Mach aus jeder Stadt eine Commons-WerkStadt!

Eine Frage höre ich immer öfter: Was bedeutet die Idee der Gemeingüter für unser Zusammenleben in Städten? Kreativ sein, selber machen, Räume der Gemeinschaftlichkeit und der Öffentlichkeit erweitern, Stadtplaner und Architekten für die Commons begeistern (was nicht schwer ist, denn da gibt es jede Menge Diskussionen und Projekte, die ich nicht überblicke), einen langen Atem haben – Kommunalpolitik betreiben. Und vieles mehr! Fakt ist: Das Thema wird immer wichtiger. Seit 2008 lebt mehr als 50% der Weltbevölkerung in den Städten.

Auf Shareable hat Jeremy Adam Smith 12 charmante Ideen zusammen gestellt, um sichtbar zu zeigen: jede_r kann dazu beitragen, die Städte wieder mehr zu „unseren Orten“ werden zu lassen. Es dreht sich alles um „sozialere, nachhaltigere und belastbarere Städte“. Belastbar in dem Sinne, dass durch Vielfalt und Flexibilität Probleme und Spannungen abgefedert werden können. („making cities more sociable, resilient, and sustainable.“)

Mit einfachen Ideen geht es los. Komplexere Vorhaben, die mehr Kooperation brauchen, beenden die von mir gekürzte sehr us-amerikanische Ideensammlung. (Leider nur auf Englisch, lediglich die Überschriften sind übersetzt.)

1. Start a Sock Exchange (or a Barter Wall):
Starte einen Sockentausch (oder eine Tausch-Wand)

My wife walked into a laundromat seeking coins for a dollar, and there she discovered the „sock exchange.“ It’s obvious, isn’t it? And not terribly world-shaking, I suppose. Yet I think gestures like the sock exchange make city living more fun, and they suggest another way to live, where resources (like socks!) are conserved and shared. Dave Orian put up a board in their restaurant to facilitate barter among customers. That’s something anyone can do.

2. Plant a Habitat Garden: Lege einen Habitat-Garten an.

When friends went to the city and asked if we could plant a habitat garden in our neighborhood playground, the park and recreation department said „yes,“ and even provided tons of support. Now, of course, we have to maintain the garden — and that’s a good thing. When my friend Karen took her son Argus to check on the plot, „he pointed out what he planted, and his friend Ezra planted,“ says Karen. „I felt like he had a sense of pride that he and his friends could make something grow.“ And here’s how you can do it yourself.

3. Share Your Car: Teile Dein Auto. … „share your car“ does not qualify as a nifty idea; here at Shareable.net, that’s a commonplace one, and a no-brainer.  But I mean something really specific: If you must own a car — most people feel like they do — please do use it in a way that reduces the number of other cars on the road. My neighbor and friend Noah has three cars. My family has no car, but we feel pressure to give in and get one. Noah knows that he probably shouldn’t drive so much, but he hasn’t yet reached a place where he’s willing to give up a car or two. Instead, he makes it a point to give us rides when we absolutely need one, as a way of supporting our carfree lifestyle and reducing the pressure we feel to buy one. Noah’s not unique; I know lots of people who intentionally share their cars. That helps carfree people like us out…)

4. Start a Stranger Exchange: Starte einen Tausch mit Fremden – völlig anonym und nicht überwacht „John Wilson stopped in Chicago during a road trip from Boston. He was walking by Wicker Park when he noticed a ‚totally anonymous and unsupervised‘ local drop box where you could leave or take unwanted books and DVD’s,“ writes Rachel Botsman. He wondered: Would something similar work in his city, Cambridge, MA? Wilson and friends launched the Stranger Exchange, which has been a huge success. “There is this unexpected curiosity and respect for something like this,” says Wilson. “I am not sure where it comes from. Perhaps people value things made with care and honor systems built on trust?”

5. Share Your Yard: Teile Dein Grundstück. „Yard-sharing has many benefits, from access to fresh food to stronger neighborhood connections to environmental sustainability,“ writes Janelle Orsi. „But there are also potential pitfalls to sharing a garden, which you can avoid by discussing them early on with your neighbor.“ Janelle walks the reader through all the steps to yard-sharing, from setting expectations to overcoming rules forbidding gardens in front yards. „After all, such rules are archaic and predate our society’s growing awareness of problems such as farmland depletion.“

6. Turn Your Cornerstore into a CSA Pick-Up Point: Mach aus dem Laden um die Ecke einen Marktplatz für lokale Agrarprodukte When a University of San Francisco professor assigned her students to increase the sustainability of a corner store in the city’s diverse, low-income Western Addition neighborhood, they came up with a nifty suggestion: make the store a pick-up point for a local Community Supported Agriculture box. This is a brilliant idea: Life in dense cities revolves around corner stores, and making yours a CSA pick-up point overcomes a logistical obstacle to getting organic, locally grown food into urban hands. Why not walk over to your corner store right now and suggest this idea?

