The following is an article in the making,, still mostly readable but much more to do
Economic and community development
Moving towards sustainability, a society will also need to address the issue of external costs, the enormous subsidy to our familiar consumer culture when products and services do not tell an honest story about how using those products and services damages people and the environment. Our affluence and convenience is subsidized by externalizing the cost. Recall again the critique of capitalism explaining external costs.
A sustainable future will call for new products and services.The sooner we encourage and bring about the kinds of jobs, businesses and outcomes that fit a sustainable future the better, in scale from national to local.
Economic and community development are related but they have different social and economic turf and importantly have some conflicting agendas and characteristics. Here's how.
Community development focuses on enhancing the quality of life for residents through participatory processes, social services, and community resources, addressing issues such as education, health, and housing. While community development prioritizes social equity and community empowerment, economic development aims at increasing overall wealth and productivity.
Who or what are the agents behind economic development? From the internet. “Economic development is advocated by various groups, including government agencies like the U.S. Economic Development Administration, local governments, and organizations focused on community and economic development. Additionally, legislators and advocacy groups work to promote policies that support job creation, infrastructure, and regional growth.” The scale of economic development ranges from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the local chamber of commerce.
Community and economic development typically feature programs, loans, grants, incubators, public private partnerships, tax breaks and technical expertise for encouraging certain outcomesthey often make use of can be an enormous assist for moving society towards sustainability but many of the desired outcomes will be very different. Verily, many of these entities, both public and private, already use language that is green and progressive. The challenge is for new development and business creation to actually be qualitatively about sustainability and social uplift as compared to using sustainability as a marketing term. The public and the new clients need to hold these entities accountable.
Will millions of well off Americans eagerly trade their consumer culture of shopping and entertainment for paradigm shift? Not likely. The opinion of the Primer [and many other sources] is, sooner or later, social, economic and environmental conditions will require the vast majority of Americans, not just the well off, to downsize their eco footprints whether they want to or not. Making those changes by choice will be preferred to by default.
At the present time, a small but growing number of people and businesses are already making changes for adapting to a more economically limited future. These pioneers are the role models for moving towards sustainability. They already recognize the unavoidable and disrupting changes already manifesting and already affecting millions of people. The economic and environmental conditions driving climate change and social/economic dis-equity are hard wired to grow worse and ironically, these worsening conditions will create new business opportunity. We will see what some of those new business and job creation opportunities can look like shortly.
The economic opportunity preparing for and mitigating those disruptions already in the early going presents an enormous econoimc opportunity for new business and for some old business to learn new tricks.
Today's economic and community development entities can assist the new visionaries from human potential entrepreneurs to major scale construction. A look at many existing projects of mainstream economic and business development can be extrapolated into the realm of sustainability. In a preferred future, people will still need shelter, energy, transportation, food, education, opportunity and more. In the preferred future, helping to provide those needs in more responsible ways will be “upgraded” versions of programs, loans, grants, incubators, public private partnerships, tax breaks and technical expertise already here.
This account has described some new ideals and actions for economic and community development entities. Just what do we mean by economic and community development.
Here is a brief description of economic development taken from several sources on the internet.
Here in Eugene where I live, the City offers a variety of approaches to economic development. The City encourages new development along the Willamette River as it passes near downtown. The City encourages below market rate housing with loans and property tax incentives. The City has sold properties to developers with incentives to develop the properties in ways, especially with residential features, that fit City housing and development policies and goals. Eugene has specific goals to increase residential density, especially in the downtown area. Eugene, like most cities, has access to a range of funding sources from federal to state to local. Different development programs have different sources of specified funding used to assist pasrticular development needs but overall, to stimulate economic growth.
Economic development at its core is about boosting economic growth. Growth is a core element for the mainstream economic system and gain, so are external costs and frequent damage to people and planet. Economic growth was also core to Edward Berhays and friends as the tool to keep the masses occupied and dstracted from the workings of those runnng the government and the economy. Economic development has delivered the goods to hundreds of millions of people but it also has delivered climate change and remarkable social and political dis-equity.
