Articoli taggati con ‘social cohesion’
Trust against fear. The Role of Culture and the Future of Europe
In a fragile political and economic framework, the attention to the role that culture can play in creating the bass for the future of Europe is growing rapidly. This paper investigates the impacts that culture create in several aspects of our lives: from the social cohesion to the economic development, from the mechanisms through which culture shapes our cities to the awareness of the sense of our lives resulting from knowledge. Finally, in this paper we would like to point out the links that relate culture, economic development and intangible assets such as feeling of identity and trust. The paper compare the evidence emerging from a recent paper commissioned by the European Economic and Social Committee with the insights provided by several literature reviews and the results of specific projects dealing with culture and social dynamics. In the first chapter, we present the study, comparing several ways to look at the phenomena involved in the process of trust building; in chapter 2 we will underline the relevance of intangible assets such as social cohesion, in Chapter 3 we will analyze, more in detail the necessity of a sustainable economic growth. Our conclusions will show how cultural interventions within the city territory can foster social inclusion, cohesion, and trust.
Sharing Economy: All of Us in Wonderland
Obviously, innovation is seen as very fashionable these days. With no surprise, we can search for “top innovators under 30”, “top start-ups to watch” and “top-gadgets” that can improve the way we live. These characterize the private sector well as the risk-friendly, creative, and flexible incubator, where the tendency for “ready-to-play” wealthy investors and ambitious entrepreneurs to gravitate to Silicon Valley dreamland has become the driving force for the birth of innovative solutions. Since Professor Clayton Christensen began using the term “disruptive innovations”, which refers to the selling of cheaper products that can eventually disrupt an existing market, it seems that everyone is now “disrupting” and that every day is seen as an instance of innovation. Similar to Professor Christensen, the German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas pointed out that our complex societies are clearly susceptible to interferences and accidents and that these offer ideal opportunities for a creating prompt disruption of normal activities. It seems to be natural, then, that while millions of innovative applications based on principles of sharing have proven to be of high economic value the Sharing Economy platforms predict to generate revenues of 335 billion by 2025, shaking the future of many traditional economic sectors. For example, UBER, the Sharing Economy prodigy child for transportation network, possessing no cars and without officially employing has already managed to disrupt taxi industry in over three hundred cities worldwide, bringing about lawsuits and causing employee protests. Though, in this emerging scenario of disruptive innovations and the Sharing Economy, it is obvious that the effectiveness of the public sector is diminishing, leaving important services uncovered and without innovation hopelessly leaving the sector of society impaired. As described in the latest innovation report on European Public Sector Innovation, the public sector is stereotyped as an “outdated infrastructure that lags behind the needs of modern citizens and today’s businesses”.
