Cryptourbanomics: A Method to Boost Urban Sustainability with Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Cryptourbanomics puts forward the idea that there are forces and capital in our society that cannot be dismissed or neglected but that the System (understood as the Establishment or Status-quo) has failed to acknowledge or been unable to address. These social forces have strong ideological, cultural, or identity components, sometimes related to an unrealized Right to the City (Lefèvre, 1968). The social capital behind those forces are often citizens who gave up—the so-called drop-outs because they lost their faith in the System and prefer living in their own world. Blockchain is the technology that empowers these unheard social forces and capital. However, blockchain will remain as an Anti-System technology until it finds a fit within the Establishment until the Status-quo acknowledges and ushers it. Cryptourbanomics is a novel method that brings into the blockchain those societal challenges that the System leaves unsolved. And because today’s societal challenges mostly take place in urban environments, the Cryptourbanomics method focuses on the overall urban sustainability and analyses them with a blockchain lens. The Cryptourbanomics method includes an array of blockchain tools to tackle legacy societal challenges yet unsolved by the System with a more decentralised, distributed, transparent and neutral approach. This paper shows how the Cryptourbanomics method can help deliver on Urban Sustainability by shifting powers, from the Establishment to Communities, and it showcases this with a use case within the Right to the City, that is the Right to Work.