First, a bit of back ground. Economic development has a history and can mean different approaches in different places. One could call the entire human experience economic development. Humans have invented, manufactured, consumed, built, stumbled and more for thousands of years. Learning to make pottery or inventing the sewing needle were enormously important over the millennia. There can be no mystery why humans have struggled over the ages to improve their safety, comfort and control of their surroundings. The nobility of 300 years ago had no where near the comfort and convenience enjoyed by billions of people in our time. Economic development has delivered near miracles to our everyday lives.
Economic development has also delivered unprecedented problems – social, economic, environmental, political - as described elsewhere in the Primer and from countless other sources.xxxxxx\\\
describe various formal and informal examples of community development – NAs, RRCO, CD often repair for ED, h bird and farmers, santa clara square, atlantas loop, vauban,,, examples of already existing PS developmment,,,,,
Given the many and deepening problems of our modern times, virtually all of them are related to the consumer culture, excess consumption and an economic system with default setting to concentrate economic and political power. The entire idea of paradigm shift is about gaining the capacity as individuals, neighbors, communities and society to say we have enough stuff, many need to downsize and we need to take care of the legitimate needs of those who don't have enough.
Paradigm shift calls for an updated take on economic development. Verily, paradigm shift calls for an updated take on what is the goal of the human experience. The Primer is here to help.
A short digression here can help explain why economic development can be a problem or an ally to paradigm shift. Recall earlier in the Primer in the chapter about capitalism, in particular, the discussion about Edward Bernays, Walter Lipman and associates and their vision of social engineering. They considered the purpose of a society's economic output as a tool to keep the masses happy and distracted with an ever increasing abundance of products and fluff, while the elite, with their intellectual and managerial talents, defined the values and goals of society and arranged for the appropriate social and built infrastructure to serve those values and goals.
Bernays and Company would certainly recognize contemporary economic development as the ongoing campaign to keep the masses occupied so the chosen few can safeguard THEIR System.
The Primer readily agrees, mainstream economic development has raised standards of living while improving certain aspects of public health, education, opportunity and much more for millions of people but as explained earlier in the Primer, these outcomes have come at great expense to the environment and social well being.
Economic development fails to share its output fairly. The haves control a vastly disproportionate amount of the nation's [or world's] wealth and power. The worsening problems of climate change and social dis equity clearly show the dominant economic system has no brakes. There is a point where a system has run its course and its time for it to retire.
Paradigm shift will call on people and organizations to reassess how they participate in the current System and how they can shift their allegiance to engage in the common sense changes we need to make. Sustainability has been an ambiguous term and often used deceptively but used honestly, we know enough of the lifestyle changes needed for real sustainability, that we are not operating on guess work. The Primer is predicated on sensible actions we can take as individuals and as a society for moving towards an honest condition of sustainability.
Sustainability, social and spiritual uplift, humanity moving to a more noble level of performance calls for a very different kind of economic development. Does that mean to leave those still lacking the basics behind? Absolutely not. Paradigm shift can by pass the mistakes made by the capitalism and the consumer culture. Recall in an earlier part of the Primer – priorities of what we do with our time and money. That function works at scale from individual to global. The goals of paradigm shift can avoid the mistakes of development based on the ideals and needs of the consumer culture. Recall again, the American Dream. Instead of a car and suburban home, the Dream and development become fixed on personal, social and environmental well being.
That said, one might be surprised to hear a fierce critic of the System such as myself, to comment with no apology, money and profits are a big part of what we need to address climate change, economic dis-equity, lost human potential and the rest of our many challenges. Money is an irreplaceable tool for advancing paradigm shift. The hang up is not money itself, the hang up is our own consciousness and what we do with that money. Responsible money and profits is a necessity to help propel paradigm shift.
Paradigm shift will call for new jobs, new businesses, repurposing much of our social and built infrastructure. We will, in all likelihood, have less disposable income and will devote far more time taking care of our basic needs. Few people of the middle and upper classes will celebrate this scenario. Please hold the thoughts of the several paragraphs above. The realm of economic development offers itself as a place to put the paradigm shift foot in the door
The Primer calls for a different kind of economic development that is based on sustainability, civic culture, public health and a more nuanced approach to well being.
