Local resident wants to prove that Burlington is a ‘sharing city’ - join him at the library on the 14th.

News 100 greenBy Staff

April 5, 2016

BURLINGTON, ON

“From the time we are little, we are taught to share” declared Lawson Hunter. ”However, as we age, the desire to acquire ‘stuff’ grows as soon as we earn a little bit of money and join the consumer society. Advertising pushes us to buy the next best thing, a bigger, better, newer version, a complete set, to find happiness and fulfillment. That may be good for the economy but is it good for society?

Uber taxi

Uber taxi, while disruptive to the taxi industry, is one of the more popular sharing services.

“Capitalism may be built on competition,” says Lawson Hunter, “but history shows that we progress much further if we co-operate with one another.” Collaboration, the sharing of ideas and resources, takes us leaps and bounds beyond the private, proprietary approach. Community has always meant working together to achieve good for everyone, not just the individual. Inequality results when many hands do the work but only a few grow wealthy because of it. Sharing brings everyone up to the same level and everyone benefits.

Some call it the ‘sharing economy’; the gig economy; the gift economy; peer-to-peer accommodation; or collaborative consumption, but at its core it is very simple – if you’re not using something why not let someone else use it?

Though not officially counted in the GDP, the sharing economy could grow to $335 billion by 2025, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers. This is the foundation behind such revolutionary start-ups such as Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, TaskRabbit and dozens of other disruptive technologies that citizens and cities are embracing or challenging, depending on your point of view.

To that end, Hunter met with the Mayor to see if he could get something going at that level – the Mayor is going to think about it.

He has run the idea by a couple of council members – they didn’t day ‘not a hope’. Hunter, who is a letter carrier dabbles in some public relations consulting.

Library shelves with books

Libraries are perhaps the original sharing service.

The sharing economy has opened the door to more efficient uses of everyday items we own but do not use to their fullest capacity. For example, car ownership is ubiquitous and yet most cars sit parked for most of the day. Someone may purchase a drill only to use it a half a dozen times in total leaving it to lay in the toolbox for years. Books, clothing, household items may be used once or twice and then discarded. This is an incredible waste and unsustainable. Why not ‘share’ with someone else, reducing cost, optimizing resources, and extending the usefulness of thousands of articles?

Hunter points out that we already share quite a lot! We just don’t know about it or take it for granted. Libraries, food banks, used clothing stores, parks, public transit, recycled building materials, and even co-operative housing are examples of the sharing economy.

Volunteering to coach hockey, teaching someone to read, driving a patient to the hospital, carpooling, shoveling your neighbour’s sidewalk are just some of the ways we already ‘share’ our time and effort, goods and services. It’s important to measure, and celebrate, the many ways society shares its common resources. There is an international organization that wants every community to stand up and be counted in The Sharing Cities Network – www.shareable.net.

Getting it - blackHunter explains an event called a mapjam – a time when people get together and map out just where sharing is done in a city. “You would be surprised ay just how much sharing goes on” and points to a number of situations in Burlington where people on a street collectively own a heavy duty snow blower.
More than 500 MapJams have been hosted in 60 countries – two have taken place in Canada – Elora and Toronto.

bikes for rent

Many cities around the world have created bicycle sharing services.

Hunter wants Burlington to join that Network. To kick things off, he is hosting a ‘#Map Jam’ on Thursday, April 14, 7:30pm, Frank Rose Room, at the Burlington Central Library. Every organization that shares, opens its doors, facilitates exchanges, co-ordinates time-sharing or carpooling or food banks or little league sports, arts, and activities is invited to network, meet other sharing activists and exchange information. The general public is also invited to learn more about the sharing economy. “We may all be amazed at how we already are in the sharing economy,” says Hunter.

What Hunter is promoting is exactly what the Parks and Recreation department is trying to get going in the city.

Related news story – city prepared to fund projects

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Chamber of Commerce breaks a media tradition - next year we will bring lunch boxes

By Staff

December 10th, 2024

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The Mayors Chamber of Commerce luncheon took place on Monday at the Burlington Convention Centre.

The crowd was decent enough.

The Mayor made her comments, insisting again that the tax increase was going to be 5.76, which is true, but also very misleading and really poor communications policy on the part of the City.

That  5.76  represented all the taxes: Boards of Education, the Regional levy (which has yet to be determined), the Police Services expense – which is included with the Regional levy.

The Mayor and her council members are responsible for what Burlington spends and what it needs in the way of a tax levy.  The residents of the city deserve to know what the city is doing to them financially.

At this point, the tax increase over last year is expected to be 7.83%.  The city uses the words “deemed to have been approved” in statements they issue these days.

The Regional Council will determine what their tax levy is going to be on Wednesday – at that point, the city will be able to set its tax levy.

The City CAO Hassaan Basit used the same 4.97% number.

This was not the picture we used in the first version of this story. Shortly after it was published Councillor Kearns advised me that my zipper had come undone. I asked her for suggestions on what could be done. We ended up agreeing that photo-shopping the picture and putting in a fig leaf would do the trick.

At Chamber of Commerce events a table is usually set aside for media.  In the past CHCH has had cameras, Cogeco had a crew and a number of print media sent a representative.

This year there were just two media people: Hunter Lawson from Burlington Today and Pepper Parr from the Burlington Gazette.

There was no table, there was no lunch.  We did get a glass of water.

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Repair Cafe setting up in Aldershot this time - July 5th

By Staff

July 3rd, 2022

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Repair Café – that band of people who pop into a community offering to repair almost anything – they can’t repair computers or printers is back.  They are inviting people to bring in their broken household appliances which the team does their best to fix free.  All the person with that broken hair drier has to do is pay for any parts.

Next location is Tuesday, July 5th 3-7pm at the Aldershot Outdoor Market, 195 Plains Rd. East.

Burlington has hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who took early retirement or put in their 25 years and stopped punching a clock – and are looking for something to do that appeals to their better selves.

Some serve on committees, others join service clubs and others come up with an idea of their own and look for ways to make it happen.  Hunter Lawson picked up the idea, tweaked it a bit, created a logo and some signs and called people he thought would be interested.  They now meet in different parts of the city every month or so

Related news story

What they do at the repair cafe

 

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