Block Share began with a simple observation: the average Vancouver city block has $2.4 million flowing through it every year — money earned by residents, spent on goods and services, invested in assets. Yet almost none of that economic power is visible to the people who generate it, and almost all of it flows outward to corporations, landlords, and distant supply chains.
What if communities could see their own economic power? What if they could redirect even 5% of that spending — about $120,000 per block — into locally-controlled systems for sharing, group purchasing, and community investment?
"It is no longer a question of whether we should have an alternative to the extractive economy. It is a question of whether we can build one fast enough."
— inspired by E.F. Schumacher, Small is BeautifulOver fifteen years, this question evolved into a practical system. Starting with an exotic car sharing network that demonstrated trust-based peer-to-peer access at scale, Block Share grew into a platform for hyper-local resource sharing, group food purchasing, and complementary currency — all anchored at the block level where neighbours already know and trust each other.