Small businesses will play an outsized role in paradigm shift. Verily, the conscious small business start up will be in the vanguard of paradigm shift. Small business entrepreneurs can be more responsive to the social and cultural changes and new business opportunities paradigm shift calls for. Those entrepreneurs can serve both the growing interest in paradigm shift that already exists and they can also stimulate the pace of paradigm shift by putting their products and services to work as a small business that is an actual agent of paradigm shift.
Imagine local economic development entities with a “developing” consciousness that could use its expertise and support mechanisms to help start ups that advanced the cause of paradigm shift. No need to wait, mainstream but forward thinking economic development entities are already happening and provides a model for others.
Moving towards a sustainable and uplifted society will create and call for untold new kinds of products and services. The sooner those products and services are available, the sooner people can make use of them. and we do not need to wait to accelerate the movement towards a preferred future.
The ideal is similar to elected politics. Start local and build momentum for moving up the ladder of complexity. Verily, there are already programs supported by the World Bank that promote human powered transportation, improved access to education and health care, approaches to agriculture and fishing that take climate change into consideration. Do these and other Bank programs fit into paradigm shift? Maybe, maybe not but they are vastly different from billion dollar infrastructure projects the Bank is more known for.
another and a big part of that transformation is new businesses with products and services that fit sustainability and social uplift. tart ups often need support to open shop. That support could be money and or technical expertise. This account will describe
No matter if its already too late to avoid certain disruption or there is time make the changes without great hardship, the more people joining together for making the changes the better.
Many start ups need investment, whether money, expertise or both. Here is a brief look at several entities and approaches to help the small entrepreneur make a start.
Community Development Finance Institutions [CDFI]
Reliable sources claim there are well over 1000 non profit CDFIs across the country in all 50 states. A CDFI is a private financial institution that exists to provide financial products and services and possibly training and technical assistance. They are not banks. Their lending practices are more flexible than a bank so they appeal to persons and entities banks are less likely to work with. Indeed, the CDFI is mostly oriented towards women, minorities, people with less credit rating the banks are not so receptive to. CDFIs are regulated and must qualify to offer their services. Their own financial backing often comes from government sources and private grants. A CDFI usually requires the applicant to explain the public benefit of their product or service. That can be a powerful opportunity to explain all kinds of services that address the same social, economic and environmental conditions that call for paradigm shift.
There are a num
and there are already local agencies devoted to assisting local start ups that can serve paradigm shift.
Our 42nd Av
From Wikipedia - “An economic development corporations is an organization, usually a 501[c][3] non profit whose mission is to promote economic development within a specific geographical area. The scope of a non profit EDC is to produce a public benefit.
There is a name designation to
Our 42nd Av in Portland, Oregon is one such small and nimble economic development agency. This is how Our 42nd identifies its purpose on its website.
“Our 42nd Avenue is economic development by the community, for the community. We are a collection of residents, business owners, local employees, commercial property owners, community institutions and others who have partnered to ensure that economic change benefits the people of 42nd Avenue in an inclusive way. We are a connecting point and a conduit for community collaboration.”
Further, these are ideals that guide Our 42nd Av
Create an inclusive place [neighborhood and office] that meets people’s needs. Empower entrepreneurship and local businesses to better serve the community. Make the commercial district attractive, friendly and a safe place. Increase local employment opportunities through local hiring, use of local services and new entrepreneurship.
Our 42nd already has a resume that supports paradigm shift. Over ten years ago, Our 42nd started a farmers market, on 42nd Avenue in the midst of the neighborhood's commercial area, across the street from the Our 42nd Av office. Our 42nd Av also has hosted a start up business that is on the front line of paradigm shif. One of the most cherished ideals of the Primer is to repurpose social and built infrastructure that is broken or at odds to paradigm shift and turn it into an asset for positive social and economic change. Hello suburbia. One of the most readily available actions one can take with a suburban property is to trade the grass for garden and food production.
Our 42nd Av has assisted a small entrepreneur with starting a business that caters to the needs of the suburban home owner who wants to replace grass with food production on their property. The store offers organic products from an accessible location in the middle of the neighborhood that big boxes, at greater distance, probably don't even have at all.
American style suburbia has enormous potential for turning grassy yards into food production, one the most basic actions on behalf of reducing eco footprints, improving personal health and well being, pushing back on economic mal practice and more. A local store that can sell the products and services to help people make these healthy changes to where they live [apartments can make these changes, too] is paradigm shift in action.
