EUROCITIES 2016 Milan – Sharing Cities

Milan is well placed to host EUROCITIES 2016 Milan on the theme of ‘sharing cities’. This will be an opportunity for cities to share their experiences, and the challenges and impacts they face in light of this new way of understanding goods and services.

When it comes to the concept of the sharing economy, Milan is a leading city. In December 2014, the city council adopted a local definition of the sharing economy in a resolution that substitutes the notion of ‘ownership’ with one of ‘shared use’. The resulting document, ‘Milano sharing city’, offers guidelines on this concept and is the product of a participative process involving over 200 local people, companies, trade associations and consumer organisations. Through this process and subsequent measures carried out by the city, Milan has become the first Italian city to not only formally recognise the concept of this new form of economy, but to develop policies endorsed by its citizens around the shared economy principle.

Milan has plenty to share on this theme, including examples of shared mobility, creativity, the use and reuse of spaces, shared information and open governance. The city hosted the 2015 World Expo, and used this opportunity to launch the ‘Sharexpo’ initiative, which aimed to incentivise sharing economy actors by leveraging the removal of legislative and bureaucratic barriers that currently prevent collaborative services in the city. This month, the city hosts a ‘collaborative week’ featuring workshops and conferences to further stimulate civic debate on the sharing economy and allow citizens to discover and explore some of the shared platforms and services available in the city.

Join us in Milan on 16-18 November 2016 to be part of the discussion. For more information, watch the video below.