Curitiba in south-eastern Brazil has a global reputation for ‘sustainability’, having successfully dealt with rapid population growth during the late 20th century. The population tripled over twenty years as people from surrounding areas as well as Europe sought work in the city’s industries, such as construction and car manufacturing – in addition to achieving economic and income growth, the city invested in affordable public transport systems and pedestrianised shopping areas, placed limits on urban sprawl and preserved green spaces, with disused land purchased to house new residents. With the lowest illiteracy rate in Brazil, Curitiba has built a ‘Lighthouse of Knowledge’ (‘Farol do Saber’) in every part of the city, situated near schools and public squares – all citizens have access to an observation tower and can use the computers and neighbourhood libraries for free. Students recycle waste in exchange for school supplies and cultural activities, with some of the money raised going to programmes such as those employing homeless people in recycling separation jobs, while an Open University allows residents to undertake courses on everything from hairstyling to mechanics and environmental protection.
Lincolnshire
Founded in 1861, the independent Lincolnshire Co-operative – which administers over 200 outlets around the county including food stores, pharmacies, funeral services, post offices, coffee shops, department stores and a florist – has a quarter of a million individual members, all of whom get a share of its profits. In the past financial year, £20.9 million was paid to members in the form of a dividend – ‘the divi’ – and each Co-op cardholder is linked with a local good cause, with a donation made every time they shop. The democratic, ethical and social principles underlying the co-operative movement sees Lincolnshire members elect representatives to their board – in the run-up to an election, ballot papers are automatically generated with a till receipt – while buying energy from small-scale hydro-electric plants and wind farms, and working with the council to deliver local library services.
Siaya County & Rarieda, Kenya
In 2011, four American graduate students set up ‘GiveDirectly’, which collects public donations online and makes direct cash transfers of $1000 over ten months to some of the poorest households in Western Kenya, no-strings-attached. The initiative targets homes made from non-durable material; mud or thatch, rather than cement or iron – the average recipient family lives on 65 cents per person per day, and two-fifths have had a child go without food for at least a full day in the previous month. ‘GiveDirectly’ is an alternative to traditional aid projects distributing non-financial gifts or offering conditional cash transfers (requiring families to, say, enrol children into school or get them vaccinated), understanding that the most impoverished places on earth may well lack basic infrastructure like schools and hospitals. Having transferred purchasing power onto recipients, families can decide what to buy themselves, rather than having arms-length donors guessing on their behalf. Findings show that the money is mainly spent on food and home improvements (such as installing weather-proof tin roofs) but is also used to pay off historic debts, invest in local businesses (from agriculture to clothing), or put into savings.
Madhya Pradesh, India
Pilot studies – funded by Unicef and supported by the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – gave more than 6000 Indians a modest monthly income grant, set at a third of subsistence level. One 18-month project in eight villages in Madhya Pradesh saw every woman and man initially receive 200 rupees each month and every child 100 rupees, paid through their mother or guardian. This was raised to 300 and 150 rupees respectively, paid in cash at first, then as a transfer into a bank or co-operative account. The effects of providing universal unconditional grants to these villages include improvements in child nutrition and sanitation, school attendance and performance; better outcomes for women, people designated as ‘lower-caste’, elderly and disabled people; reduced debt and increased labour.
Buenos Aires, Fenwick and Rochdale
Co-operatives
Co-operatives are businesses owned and controlled by their employees, rather than external investors or shareholders. The co-operative model sees members have a say in how their organisation is run, prioritising ‘one-member-one-vote’ decision-making and long-term sustainability over short-term profit-making – this allows co-ops to often offer cheaper prices than their commercial rivals and provide a social or community focus to their investments.
More than a billion people across the world are somehow involved in co-operatives – as producers, consumers, workers, or credit union members. Co-operatives provide over 100 million jobs (far more than, say, multi-national corporations) and are significant players in the global agriculture, insurance and retail industries. Co-ops may act as a counter to the competitive market and continued growth model – frequently, profits from co-operative businesses are equally shared amongst members, reinvested back into the company or spent on wider community projects.