Not to sound like an advertisement, but the Cully Farm Store sells fertilizers, seeds, plant starts, green house and irrigation supplies, garden tools and much more. Such a store can go even further by becoming a social and educational hub offering classes and workshops about home food production and storage. Indeed, such a store could partner with a local state extension office and nearby permaculture mavens for ongoing presentations and learning not only about home food production but associated topics like rain water catchment, healthy food choices and home solar design. And that's not all. Workshops and classes can move into the realm of healthy lifestyle changes, improving communication skills and learning about the wide ranging paradigm shift content found here in the Primer.
This or any visionary small start up can become an engine for local paradigm shift that can help generate the demand for all kinds of other community transformation skills, products and services that could lead to even more job creation in support of paradigm shift.
Our 42nd Av or its many kin in other locations all over the country, may not overtly identify with paradigm shift as described in the Primer, but its ideals are totally in line with paradigm shift. Our 42nd Av does identify with people willing to work hard and take some risk to start a new business that serves a community need, recall its ideals mentioned above. The onus is on people who do identify with paradigm shift to make use of what Our 42nd Av, or similar agencies elsewhere, have to offer. Even more, that helping hand such as Our 42nd Av could already be part of a web of community interest organizations, including neighborhood associations, that also share ideals that knock on the door of paradigm shift that can also be an ally to the paradigm shift entrepreneur. Verily, Our 42nd Av clearly identifies and emphasizes its collaborations with all manner of neighborhood and nearby organizations and partners. These networks offer all kinds of opportunities to the new business owner for making connections and collaborations, many potential collaborations will not reveal themselves until the new business is actually up and running.
Paradigm shift calls for building a social and economic eco system with lots of healthy, mutually supportive relationships and partners that benefit people and planet. The entrepreneur and the economic development agency help fortify and expand that eco system.
How to find an entity like Our 42nd? Some local research, perhaps starting with a city's economic development office will likely be a good start for finding the kind of assistance provided by Our 42nd Av.
Contact me Donate to the Primer
Economic and community development
Moving towards sustainability, a society will also need to address the issue of external costs, the enormous subsidy to our familiar consumer culture when products and services do not tell an honest story about how using those products and services damages people and the environment. Our affluence and convenience is subsidized by externalizing the cost. Recall again the critique of capitalism explaining external costs.
A sustainable future will call for new products and services.The sooner we encourage and bring about the kinds of jobs, businesses and outcomes that fit a sustainable future the better, in scale from national to local.
Economic and community development are related but they have different social and economic turf and importantly have some conflicting agendas and characteristics. Here's how.
Community development focuses on enhancing the quality of life for residents through participatory processes, social services, and community resources, addressing issues such as education, health, and housing. While community development prioritizes social equity and community empowerment, economic development aims at increasing overall wealth and productivity.
Who or what are the agents behind economic development? From the internet. “Economic development is advocated by various groups, including government agencies like the U.S. Economic Development Administration, local governments, and organizations focused on community and economic development. Additionally, legislators and advocacy groups work to promote policies that support job creation, infrastructure, and regional growth.” The scale of economic development ranges from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the local chamber of commerce.
Community and economic development typically feature programs, loans, grants, incubators, public private partnerships, tax breaks and technical expertise for encouraging certain outcomesthey often make use of can be an enormous assist for moving society towards sustainability but many of the desired outcomes will be very different. Verily, many of these entities, both public and private, already use language that is green and progressive. The challenge is for new development and business creation to actually be qualitatively about sustainability and social uplift as compared to using sustainability as a marketing term. The public and the new clients need to hold these entities accountable.
Will millions of well off Americans eagerly trade their consumer culture of shopping and entertainment for paradigm shift? Not likely. The opinion of the Primer [and many other sources] is, sooner or later, social, economic and environmental conditions will require the vast majority of Americans, not just the well off, to downsize their eco footprints whether they want to or not. Making those changes by choice will be preferred to by default.
