Local Communities

The Preston model: UK takes lessons in recovery from rust-belt Cleveland

Hazel Sheffield

The Guardian

Ted Howard looks out on a group of people drinking tea from styrofoam cups at Preston town hall on a Monday afternoon in March. The social entrepreneur and author from Cleveland, Ohio, is the special guest at the city’s monthly social forum. “What’s happening in this community is historic – it blows my mind,” he tells the city councillors and local business owners. “We’re working out how to build an inclusive economy.”...Read More

Time to Buy Out Fossil Fuel Corporations - Gar Alperovitz on Reality Asserts Itself (1/2)

Paul Jay

Real News Network

The Next System Project's Gar Alperovitz tells Paul Jay that the Federal Reserve should use quantitive easing, i.e. create money, to take Big Oil companies out of the equation and finance a massive green infrastructure program...watch the video here

'An Idea Whose Time Has Come': Lawmakers Roll Out Plan to Expand Worker Ownership

Lauren McCauley

Common Dreams

'Giving workers a seat at the table and their fair share of the profits they help produce is one way to even up the playing field and give hardworking Americans a chance to create an economy that works for everyone'...read more

Amid “Constitutional Crisis,” Bernie Sanders Urges Workers To Seize Means of Production

Kate Arnoff

In These Times

The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind, politically speaking. Most of it has to do with the onslaught of chaos that followed Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey—a move political scientists agree is off the spectrum of normalcy in the history of the American presidency. Before his termination, Comey was leading an investigation into the Trump team’s alleged ties to the Russian government. Keith Ellison, deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has said “we are witnessing a constitutional crisis.” Calls for impeachment are in the air, along with a good deal of conspiracy theorizing...read more

New Budget Deal Preserves All 19 Social Spending Programs Trump Tried to Eliminate

James Trimarco

Yes! Magazine

Economic relief agencies as well as support for arts and culture got nearly a five-month reprieve from the more radical cuts proposed in Trump’s budget. In this article, Yes! Magazine cites the inclusive tracker that the Democracy Collaborative created...read more

In Cleveland, co-op model finds hope in employers rooted in the city

James E. Causey

Journal Sentinel

Program that boosts workers into homeownership could hold lessons for Milwaukee...read more

Meet the Radical Workers’ Cooperative Growing in the Heart of the Deep South

Peter Moskowitz

The Nation

Cooperation Jackson is trying to build an alternative economy for the city’s majority-black residents...read more

Mayor Warren announces new co-op business

WHAM

WHAM 7

Rochester, N.Y. - Mayor Lovely Warren has announced a new co-op business in Rochester...read more

Embracing the Economy as a Design Challenge

Jennifer Atlee

Building Green

The consulting engineers at Integral Group are accustomed to working with clients early in an integrated design process. Working with Kevin Bates, president of Sharp Development Company, was different, however. “The first meeting wasn’t a design meeting—it was a financial meeting,” said John Andary of Integral Group, of a recent project with Bates. “As long as [Bates] was meeting his ROI [return on investment] and capitalization rate he was willing to spend whatever money, even if he was planning to sell the building.”...read more

Cooperative Future: Rochester Startup Corp. Announces Eneroc Project

Wendy Mills

Spectrum News

SPECTRUM NEWS VIDEO: The city of Rochester is moving forward with its initiative to create more jobs for people who live in Rochester's most challenging neighborhoods. The city's Market Driven Community Corporation announced it's first startup business Wednesday...watch here

Austin Council Votes to Boost Worker Cooperatives

Oscar Perry Abello

Next City

As policymakers around the U.S. continue to consider how to support entrepreneurship in ways that generate widely shared wealth across all lines of race, class and gender, many have been eyeing worker cooperatives...read more

ENEROC enters into agreement on LED project

Kerry Feltner and Andrea Deckert

Rochester Business Journal

ENEROC LLC—the inaugural business of the Market Driven Community Corp.—has entered into an agreement to be a subcontractor for an LED lighting installation project at Rochester General Hospital...read more

How Solidarity Economy Movement is Emerging in Lower-Income Communities of Color

Solidarity Economy Initiative

This report was commissioned by the Massachusetts-based Solidarity Economy Initiative (SEI), which was convened in 2015 to support grassroots organizations to lead a movement for a solidarity economy. SEI was developed by Access Strategies Fund, Boston Impact Initiative, Center for Economic Democracy, and Solidago Foundation. It organizes resources, technical assistance, and infrastructure for frontline organizations to develop movement-building strategies to transform American capitalism as a root cause of social and ecological injustice...read more

City Co-Op Program Launches First Startup

Sean Lahman

Democrat & Chronicle

A year ago, city officials said they'd help to create worker cooperatives in some of Rochester's poorest neighborhoods. At these businesses, employees could become partial owners — and when the company profits, these workers would share in the rewards...read more

The Role of Impact Investors in Taking Employee Ownership to Scale

Learning + Design Session | January 18th , 2017 | New Brunswick, NJ

The Hidden Threat of Tax Cuts to Equitable Economic Development

Rooflines

Although the Trump administration’s recent budget proposal offers only a look at expenses, with no numbers on revenue, it won’t be long before massive cuts to corporate taxes are on the agenda, as Trump has promised. Before the noise machine ramps up on that issue, it’s an apt time to stop and consider the unintended consequences such tax breaks could have. The hidden danger in broad cuts to the corporate tax rate is this: these cuts would blunt the effectiveness of key policies designed to support communities and an inclusive economy...read more

Cleveland’s cooperatives show us how to solve the problems of deindustrialisation

Claire McCarthy

Labour List

Normally you only hear people in British politics discussing the US state of Ohio during Presidential elections. But Cleveland, Ohio has been on the lips of many in recent weeks because Ted Howard the architect of the so-called Cleveland model has been in the UK. The visionary approach that he and his colleagues at the Democracy Collaborative have taken to creating local sustainable growth and jobs in Cleveland is gaining growing attention this side of the pond..read more >

How the Neighborhood That Inspired “The Wire” Is Pulling Its Residents Out of Poverty

Cecilia Garza and Araz Hachadourian

Yes! Magazine

When large institutions like universities and hospitals agree to hire and spend locally, they can transform neighborhoods hardest hit by poverty and unemployment...read more >

Chronicling the Lives of the Working Poor Across America

The Leonard Lopate Show

wnyc

Pulitzer Prize-winning author, journalist and Columbia Journalism School professor Dale Maharidge crossed the country to chronicle the lives of today's working poor, from farmworkers in southern California fighting against low wages and a devastating drought, to heroin stricken communities in northern Maine that have been abandoned by industry. His story, “American Ballad: A Photographic Chronicle of America's Working Poor,” marks the 75th anniversary of James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. It was published in the December issue of Smithsonian Magazine...listen here

Building a System-Changing Response to Trump and Trumpism at All Levels

Gar Alperovitz

Truth-Out

Any serious perspective on how to respond to the election of Donald Trump must begin by recognizing that his victory flowed in substantial part from the growing global crisis of capitalism, which demands a specific strategic response. The response must begin with -- but also go beyond -- the urgent work of defending, wherever and however possible, the individuals and communities most at risk...Read More

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