Community wealth building is a term which covers a range of approaches which "...aim at improving the ability of communities and individuals to increase asset ownership, anchor jobs locally by broadening ownership over capital, help achieve key environmental goals, expand the provision of public services and ensure local economic stability”. [1] The original model, the Cleveland Model, was developed in Cleveland, United States, however the Cleveland Model has also been developed and applied with the creation of the "Preston Model", in Preston, Lancashire. [2] [3] It is a form of municipal socialism which utilises "anchor institutions", living wage expansion, community banking, public pension investment, worker ownership and municipal enterprise tied to a procurement strategy at the municipal level. [3] [4] [5]
The Preston Model is an approach to community wealth building pioneered by Preston City Council, Lancashire, England, [3] and its partners, including Lancashire County Council, Lancashire Constabulary, the University of Central Lancashire, local colleges and a local housing provider. [6] The model is a form of municipal socialism which utilises "anchor institutions", living wage expansion, community banking, public pension investment, worker ownership and municipal enterprise tied to a procurement strategy at the municipal level. [3] Anchor institutions are mission-driven organisations committed to maintaining service in their local communities, such as councils, hospitals, universities, colleges and housing associations. [7]
It is based on projects developed in Cleveland, Ohio and Mondragon, Spain. [5] [8] Councillor Matthew Brown, originally Executive Member for Social Justice, Inclusion and Policy, played a key role in developing the model with his colleague Councillor Martyn Rawlinson, working in conjunction with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies. The first issue they tackled in 2012-2013 was to localise their procurement spend in Preston and the surrounding county of Lancashire. [4] Former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell was a vocal supporter of the project during his time on the frontbenches. [8]
The plan has been criticised by some members of Preston City Council. The leader of the council's Liberal Democrat group described it as a 'marketing gimmick' that has not had a substantial effect on the local area, and that locals are not interested in the project. Critics have also pointed out Preston relies heavily on multi-national companies for employment, and that local procurement isn't the answer to everything, despite being a useful tool. [8]
Preston City Council notes that its model builds on Manchester City Council's "principles of progressive procurement" and mentions Birmingham, Oldham, Salford, Kirklees, Islington, Enfield, Southampton, Wakefield and Bristol as examples of other UK locations implementing similar community wealth building approaches. [6] The Centre for Local Economic Strategies sees Manchester's "progressive procurement" as an example of good practice: by 2015/16, community-focussed policy drivers had ensured that 73.1% of the Council's third-party expenditure was placed with organisations based in, or with a branch in, the city, and 90.7% with organisations based in, or with a branch in, Greater Manchester. [9] Southampton City Council continues to embrace "progressive practices" in procurement aimed at "deliver[ing] economic, environmental and social benefits through our contracts, ensuring that money generated by Southampton's economy is retained within Southampton's local economy wherever possible". [10] Birmingham's approach, adopted with the support of former Council leader John Clancy, focussed on using the area's "significant existing wealth ... more effectively for the benefit of our economy and people". [11] Fife and Islington Councils have more recently committed themselves to community wealth building policies. [7]
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, socialism is considered the standard left wing ideology in most countries of the world. Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, and the structure of management in organizations.
Lancashire is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west.
Preston is a city on the north bank of the River Ribble in Lancashire, England. The city is the administrative centre of the county of Lancashire and the wider City of Preston local government district. Preston and its surrounding district obtained city status in 2002, becoming England's 50th city in the 50th year of Queen Elizabeth II's reign. Preston has a population of 114,300, the City of Preston district 132,000 and the Preston Built-up Area 313,322. The Preston Travel To Work Area, in 2011, had a population of 420,661, compared with 354,000 in the previous census. The south bank of the Ribble is part of the Preston urban area, although it forms the South Ribble borough that is administratively separate.
An economic system, or economic order, is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within a society. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making processes, and patterns of consumption that comprise the economic structure of a given community.
The socialist market economy (SME) is the economic system and model of economic development employed in the People's Republic of China. The system is a market economy with the predominance of public ownership and state-owned enterprises. The term "socialist market economy" was introduced by Jiang Zemin during the 14th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1992 to describe the goal of China's economic reforms.
The Liverpool City Region is a combined authority area in North West England. It has six council areas: the five metropolitan boroughs of Merseyside and the unitary authority of Halton in Cheshire. The region had a population of 1,571,045 in 2022.
Gar Alperovitz is an American historian and political economist. Alperovitz served as a fellow of King's College, Cambridge; a founding fellow of the Harvard Institute of Politics; a founding Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies; a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution; and the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland Department of Government and Politics from 1999 to 2015. He also served as a legislative director in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate and as a special assistant in the US Department of State. Alperovitz is a distinguished lecturer with the American Historical Society, co-founded the Democracy Collaborative and co-chairs its Next System Project with James Gustav Speth.
