Sharing Economies’ Initiatives in Municipal Authorities’ Perspective: Research Evidence from Poland in the Context of Smart Cities’ Development

The emergence and dynamic development of the sharing economy as a socio-economic phenomenon was triggered by the subprime crisis of 2007–2009 and the consequent need to rationalize the use of resources. Cities (especially those generally recognized as a Smart City) have become a natural environment for the sharing economy, due to the spatial accumulation of both potential users and available goods and services. Adopting the point of view that urban conditions are advantageous for the development of the SE, the authors of the article assess the scope of implementation of solutions typical for the sharing economy and the scale of support of municipal authorities for their implementation in 287 Polish cities. For this purpose, they use representative surveys carried out in January 2020. When analyzing the results, they consider the following aspects of a sharing economy: carpooling, coworking, co-housing, room sharing, couch surfing clothes swap/toy swap and crowdfunding. In their research, they also identify relationships between the degree of development of the sharing economy in Polish cities and their size (expressed as the number of inhabitants) and wealth (expressed as the level of budget revenues per capita), trying to answer the question asked in the title: how do cities use and support sharing economy initiatives? The research results indicate a low level of SE development in Polish cities and a low involvement of municipal authorities in supporting this development. Individual forms of SE function best in large cities that have successfully aspired to be smart for many years. In other administrative units, the obstacle to the development of the SE is probably the low availability and quality of free housing resources and the reluctance to share, resulting from reluctance in a centrally planned economy related to the non-market allocation of goods and services and the associated strong attachment to private property.