At the present time, a small but growing number of people and businesses are already making changes for adapting to a more economically limited future. These pioneers are the role models for moving towards sustainability. They already recognize the unavoidable and disrupting changes already manifesting and already affecting millions of people. The economic and environmental conditions driving climate change and social/economic dis-equity are hard wired to grow worse and ironically, these worsening conditions will create new business opportunity. We will see what some of those new business and job creation opportunities can look like shortly.
The economic opportunity preparing for and mitigating those disruptions already in the early going presents an enormous econoimc opportunity for new business and for some old business to learn new tricks.
Today's economic and community development entities can assist the new visionaries from human potential entrepreneurs to major scale construction. A look at many existing projects of mainstream economic and business development can be extrapolated into the realm of sustainability. In a preferred future, people will still need shelter, energy, transportation, food, education, opportunity and more. In the preferred future, helping to provide those needs in more responsible ways will be “upgraded” versions of programs, loans, grants, incubators, public private partnerships, tax breaks and technical expertise already here.
This account has described some new ideals and actions for economic and community development entities. Just what do we mean by economic and community development.
Here is a brief description of economic development taken from several sources on the internet.
Here in Eugene where I live, the City offers a variety of approaches to economic development. The City encourages new development along the Willamette River as it passes near downtown. The City encourages below market rate housing with loans and property tax incentives. The City has sold properties to developers with incentives to develop the properties in ways, especially with residential features, that fit City housing and development policies and goals. Eugene has specific goals to increase residential density, especially in the downtown area. Eugene, like most cities, has access to a range of funding sources from federal to state to local. Different development programs have different sources of specified funding used to assist pasrticular development needs but overall, to stimulate economic growth.
Economic development at its core is about boosting economic growth. Growth is a core element for the mainstream economic system and gain, so are external costs and frequent damage to people and planet. Economic growth was also core to Edward Berhays and friends as the tool to keep the masses occupied and dstracted from the workings of those runnng the government and the economy. Economic development has delivered the goods to hundreds of millions of people but it also has delivered climate change and remarkable social and political dis-equity.
First, a bit of back ground. Economic development has a history and can mean different approaches in different places. One could call the entire human experience economic development. Humans have invented, manufactured, consumed, built, stumbled and more for thousands of years. Learning to make pottery or inventing the sewing needle were enormously important over the millennia. There can be no mystery why humans have struggled over the ages to improve their safety, comfort and control of their surroundings. The nobility of 300 years ago had no where near the comfort and convenience enjoyed by billions of people in our time. Economic development has delivered near miracles to our everyday lives.
Economic development has also delivered unprecedented problems – social, economic, environmental, political - as described elsewhere in the Primer and from countless other sources.xxxxxx\\\
describe various formal and informal examples of community development – NAs, RRCO, CD often repair for ED, h bird and farmers, santa clara square, atlantas loop, vauban,,, examples of already existing PS developmment,,,,,
Given the many and deepening problems of our modern times, virtually all of them are related to the consumer culture, excess consumption and an economic system with default setting to concentrate economic and political power. The entire idea of paradigm shift is about gaining the capacity as individuals, neighbors, communities and society to say we have enough stuff, many need to downsize and we need to take care of the legitimate needs of those who don't have enough.
Paradigm shift calls for an updated take on economic development. Verily, paradigm shift calls for an updated take on what is the goal of the human experience. The Primer is here to help.
A short digression here can help explain why economic development can be a problem or an ally to paradigm shift. Recall earlier in the Primer in the chapter about capitalism, in particular, the discussion about Edward Bernays, Walter Lipman and associates and their vision of social engineering. They considered the purpose of a society's economic output as a tool to keep the masses happy and distracted with an ever increasing abundance of products and fluff, while the elite, with their intellectual and managerial talents, defined the values and goals of society and arranged for the appropriate social and built infrastructure to serve those values and goals.
Bernays and Company would certainly recognize contemporary economic development as the ongoing campaign to keep the masses occupied so the chosen few can safeguard THEIR System.
The Primer readily agrees, mainstream economic development has raised standards of living while improving certain aspects of public health, education, opportunity and much more for millions of people but as explained earlier in the Primer, these outcomes have come at great expense to the environment and social well being.
