R.J. Lehmann on Ensuring the Sharing Economy Thrives
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The so-called sharing economy is many things to many people. To Wall Street and Silicon Valley, firms like Uber and Airbnb offer tantalizing market capitalizations, the likes of which have not been seen since the go-go 90s. At the same time, political operatives see the emerging debates over regulation of ride-sharing and space-sharing as a potential opening for the libertarian right to assert their world view in urban politics for the first time in a long time. R.J. Lehmann writes that where lawmakers do find the need to pass new legislation to deal with sharing economy services, they should take this opportunity to significantly scale back, rather than increase, reliance on occupational licensure.