Fulwood is a suburb of Preston, Lancashire, England, in the northern half of the City of Preston district. It had a population of 28,535 in 2011 and is made up of five wards.
Burscough Bridge railway station is one of two railway stations which serves the town of Burscough in Lancashire, England. It is on the Manchester-Southport Line. It is operated and managed by Northern Trains. A bus interchange has recently been constructed next to the station, including a shop and cafe. The station has been identified by Merseytravel as a possible interchange between the Liverpool to Ormskirk line and the Southport to Wigan line in its Liverpool City Region Long Term Rail Strategy.
Municipal socialism is a type of socialism that uses local government to further socialist aims. It is a form of municipalism in which its explicitly socialist aims are clearly stated. In some contexts the word "municipalism" was tainted with the concept of provincialism. However, when it was adopted by various socialist networks in the late nineteenth century, this approach to socialist transformation spread across Europe and North America. Following electoral success in a number of localities, by the early twentieth century discussion of municipal socialism took on a more practical character, as Edgard Milhaud, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Geneva. established Annales de la Régie Directe, an academic journal which set out to scientifically examine the initial steps towards transforming areas previously dominated by private enterprise into new forms of public service. This journal contributed to a growing network of municipal socialists in Europe and North America, in which three types of movements were united at a local level: trade unions particularly of municipally run public services such as gas, transport, sewage etc., consumer and industrial co-operatives, and other associations of consumers including tenants groups opposed to price and rent increases.
The Civic Gospel was a philosophy of municipal activism and improvement that emerged in Birmingham, England, in the mid-19th century. Tracing its origins to the teaching of independent nonconformist preacher George Dawson, who declared that "a town is a solemn organism through which shall flow, and in which shall be shaped, all the highest, loftiest and truest ends of man's moral nature", it reached its culmination in the mayoralty of Joseph Chamberlain between 1873 and 1876. After Dawson's death in 1876 it was the Congregationalist pastor R. W. Dale who took on the role as the movement's leading nonconformist spokesman. Other major proponents included the Baptist Charles Vince and the Unitarian H. W. Crosskey.
Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift ownership and decision-making power from corporate shareholders and corporate managers to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, consumers, suppliers, communities and the broader public. No single definition or approach encompasses economic democracy, but most proponents claim that modern property relations externalize costs, subordinate the general well-being to private profit and deny the polity a democratic voice in economic policy decisions. In addition to these moral concerns, economic democracy makes practical claims, such as that it can compensate for capitalism's inherent effective demand gap.
Innovation districts are urban geographies of innovation where R&D strong institutions, companies, and other private actors develop integrated strategies and solutions to develop thriving innovation ecosystems–areas that attract entrepreneurs, startups, and business incubators. Unlike science parks, innovation districts are physically compact, leverage density and high levels of accessibility, and provide a “mash up” of activities including housing, office, and neighborhood-serving amenities. Districts signify the collapse back of innovation into cities and is increasingly used as a way to revitalize the economies of cities and their broader regions. As of 2019, there are more than 100 districts worldwide.
Social ownership is a type of property where an asset is recognized to be in the possession of society as a whole rather than individual members or groups within it. Social ownership of the means of production is the defining characteristic of a socialist economy, and can take the form of community ownership, state ownership, common ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, and citizen ownership of equity. Within the context of socialist economics it refers particularly to the appropriation of the surplus product produced by the means of production to society at large or the workers themselves. Traditionally, social ownership implied that capital and factor markets would cease to exist under the assumption that market exchanges within the production process would be made redundant if capital goods were owned and integrated by a single entity or network of entities representing society. However, the articulation of models of market socialism where factor markets are utilized for allocating capital goods between socially owned enterprises broadened the definition to include autonomous entities within a market economy.
Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use rather than for profit. Socialist systems that utilize markets for allocating capital goods and factors of production among economic units are designated market socialism. When planning is utilized, the economic system is designated as a socialist planned economy. Non-market forms of socialism usually include a system of accounting based on calculation-in-kind to value resources and goods.
The economy of Greater Cleveland is diverse, but is based on healthcare, banking, finance, education, insurance, manufacturing, sports, and tech. The metropolitan area based in Cleveland is the 33rd largest in the country, and is home to over 2 million people.
County Hall is a municipal building in Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, England. It is the headquarters of Lancashire County Council.
The Democracy Collaborative is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, American think tank and research center founded at the University of Maryland in 2000. It is based in Washington, D.C., and Cleveland, Ohio, and researches strategies to create a democratic economy, and to contribute to community wealth building and environmental and social sustainability.
Preston Town Hall is a municipal building in Lancaster Road in Preston, Lancashire, England. The town hall, which is the headquarters of Preston City Council, is a Grade II listed building.