Economic development fails to share its output fairly. The haves control a vastly disproportionate amount of the nation's [or world's] wealth and power. The worsening problems of climate change and social dis equity clearly show the dominant economic system has no brakes. There is a point where a system has run its course and its time for it to retire.
Paradigm shift will call on people and organizations to reassess how they participate in the current System and how they can shift their allegiance to engage in the common sense changes we need to make. Sustainability has been an ambiguous term and often used deceptively but used honestly, we know enough of the lifestyle changes needed for real sustainability, that we are not operating on guess work. The Primer is predicated on sensible actions we can take as individuals and as a society for moving towards an honest condition of sustainability.
Sustainability, social and spiritual uplift, humanity moving to a more noble level of performance calls for a very different kind of economic development. Does that mean to leave those still lacking the basics behind? Absolutely not. Paradigm shift can by pass the mistakes made by the capitalism and the consumer culture. Recall in an earlier part of the Primer – priorities of what we do with our time and money. That function works at scale from individual to global. The goals of paradigm shift can avoid the mistakes of development based on the ideals and needs of the consumer culture. Recall again, the American Dream. Instead of a car and suburban home, the Dream and development become fixed on personal, social and environmental well being.
That said, one might be surprised to hear a fierce critic of the System such as myself, to comment with no apology, money and profits are a big part of what we need to address climate change, economic dis-equity, lost human potential and the rest of our many challenges. Money is an irreplaceable tool for advancing paradigm shift. The hang up is not money itself, the hang up is our own consciousness and what we do with that money. Responsible money and profits is a necessity to help propel paradigm shift.
Paradigm shift will call for new jobs, new businesses, repurposing much of our social and built infrastructure. We will, in all likelihood, have less disposable income and will devote far more time taking care of our basic needs. Few people of the middle and upper classes will celebrate this scenario. Please hold the thoughts of the several paragraphs above. The realm of economic development offers itself as a place to put the paradigm shift foot in the door
The Primer calls for a different kind of economic development that is based on sustainability, civic culture, public health and a more nuanced approach to well being.
Small businesses will play an outsized role in paradigm shift. Verily, the conscious small business start up will be in the vanguard of paradigm shift. Small business entrepreneurs can be more responsive to the social and cultural changes and new business opportunities paradigm shift calls for. Those entrepreneurs can serve both the growing interest in paradigm shift that already exists and they can also stimulate the pace of paradigm shift by putting their products and services to work as a small business that is an actual agent of paradigm shift.
Imagine local economic development entities with a “developing” consciousness that could use its expertise and support mechanisms to help start ups that advanced the cause of paradigm shift. No need to wait, mainstream but forward thinking economic development entities are already happening and provides a model for others.
Moving towards a sustainable and uplifted society will create and call for untold new kinds of products and services. The sooner those products and services are available, the sooner people can make use of them. and we do not need to wait to accelerate the movement towards a preferred future.
The ideal is similar to elected politics. Start local and build momentum for moving up the ladder of complexity. Verily, there are already programs supported by the World Bank that promote human powered transportation, improved access to education and health care, approaches to agriculture and fishing that take climate change into consideration. Do these and other Bank programs fit into paradigm shift? Maybe, maybe not but they are vastly different from billion dollar infrastructure projects the Bank is more known for.
another and a big part of that transformation is new businesses with products and services that fit sustainability and social uplift. tart ups often need support to open shop. That support could be money and or technical expertise. This account will describe
No matter if its already too late to avoid certain disruption or there is time make the changes without great hardship, the more people joining together for making the changes the better.
Many start ups need investment, whether money, expertise or both. Here is a brief look at several entities and approaches to help the small entrepreneur make a start.
Community Development Finance Institutions [CDFI]
Reliable sources claim there are well over 1000 non profit CDFIs across the country in all 50 states. A CDFI is a private financial institution that exists to provide financial products and services and possibly training and technical assistance. They are not banks. Their lending practices are more flexible than a bank so they appeal to persons and entities banks are less likely to work with. Indeed, the CDFI is mostly oriented towards women, minorities, people with less credit rating the banks are not so receptive to. CDFIs are regulated and must qualify to offer their services. Their own financial backing often comes from government sources and private grants. A CDFI usually requires the applicant to explain the public benefit of their product or service. That can be a powerful opportunity to explain all kinds of services that address the same social, economic and environmental conditions that call for paradigm shift.
