Next City reporter Oscar Perry Abello highlights the innovation inherent in the Democracy Collaborative report, Cities Building Community Wealth. Abello describes authors Marjorie Kelly and Sarah McKinley as important voices in exposing the Community Wealth Building movement, "a movement that has been brewing beneath the radar for at least 40 years."
Some traditional economic development approaches (like “attract and retain”) have helped big businesses even when they’re supposed to help small ones, and have routinely left entire communities behind. Kelly’s talking about a movement that puts cities first, as the places where models like worker cooperatives, community land trusts, land banks and community-driven capital have been percolating for years, even decades, creating all different kinds of community wealth or assets.
“These models are important, and cities are where they take root and flourish,” Kelly says. “The largest and most important communities are cities. That’s where we really see the future of the economy going...” Read full article.