Lookout Eugene-Springfield’s November editorial about Lane County’s stalling economy resonated with me. I couldn’t agree with it more. The same old ideas are no longer working. Actually, they have never really worked for the entire community, just mostly for the already rich to get even richer.

An article I read years ago on Community Wealth Building stuck with me. It described an economic system designed to spread the wealth around, to keep money circulating in local economies and make budgets more resilient.

The idea came from The Democracy Collaborative, which has an active online presence with loads of information. The organization’s president, Joe Guinan, co-authored a short book on the subject, called “The Case for Community Wealth Building.”

It included this excerpt: “Instead of traditional economic development through locational tax incentives, outsourcing and public-private partnerships, which wastes billions to subsidize the extraction of profit, often by footloose multinational corporations with no loyalty to local communities, Community Wealth Building supports democratic collective ownership of the local economy through a range of institutions and policies. These include worker cooperatives, community land trusts, community development financial institutions, so-called ‘anchor institution’ procurement strategies, municipal and local public enterprises and public and community banking.”

This isn’t just an idea either. It is being practiced throughout the world, including in England and Scotland, as well as in American cities like Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta and Cleveland. The city of Preston, England, is a famous example. The town had been planning on a major private sector investment to buoy its economy, but the project collapsed and left the town with nothing to fall back on. This blow led a young labor councilor to explore other economic solutions.

“Once a poster child for economic deprivation and ‘left behind’ places,” Guinan’s book says, “Preston has already seen significant payoffs from its alternative economic development approach, having been named the UK’s most improved urban area.” 

This document explains how the town used Community Wealth Building strategies to turn itself around.

Sue Mandeville
Springfield