Post Carbon Fellow Janelle Orsi’s opinion piece on the sharing economy was in the New York Times.

From the post:

Many regulations were designed for the inverse economy — one where most of us buy from, and work for, businesses that are large, impersonal and driven solely by profits. Those businesses benefit from a narrow regulatory system that puts up immense barriers to anything different.

Between the two extremes, we can create a spectrum of regulations calibrated for a richly diverse sharing economy. We can require Airbnb hosts and Lyft drivers to adopt safety measures that protect their customers. We can cap usage or income, so that such activities don’t undercut the taxi industry or housing affordability. We can customize the rules in every city for every type of sharing economy activity. Our legal system can be this intelligent, and a new era of lawmaking is just beginning.

Read full post