What It Will Take For Public Banking To Win

In 2014, then-Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales recognized that poverty and shrinking city budgets were problems that needed out-of-the-box solutions. Deeply concerned with inequality, Gonzales welcomed a discussion about public banking and even participated in a conference featuring leading figures in ... Read more

Stop Using Discriminatory AI, Human Rights Groups Say

When it comes to developing artificial intelligence, President Trump may want a free-market approach. But a number of experts disagree — we need guidelines to protect people from discriminatory algorithms. Today, a group of humans rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty ... Read more

Cooperatives Lauded As ‘Trailblazers’ In Community Solar

Looking for community solar? Your best bet is in electric cooperative territory. “In terms of the number of community solar programs, cooperative utilities have been trailblazers,” states a new report from the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA). The report finds 160 co-ops have a program, ... Read more

What Happened After 17 Employees Took Over A Beloved Maine Business

ROCKLAND, Maine — For the last two months, patrons of Rock City Coffee might not have noticed any changes when they stopped at the busy downtown cafe for their regular order. That’s exactly what the new owners — the people behind the counter — want. Two months ago, Rock City ... Read more

Taking Steps Toward Public Options For Banking

It’s been an interesting few weeks for the idea of public banking — establishing banks owned by government entities as a values-based alternative to ‘Wall Street’ banks. In San Francisco, where the city has charged a task force with exploring how to set up a city-owned bank, that task force is now ... Read more

The Criminalization Of Poverty And What To Do About It

In August 2016, the United States Department of Justice issued a report following its investigation into the policies and practices of the Baltimore Police Department. The report was in response to the 2015 police-involved death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray and the subsequent unrest ... Read more

Philly Neighborhood Achieves Inclusive Development And Control Through Community Land Trust

In Philadelphia, the Community Justice Land Trust is helping preserve a community in the face of rising land values and speculation in the city’s Eastern North section, near Temple University, reports Patrick Sisson in Curbed. Sisson notes that a decade ... Read more

Turning Health Care Into Community Wealth In Cleveland

For 14 years, Olga Jebbison has processed laundry at a plant in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood, on the eastern edge of the city, between the railyards and Lake Erie. She’s one of over a hundred currently employed at the facility, which currently processes 12 million pounds of laundry a ... Read more

San Francisco Should Have A Public Bank To Leverage The Power Of Its Own Money

San Francisco’s Municipal Bank Feasibility Task Force comes under pressure to provide a truly ethical and full-powered alternative — a Public Bank — in an article by Zac Townsend in the San Francisco Chronicle. He calls on the public to take a stand: “There already ... Read more

A Labor Movement For The New Guilded Age

When Ronald Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, he not only invoked the rising supremacy of the United States by demanding “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”, he ushered in a new era of individualism focused on the “freedom”(Bruner, 1989) that was libertarian in nature and ... Read more