The history of the modern co-operative movement begins in Britain during a time where rapid industrialisation threatened the livelihoods of many workers. In the 1760s, weavers in the East Ayrshire village of Fenwick formed a co-operative professional association to bulk-buy their food and sell it to members at a discount, further founding a lending library and mutual credit union. Eighty years later, the Rochdale Pioneers opened up a shop to sell basic food and provisions to the community, having published the Rochdale Principles of democratic ownership and profit dividends – based on these principles, over a thousand co-operatives were created nationwide over the following decade.
Since then, the model has flourished worldwide. Argentina – where nearly a quarter of citizens are linked to cooperatives or mutual societies – weathered an economic downturn in the 1990s and a sovereign debt default in 2001 to become the continent’s fastest growing economy. The recovered companies movement ‘Las Empresas Recuperadas’ saw workers co-ops take over 200 factories whose owners had abandoned them post-crash. Employing a horizontal management structure in which every member’s voice is heard, the idea further spread to dozens of factories operating in Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
In Europe, there are 160,000 co-ops employing over five million people. The Mondragon Corporation – a federation of workers cooperatives in the Basque Country – is one of the ten biggest businesses in Spain, whilst in Finland the average adult is a member of two cooperatives and a new society launches every working day of the year. In Britain, there are now nearly 7000 co-operative organisations, contributing more than £37 billion to the UK’s economy – from community-owned shops taking on the big supermarket chains or credit unions acting as alternatives to payday lenders, to food and drink start-ups like craft breweries, coffee shops, and fish or vegetable box delivery services aiming to cut waste and guarantee fair wages, while providing a direct link between producers and customers.
Photo Juanedc on Flickr
““Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.””
Utrecht, Dauphin and Helsinki
Basic Income
A number of governments across the globe are looking at introducing different forms of basic income in which each citizen receives a regular, flat unconditional wage from the state, irrespective of their work status.
This income guarantee can act as a simple safety net – knowing that basic essentials such as food and electricity can be afforded, the recipient is better able to consider what waged work to undertake, also feeling secure if jobs are lost or industries sold off due to downsizing or technological development. In a precarious job market, those receiving the stipend may further choose to pursue retraining and studying opportunities, or improve their work-life balance, finding more time for volunteering or family care.
Paid to individuals rather than the household, it is argued that a ‘UBI’ (universal basic income) could replace the British-style means-tested welfare system – complex, often confusing, costing considerable amounts to administer with billions of pounds of entitlements left unclaimed – whilst reducing inequality and putting an end to extreme destitution, offering a degree of dignity to the poorest in society. Support for the basic income has been voiced across the political spectrum – in Britain, the free-market Adam Smith Institute has called it “better than any of the various welfare systems we have at present” whilst the Green Party adopted plans for a ‘Citizen’s Income’, payable to every woman, man and child, in its General Election manifesto.
There is a rich intellectual history behind the idea of a universal income, from Thomas Paine (who felt that payments should be made “to every person, rich or poor”) to Bertrand Russell (“a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all”). In America, the Republican President Richard Nixon’s administration was the first in the developed world to draw-up plans for a national guaranteed income in its ‘Family Assistance Program’ (though never introduced, measures were passed by a majority in the US House of Representatives).
One of the first places to put this idea into practice was the Canadian city of Dauphin, Manitoba, where citizens in the late 1970s were sent monthly cheques by the Government, dubbed the ‘Mincome’ – extreme poverty was eradicated in the five years this experiment took place, leading to improved health and life chances for residents. From 1982, the state of Alaska has paid an unconditional yearly dividend to all its inhabitants, and in 2004, Brazil became the first country to pass a law for the introduction of a national basic income.
