More than a decade ago, my colleagues and I at The Democracy Collaborative began using a term for a new kind of economic development – Community Wealth Building. For years, the term was so uncommon that it almost invariably appeared within quotation marks when used.
Today, a Google search identifies 124,000 entries and is growing daily.
University of Oxford political theorist Stuart White notes the role that community wealth building can have as a potential solution to widening inequality.
The Post Carbon Institute and Collective Conversations interviewed 18 leaders, including Democracy Collaborative Communications Coordinator John Duda, for a new report on the possibilities for a new, more equitable and democratized economy. Building off of conversations from the Community Resilience and New Economy Network, the collected interviews help to connect different social movements and present creative solutions and alternatives to our current extractive economy. Full transcripts of each interview are also available online.
Destruction brought by Hurricane Katrina presented the opportunity — and the challenge — for New Orleans to revive its troubled public housing and integrate residents into the planning processes. This case study from the National Housing Institute describes one community development organization's efforts to build trust between displaced residents and local social service providers, and offers lessons learned for other cities struggling to revitalize their public housing.
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Communities & Banking Journal
In the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Communities & Banking Journal, localist Bruce Seifer presents an excerpt from his new book that describes the shift in Burlington, Vermont's economic development strategy from one that seeks corporate subsidies to one based on building local entrepreneurship. Seifer gives an overview of the city's long-term economic vision and describes the city's efforts to convert business into employee-owned companies and to provide technical assistance to locally owned firms.
Desiree Fields, Rachel Laforest, Tony Romano, Tony Roshan Samara and Rob Call
Right To The City Alliance
This new report from The Right to the City Alliance’s Homes for All Campaign examines how large, well capitalized, private equity firms, entering rental markets create the risk of a second housing bubble. The author, urban geographer Desiree Fields, demonstrates that the institutionalization of the single-family rental market benefits the same financial institutions behind the housing market crash of 2008, while disproportionately impacting low-income communities. She lays out a policy agenda that can promote greater diversity and broaden ownership of land and housing.
