,500, was outfitted for a three-day party to publicize Bud Light, with 1,000 partiers vetted and shipped in by Anheuser-Busch. The town's Mayor agreed to host the party to the tune of $500,000, in part to help boost the town's mostly tourist economy during the difficult "shoulder" season between summer and winter.
Gehry's Revised Eisenhower Memorial Loses Two Controversial Tapestries, But Concerns Remain: Nitpicking continues over the Memori...

National League of Cities creates advisory network to help cities deal with sharing economy businesses

2014-09-02T15:58:00-04:00

The National League of Cities announces the formation of a network composed of business, policy leaders and city officials to identify the regulatory challenges posed by the disruptive technologies that power the sharing economy. The Sharing Economy Advisory Network will create and promote model solutions that can be adopted by communities across the nation ... The Network will also look to identify ways that cities can support and encourage the growth of new businesses in this space.

City governments aren't often so nimble when it comes to adjusting regulations related to the "sharing economy". Without formal industry precedents, it's difficult for cities to know how to integrate these new services into preexisting policies, or whether they should be outlawed entirely. So in an attempt to not simply dismiss these services out of hand, or heedlessly let them run wild, U.S. city leaders are putting together The Sharing Economy Advisory Network.

The Network aims to identify problems related to the sharing economy, and model solutions to help cities adapt as new services crop up, ideally learning to use these "disruptors" to maximize local growth opportunities. The sooner cities recognize and prepare for the inevitability of more sharing-economy services, the better. Well-known disruptors like Airbnb and Uber question not only the legal limits of civic intervention, but clash ideals of public interest vs. private economy. And those disputes are far from over. Some sh...

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Apple 2 campus taking shape, NCARB names names, and cities sell out: News Round-Up for September 2, 2014

National League of Cities creates advisory network to help cities deal with sharing economy businesses