Opponents of the idea have argued that paid work is disincentivised and that free money from the Government could embed a ‘something-for-nothing’ culture among citizens. Nevertheless, feasibility studies and pilot schemes have been drawn-up across Europe – Utrecht and 19 other cities in the Netherlands are giving welfare recipients around £660 per month (any additional income they choose to earn will be added to this); Switzerland will hold a referendum on introducing the basic income for all adults in June; and in 2017 a two-year pilot scheme will see up to 10,000 Finnish adults be given between 550 and 800 euros per month tax-free.
““This is not simply a theoretical exercise. It’s about what should constitute social justice in a society such as ours.”
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Kigali
An artist social enterprise in the Rwandan capital Kigali seeks to tackle stigma and misinformation around HIV through public art. “Kurema, Kureba, Kwiga” (to create, to see, to learn) works with government, local business, NGOs and health workers to raise awareness and help young people living with HIV to express themselves through public art and promote ‘positive living’ for everyone. Rather than culture being confined to galleries or studio space, the initiative encourages often self-taught artists to create murals on public steps or government buildings like the Ministry of Health, in addition to holding well-being workshops, lectures and competitions in schools.
Chateauroux
In 2001, Chateauroux Mayor Jean-Francois Mayet made the city’s public transport completely free. Other parts of France had toyed with a ‘social tariff’ system originating in Dunkerque in the 1990s – in Grenoble, for example, the poorest residents are given 95 percent off fares – yet Chateauroux was the first substantial city to fully demonetise its transport network. This led to an increase in rides by 81 percent in the first year, lowering traffic, reducing emissions, and eliminating much of the city’s staffing and ticketing costs. Through increasing a transit tax on local large businesses, the city actually turned a profit on its transit system, with citizens in a time of austerity able to spend their money elsewhere
Auckland
The ‘Walking School Bus’ programme in Auckland sees groups of children and adults accompany each other the whole way to school on foot, in a shared journey that builds strong ties within the community. Like at real bus stops, children are able to ‘board’ at allotted times from points situated near their homes, with neighbourhood adults (mostly volunteer parents) acting as ‘drivers’ of the ‘bus’. Starting in 1999, the scheme saw over 300 routes operate across Auckland within ten years with the full support of the local transportation authority – over 5000 pupils choose it as their preferred mode of transport to school every day, increasing children’s independence and allowing parents to get to know one another and school staff better, whilst easing traffic congestion during peak hours.
Lisbon
In Lisbon, which has a shortage of medical professionals, migrants who trained as doctors but find themselves in non-medical professions are supported in their transition back to healthcare work by the Professional Integration of Immigrant Doctors project. Those in jobs that did not reflect their specialist training often found their degrees failed to automatically qualify for recognition in Portugal, and this NGO-backed scheme helps to overcome the financial and administrative barriers that sees medics undertake menial work instead of following their professional careers. Between 2002 and 2005, 120 individuals were helped with official registration, training, and examination – by the end of the project, over 90% of the doctors selected were practicing medicine once again, and now with the support of the national Ministry of Health, hundreds more are expected to integrate into the Portuguese healthcare system.
Vermont, Hawaii, Maine and Alaska
Billboard ban
Several states and at least 1500 neighbourhoods in the US have passed laws heavily restricting outdoor advertising. Kick-starting a national conversation about conservation and the use of public space, Lady Bird Johnson (married to President Lyndon Johnson) pushed for advertising controls along the growing interstate highway, leading to the 1965 Highway Beautification Act.
Vermont introduced a state-wide billboard ban in 1968, giving owners of existing signs five years to take them down – although faced with some opposition from business and farming communities, Vermont subsequently saw tourist numbers increase and the state frequently tops national quality of life indexes. Maine, Hawaii and Alaska are also billboard-free, whilst Rhode Island and Oregon now prohibit the construction of new commercial signage.
Those in favour of ad-free cities argue that outdoor billboards are a form of ‘visual pollution’ that citizens have little or no say over – obscuring views, invading personal space, distracting drivers and pedestrians alike. Others believe that these hoardings are an inevitable part of the urban environment – sometimes entertaining, with businesses giving cities an additional source of revenue or very occasionally basic infrastructure (eg bus shelters or WiFi hubs) in return for advertising their products.
