How it is Practiced

The crises we face are driven by the extractive nature of our existing system – concentrated ownership, community disinvestment, attacks on labor, environmental degradation, and structural social and racial injustice. Community Wealth Building confronts and addresses these trends directly - building an economic system where broad democratic ownership lays the groundwork for greater equity and social and racial justice. CWB achieves this through the following five pillars of direct intervention into local economies:

  • Inclusive and democratic enterprise

    Cities should have multiple forms of worker and consumer cooperatives, social enterprises, public ownership, municipal enterprise, and more, based on the recognition that the ownership and control of productive capital is at the heart of where power lies in any political-economic system.

  • Locally Rooted Finance

    Cities and local institutions should redirect money in service of the real economy through public and community banks, credit unions, and targeted public pension investments.

  • Fair Work

    Every worker should receive a living wage and real power in and control of their workplace to deliver decent work and conditions, and advance trade union rights.

  • Just use of Land and Property

    Cities should mobilize land and property assets to build real wealth in communities, bring local land and real estate development back under community control, and combat speculation and displacement.

  • Progressive Procurement

    Local governments and place-based “anchor institutions” should lead with procurement practices that re-localize economic activity, build local multipliers, and end leakage and financial extraction.

Each of these five pillars contain various elements that offer direct interventions that democratize local economies from the ground up. These include a range of elements.

These individual elements are not new – they have been benefiting communities around the world for generations. Yet, while they can produce real and positive outcomes for people, on their own they are not transformative unless linked to a larger context. What is missing is a broader, cohesive strategy. CWB sees the big picture, implementing each element interconnectedly across all of the five pillars. In so doing, it achieves the urgency, speed, and scale required for this moment.  We call this the Community Wealth Building “Wedge.”

One important ingredient of a CWB approach is the role of anchor institutions: large public and nonprofit organizations with a significant presence and stake in the local community. These include local government, public bodies, colleges, universities, hospitals, schools and place-based nonprofits. As large employers, purchasers of goods and services, and owners of land and property, these anchors exert significant influence on the local economy – they are economic agents.  If anchor institutions work together they can have a transformative effect on the prosperity and wellbeing of their local communities.

The Wedge

The Wedge represents CWB’s transformative power – combining the actions within these pillars to disrupt and displace the extractive economy, creating a new model that drives a more democratic economy from the local to the global. 

TDC’s tried and tested methodology deploys this Wedge using an appreciative inquiry-based approach.  This, in turn, produces a suite of actions which, taken together, act as the Wedge to democratize the local economy through practical, focused and achievable steps. TDC is developing the tools – from trainings to briefings to toolkits – and communities of practice with the resource, support, and expertise needed to take this movement from the fringes to the mainstream.