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.