Nevertheless, across the world – from Auckland to Chennai – billboard restrictions continue to be enforced. Sao Paulo passed the ‘Clean City Law’ in 2006 leading to 15,000 boards taken down in the first year, whilst in 2015 Grenoble became the first European city to ban street advertising panels, planting trees in their place. There is also a growing movement in the artistic community to subvert advertising – in recent years both Paris and London have seen initiatives replacing commercial hoardings with reproductions of classical paintings, while the augmented-reality phone app ‘No Ad’ overlays New York subway posters with images created by street artists.
““Man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard… When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon.”
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Tallinn
Estonia has pioneered e-democracy in the 21st century – internet voting has been in place since 2005, with around a third of ballots cast online for the 2015 General Elections. In a country with more mobile phone contracts than residents, basic internet access is seen as a human right. A free e-participation tool, TOM, (the acronym for “Today I Decide” in Estonian) is used as a forum for citizens to discuss political issues such as voter registration and allocating municipal budgets, and present collaborative ideas for new laws online, some of which have been adopted by parliament.
Addis Ababa
In Ethiopia’s capital, police officers’ relationships with the city’s ‘street children’ are improved through participating in arts workshops alongside the Adugna Community Dance Theatre. The project offers young people from deprived backgrounds – many of whom historically feel victimised by the police – a safe space to question their attitudes towards violence and authority, learn about constructive policing strategies, and educate officers about their day-to-day experiences in the hope that future confrontations may be avoided.
Reykjavík
Following Iceland’s banking crisis in 2008, comedian Jón Gnarr set up the Best Party in order to satirise his country’s political system. Campaigning on policies including introducing a polar bear to the local zoo, building a Disneyland at the airport and offering free towels in public swimming pools, the self-described ‘anarcho-surrealist’ was elected Mayor of Reykjavik in 2010, winning fans from Noam Chomsky to Lady Gaga.
Newcastle
In 2008, thousands of young people in Newcastle had a say in how the city’s £2.25 million Children’s Fund is spent. Part of a city-wide participatory budgeting programme called ‘UDecide’, young people who attended a voting conference would influence the allocation of funds by ranking project ideas in order of preference.
Paris
The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has opened up 5% of the city’s investment to a participatory budgeting scheme named ‘Madame Mayor, I have an idea’. It aims to allocate nearly €500 million to projects proposed by citizens, including the building of school gardens, ‘pop-up’ swimming pools and recycle stations.
Seville
50% of Seville’s local government budget is decided by participatory budgeting and the process is open to all those living in the city. Citizens can submit project ideas in person or online, and volunteer neighbourhood organisers are in place to collect proposals from community groups and individual residents.
Madrid
Citizen platforms – championing participatory decision-making, institutional transparency and increased social spending – now govern a number of Spain’s major cities including Madrid and Barcelona.
Elections in May 2015 saw victories for Ahora Madrid (Now Madrid) and Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona In Common) – new platforms bringing together existing progressive parties with social movements which emerged after the 2008 financial crisis. Campaigns were crowdfunded and citizens encouraged to take part in neighbourhood assemblies, vote on policy priorities and create crowdsourced manifestos online.
Manuela Carmena, a 71 year-old retired judge who ran as Ahora Madrid’s candidate for Mayor, campaigned to prevent home evictions and freeze the privatisation of public services. Backed by a creative social media presence, she won public support with promises to guarantee electricity and water for low-income households, carry out an audit into the city’s funding and administration, and cut her own salary by more than half.
Ada Colau last year became Barcelona’s first ever female Mayor. An anti-eviction activist who had previously picketed the homes of politicians to raise awareness of Spain’s housing crisis, Colau has pledged to do away with the privileges of elected office (such as official cars and expense budgets), post details of council meetings online for the public to scrutinise, and recover homes repossessed by private banks.
““We all want a more democratic city where human rights are respected as the first and maximum priority – a fairer, more equal, environmentally sustainable city, created from inside and outside the institutions.””