Anm.: Da fällt mir ein, ich muss unbedingt mal einen Artikel über den unglaublichen „Laden hier um die Ecke“ schreiben. Ohne den wäre meine Lebensqualität erheblich schlechter.

7. Organize a Community Swap Meet: Organisiere ein Nachbarschaftsmeeting zum Tauschen Share Tompkins, a volunteer-run group based in Ithaca, NY, organizes monthly Community Swap Meets, „where people give-away and barter everything from homemade apple butter and original art, to music lessons, and massage,“ as Shira Golding writes in her Shareable how-to article. Beyond the tangible activities, writes Shira, „we feel we are contributing to the creation of a social fabric rich in giving and sharing.“

8. Start a Skillshare: Öffnen einen Raum zum Teilen von Fertigkeiten – jeder hat was zum Lehren und Lernen

„Organizing a Skillshare is fun and easy, since everyone really has something to teach, and something to learn,“ writes Meg Wachter in her how-to article. „The seeds for the Brooklyn Skillshare began in the Spring of 2009 when I attended a similar event in Boston, and was inspired by the weekend-long workshops offered on a regular basis, free of charge.“

9. Make a Memory Map of Your Neighborhood: Lege eine Karte der Erinnerungen für Dein Viertel/Deine Umgebung an. (ahh… ich hörte, in Jena gibt es die Idee eines öffentlichen Geschichts-/ Geschichtenbuchs)

„I made a map of my neighborhood, intending to mark it with stories of people I had known, but quickly ran out of space,“ writes Claire Kessler-Bradner. „I began to seek the participation of my neighbors, strangers and friends with whom I share this space. The intersection of my important places with the narratives of other lives lived in the neighborhood reveals an intrinsic connection to people I didn’t think I knew.“

10. Weatherize Your Home, the Shareable Way: Mach Dein zu Hause gemeinsam mit anderen wetterfest: „The Cambridge MA group Home Energy Efficiency Team has been organizing monthly weatherization barnraisings for over a year,“ writes Shareable reader George Mokray. The „barnraisings“ save energy and money, of course, but they also build community.

11. Start a Farmers‘ Market: Gründe einen Bauernmarkt oder eine städtische Hühnerfarm: This is not a small project, but a farmers‘ market can enrich your neighborhood in countless ways. „One of the joys of having a neighborhood market is that it can become the equivalent of the village green,“ writes Elizabeth Crane in „How to Start a Farmers‘ Market.“ “ (Need eggs more than veggies? Here’s how to start an urban chicken cooperative.)

12. Turn Libraries into Neighborhood Share Centers: Mach aus Bibliotheken Nachbarschaftszentren des Teilens, wo auch Spielzeug, Werkzeuge, Instrumente oder sonstiges ausgeliehen werden kann – schließlich gibt es dort schon die entsprechende Katalogisierung und Verwaltung

We stumbled into this idea in a conversation on Shareable.net about what things should be more shareable. I suggested that libraries should lend out toys and games as well as books. Contributor Abby Quillen added:

Our public library loans out puppets and learning kits (with lots of small pieces), so games wouldn’t be much different. It seems like the public library would be a great place for a community to share more things, since libraries already have a record system set up for cataloging and lending. Our library lends out a device you can plug into your outlets to measure the electric usage of your appliances, and it’s incredibly popular. I also know of two different public libraries that lend out ukuleles.

Soweit die sehr amerikanische Liste. Da scheinen in den Städten alle Menschen Häuser und alle Häuser einen Garten drumrum zu haben:-). Sie dient mir zuächst dazu, hier im Blog mehr Infos zum Thema Stadt und Gemeingut zu sammeln. Und natürlich eigene Ideen zu entwickeln. Etwa: Öffne Dein WLAN und teile es mit den Nachbarn. Überzeuge die Kommune, dass es WLAN für alle gibt. Beteilige Dich am Open Street Mapping uvm.

Mach aus Städten Commons-WerkStädte!

Zum Weiterlesen:

• Sehr cool: Open Source Stadtplanung (Dazu später mehr.)
• Nimm einen Parkplatz und mach ein Paradies draus
• Lass wieder alle Teilhaber lokaler Sportvereine sein
• Urbanes Gärtner ist hipp; passend zum Thema auch Postfossile Stadtgestaltung und
• Interkulturelle Gartenlust
• Theater und Museumsflatrate in Thüringen
• Gemeingut Stadtbrache (Köln)
• Verkehr: Wir werden wieder zur Normalität zurück kehren
• Hausrecht statt Bürgerrecht