Paint Your Town Red: How Preston Took Back Control and Your Town Can Too
Paint Your Town Red tells the story of how one city in the north of England decided to level up without waiting for Whitehall.

Across the world, there is a growing recognition that a new kind of economy is needed: more democratic, less exploitative, less destructive of society and the planet. Paint Your Town Red looks at how wealth can be generated and shared at a local level through the experience of one of the main advocates of the new Democratic Economy, Matthew Brown, the driving-force behind the world-recognized Preston Model.

Using analysis, interviews and case studies to explain what Matthew and Preston City Council have done over the last decade in order to earn Preston the title of Most Improved City, the book shows how the model can be adapted to fit different local circumstances, as well as demonstrating how Preston itself adapted economic and democratic experiments in ‘community wealth-building’ from elsewhere in the US and Europe.

Preston’s success shows that the ideas of community wealth-building work in practice and have the capacity to achieve a meaningful transfer of wealth and power back to local communities. A lot of recent coverage and references have tended to oversimplify the Preston Model, which is not just about ‘buying local’ but a comprehensive project, which envisions local and regional discussions and collaboration adding up to a wholesale transformation of our currently failing economic systems.
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Paint Your Town Red: How Preston Took Back Control and Your Town Can Too
Paint Your Town Red tells the story of how one city in the north of England decided to level up without waiting for Whitehall.

Across the world, there is a growing recognition that a new kind of economy is needed: more democratic, less exploitative, less destructive of society and the planet. Paint Your Town Red looks at how wealth can be generated and shared at a local level through the experience of one of the main advocates of the new Democratic Economy, Matthew Brown, the driving-force behind the world-recognized Preston Model.

Using analysis, interviews and case studies to explain what Matthew and Preston City Council have done over the last decade in order to earn Preston the title of Most Improved City, the book shows how the model can be adapted to fit different local circumstances, as well as demonstrating how Preston itself adapted economic and democratic experiments in ‘community wealth-building’ from elsewhere in the US and Europe.

Preston’s success shows that the ideas of community wealth-building work in practice and have the capacity to achieve a meaningful transfer of wealth and power back to local communities. A lot of recent coverage and references have tended to oversimplify the Preston Model, which is not just about ‘buying local’ but a comprehensive project, which envisions local and regional discussions and collaboration adding up to a wholesale transformation of our currently failing economic systems.
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Paint Your Town Red: How Preston Took Back Control and Your Town Can Too

Paint Your Town Red: How Preston Took Back Control and Your Town Can Too

by Matthew Brown, Rhian Jones
Paint Your Town Red: How Preston Took Back Control and Your Town Can Too

Paint Your Town Red: How Preston Took Back Control and Your Town Can Too

by Matthew Brown, Rhian Jones

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Overview

Paint Your Town Red tells the story of how one city in the north of England decided to level up without waiting for Whitehall.

Across the world, there is a growing recognition that a new kind of economy is needed: more democratic, less exploitative, less destructive of society and the planet. Paint Your Town Red looks at how wealth can be generated and shared at a local level through the experience of one of the main advocates of the new Democratic Economy, Matthew Brown, the driving-force behind the world-recognized Preston Model.

Using analysis, interviews and case studies to explain what Matthew and Preston City Council have done over the last decade in order to earn Preston the title of Most Improved City, the book shows how the model can be adapted to fit different local circumstances, as well as demonstrating how Preston itself adapted economic and democratic experiments in ‘community wealth-building’ from elsewhere in the US and Europe.

Preston’s success shows that the ideas of community wealth-building work in practice and have the capacity to achieve a meaningful transfer of wealth and power back to local communities. A lot of recent coverage and references have tended to oversimplify the Preston Model, which is not just about ‘buying local’ but a comprehensive project, which envisions local and regional discussions and collaboration adding up to a wholesale transformation of our currently failing economic systems.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781913462222
Publisher: Watkins Media
Publication date: 05/11/2021
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 180
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Matthew Brown is Labour's leader of Preston City Council and a Senior Fellow for the Democracy Collaborative, tasked also with promoting Community Wealth Building across the UK and abroad.

Rhian E. Jones is a writer, historian and author of four books on politics and popular culture. She is a founding editor of the New Socialist website and now edits Red Pepper and writes for Tribune magazine.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 Ends and Beginnings 3

Getting Out of the Mess We're In 5

A Brief History of Democratic Localism 13

Why Do We Need Community Wealth-Building? 22

What's Wrong with Community Wealth-Building? 29

Really "Taking Back Control" 34

The Importance of Buy-In 38

Part 2 The Preston Story 43

A How-To Guide 70

Part 3 Community Wealth-Building from Neighbourhood to Nation 73

Participatory Democracy: The Real "Big Society" 78

Jobs and Money 92

Land, Space and Assets 107

Sustainable Futures 117

Conclusion 127

How to Paint Your Own Town Red 129

Local Government Demystified 131

Further Contacts, Resources and Reading 151

Notes 164

Acknowledgements 169

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