Collaborative consumption in Vegas

I've become a bit fascinated with this whole idea of collaborative consumption (also known as the sharing economy) lately and the arguments that it alters notions of ownership, fosters trust and a sense of community, and can potentially change the social and physical landscape of cities. Some of the discussions are convincing and others are less so. For me, it's partly that a lot of very disparate things are grouped under the general category of collaborative consumption. When money is part of the "transaction," very different dynamics and sets of expectations emerge (for example, Airbnb versus Couchsurfing). I'm far from an expert on collaborative consumption, but I'm interested in seeing how things evolve and the concept is refined or redefined.

Some mobility-related, peer-to-peer car sharing examples of this new culture of sharing are Zipcar, Getaround, RelayRides, and SideCar. Downtown Project is the brainchild of Tony Hsieh of Zappos. It's a $350 million plan to revitalize Downtown Las Vegas through increased urban density and a mix of industries and creative communities. Yesterday, Project 100 was announced, the transportation part of this initiative:

Project 100 is the code name for a complete transportation system designed to let you get rid of your car and be more connected to your neighborhood. It includes on-demand cars with drivers, shared cars you can drive yourself, bikesharing, shuttle buses and more. The experience is simple: open an app so we know where you are and tell us what zone you want to travel to. With that information we’ll give you a set of options, for example, 1 – Be picked up by a driver in a Tesla in 3 minutes, 2 – Drive yourself in a low range electric vehicle that’s 0.2 miles away, 3 – Grab a bike that’s 0.1 miles away or 4 – Hop on the party bus that will be near you in 4 minutes. 

They have indeed teamed up with Tesla for the car part of the program. I'm curious to see how the system plays out and the types of social interactions that emerge from the people-people and people-mode relationships.

(via TIME, The Atlantic Cities, TED, Green Car Reports)