There are a num
and there are already local agencies devoted to assisting local start ups that can serve paradigm shift.
Our 42nd Av
From Wikipedia - “An economic development corporations is an organization, usually a 501[c][3] non profit whose mission is to promote economic development within a specific geographical area. The scope of a non profit EDC is to produce a public benefit.
There is a name designation to
Our 42nd Av in Portland, Oregon is one such small and nimble economic development agency. This is how Our 42nd identifies its purpose on its website.
“Our 42nd Avenue is economic development by the community, for the community. We are a collection of residents, business owners, local employees, commercial property owners, community institutions and others who have partnered to ensure that economic change benefits the people of 42nd Avenue in an inclusive way. We are a connecting point and a conduit for community collaboration.”
Further, these are ideals that guide Our 42nd Av
Create an inclusive place [neighborhood and office] that meets people’s needs. Empower entrepreneurship and local businesses to better serve the community. Make the commercial district attractive, friendly and a safe place. Increase local employment opportunities through local hiring, use of local services and new entrepreneurship.
Our 42nd already has a resume that supports paradigm shift. Over ten years ago, Our 42nd started a farmers market, on 42nd Avenue in the midst of the neighborhood's commercial area, across the street from the Our 42nd Av office. Our 42nd Av also has hosted a start up business that is on the front line of paradigm shif. One of the most cherished ideals of the Primer is to repurpose social and built infrastructure that is broken or at odds to paradigm shift and turn it into an asset for positive social and economic change. Hello suburbia. One of the most readily available actions one can take with a suburban property is to trade the grass for garden and food production.
Our 42nd Av has assisted a small entrepreneur with starting a business that caters to the needs of the suburban home owner who wants to replace grass with food production on their property. The store offers organic products from an accessible location in the middle of the neighborhood that big boxes, at greater distance, probably don't even have at all.
American style suburbia has enormous potential for turning grassy yards into food production, one the most basic actions on behalf of reducing eco footprints, improving personal health and well being, pushing back on economic mal practice and more. A local store that can sell the products and services to help people make these healthy changes to where they live [apartments can make these changes, too] is paradigm shift in action.
Not to sound like an advertisement, but the Cully Farm Store sells fertilizers, seeds, plant starts, green house and irrigation supplies, garden tools and much more. Such a store can go even further by becoming a social and educational hub offering classes and workshops about home food production and storage. Indeed, such a store could partner with a local state extension office and nearby permaculture mavens for ongoing presentations and learning not only about home food production but associated topics like rain water catchment, healthy food choices and home solar design. And that's not all. Workshops and classes can move into the realm of healthy lifestyle changes, improving communication skills and learning about the wide ranging paradigm shift content found here in the Primer.
This or any visionary small start up can become an engine for local paradigm shift that can help generate the demand for all kinds of other community transformation skills, products and services that could lead to even more job creation in support of paradigm shift.
Our 42nd Av or its many kin in other locations all over the country, may not overtly identify with paradigm shift as described in the Primer, but its ideals are totally in line with paradigm shift. Our 42nd Av does identify with people willing to work hard and take some risk to start a new business that serves a community need, recall its ideals mentioned above. The onus is on people who do identify with paradigm shift to make use of what Our 42nd Av, or similar agencies elsewhere, have to offer. Even more, that helping hand such as Our 42nd Av could already be part of a web of community interest organizations, including neighborhood associations, that also share ideals that knock on the door of paradigm shift that can also be an ally to the paradigm shift entrepreneur. Verily, Our 42nd Av clearly identifies and emphasizes its collaborations with all manner of neighborhood and nearby organizations and partners. These networks offer all kinds of opportunities to the new business owner for making connections and collaborations, many potential collaborations will not reveal themselves until the new business is actually up and running.
Paradigm shift calls for building a social and economic eco system with lots of healthy, mutually supportive relationships and partners that benefit people and planet. The entrepreneur and the economic development agency help fortify and expand that eco system.
How to find an entity like Our 42nd? Some local research, perhaps starting with a city's economic development office will likely be a good start for finding the kind of assistance provided by Our 42nd Av.
Contact me Donate to the Primer