Introducing the grassroots sharing economy: a conversation on KION Radio 4/5/14
Yassi Eskandari-Qajar, Director of SELC's City Policies and Community Currencies programs, discusses the potential for the grassroots sharing economy to transform our communities and the way we work, live, consume, and exchange.
Read moreOAKLAND NONPROFITS YOU SHOULD KNOW
SELC IS AN OAKLAND NONPROFIT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
featured in the Bold Italic Magazine
I am constantly inspired by all the amazing organizations and community movements in Oakland. There are many wonderful nonprofits working hard to create opportunities, facilitate growth, and bring together different residents for a single cause.
Read moreHow to Make Laws that Actually Work for the New Economy
"The rules for the new economy haven't been written yet. Well, they have...it's just that they were written 50+ years ago when the 9-to-5, 30-years-and-a-gold-watch career path was the rule, not the exception. They haven't kept up with the changing economy or the new workforce."
Read the whole interview with Sara Horowitz of the Freelancer's Union
How to Make Laws that Actually Work for the New Economy
An interview with SELC Executive Director Janelle Orsi on the laws and regulations laws guiding the new economy, and what needs to come next.
Read moreThe shareable city: building a better legal foundation for urban sustainability
An interview with SELC's City Policies Program Director, Yassi Eskandari, on the legal foundations of more sustainable cities.
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Does the Sharing Economy Need Lawyers?
By Bronwen Morgan, Post Growth Institute
Ordinary people, perhaps frustrated with the inertia of government policies and large-scale corporate routines and practices, are experimenting with different ways of moving around, powering themselves, securing food and making a living, with as little waste as possible. [...] Much more rarely explored is the question: what kind of legal and regulatory support structures will help such experimental initiatives to flourish? We think four things will matter most.
Read moreMeet Us at the Legal Cafe: Interview with Chris Tittle, Director of Organizational Resilience
"The concept of resilience is about learning from the natural world how to adapt and respond to change. In a time of so many converging transitions – in the regenerative capacity of the Earth, in the ways we meet our individual and collective needs, in how we relate to the larger web of life around us – how can we build our collective capacity to adjust and co-evolve in response to changing conditions around us? In the social and economic context, resilience is about creating more culturally appropriate and community-determined ways of meeting our needs, and re-embedding our economies in real human relationships."
Read moreAsk a Food Lawyer: Breaking Down Legal Barriers for Small-Scale Local Food
"If we are going to move from the current centralized food system to a local, diversified new food economy, sharing has to be part of the solution. Corporate control of our food system vests decision-making power with a very small group of people whose profit-maximizing goals often deplete resources from communities rather than strengthen them..."
Read moreRaising a Nation of Lincolns: An Interview with Janelle Orsi, “The Sharing Lawyer”
That what a peer-to-peer economy needs is more attorneys might, in lay people, spark cognitive dissonance. The problem, according to Orsi, is how society thinks about lawyers. And to fix a modern problem, she and her colleagues are leaning on the model of that famous attorney of centuries past, Abraham Lincoln.
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