In Michigan, US a new platform enables sharing among local governments
His name is MuniRent and will be the hub for collaborative government in the US. This new platform makes very easy for local governments to lease heavy duty equipment to other local governments. The idea was born in the southern Michigan in January and now is used by six municipalities.
Until today the sharing economy has mostly involved products like cars, bikes, and homes and from there are born the giants of the sector such as Lyft, Citi Bike, and Airbnb. With MuniRent finally the collaborative economy arrives to the public sector.
As we know very well in Italy, a lot of municipalities have equipment that spends a lot of time unused, and local governments in need to save money. With MuniRent on the one hand the municipality that offers its equipment take the advantage to get cash and the renter gets equipment cheaper.
Moreover, as affirmed by the young MuniRent CEO, Alan Mold, the sharing in this area will work even better. In fact municipalities are not in competition with each other because they are competent for different jurisdictions.
In perspective would be interesting to see what would happen if instead of cars and tractors, municipalities will share soft services like competences and knowledge. In this way is the experiment in progress in Mantua, where Labsus, in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce and others local partners are involved in the designing and prototyping of CO-Mantova a new subject the aims to be a platform for the collaborative governance of the cultural commons of the city. A platform for the sharing of soft skills widespread throughout society and in need of a coordination center, as CO-Mantova would be.