This piece was written by Sarah Carter.
America is in crisis, and it cannot all be pinned on an oligarchic administration determined to create chaos. With their votes, just over half of the electorate demonstrated dissatisfaction with the economic status quo and the deep yearning for a new and different reality. We have reached the end of our imagination about what an economy that works for everyone looks like, and instead we fight over the price of eggs. We, the people, are looking for a new American dream.
Unfortunately, this new vision will not, as we will continue to see, be provided by any candidate from either party, despite promises and campaign slogans. Building an economy that works for every single American, regardless of where we come from or where we live, can only be designed and controlled by the entire whole of those who use it.
It will take an incredible amount of collective imagination to create and transition into this new kind of economy – one where each of us, not just a select few, can thrive and prosper. Every significant change movement in the world has required a brutal acknowledgement and understanding of the current reality and an unwavering commitment to a prophetic imagination. In the words of bell hooks, “To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.”
It is not the erudition of economics that we lack, but instead the kind of imagination that not only demonstrates what is possible but demands it. It is quite possible that because we are in our current situation as a country, we will be thrust into a deeper imagining of a future where our economy works for all of us, not just the increasingly smaller and smaller percentage of those who control larger and larger amounts of wealth and power. The question for this generation will be – can we not only imagine this future, but also work together to make that dream a reality?
Living Cities has been advancing national evidence-based demonstrations of what is possible in cities for over three decades. Leveraging the power of unlikely partnerships between financial institutions, philanthropy, and the public sector, we continue to advance a movement to redesign our economic systems for future generations to thrive and prosper.
Examples from early years at Living Cities’ include collaborative efforts with Enterprise, LISC, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to move neighborhood redevelopment efforts from isolated successes to national impact, transforming federal funding programs and creating more than 150,000 homes, stores, schools and community facilities. Throughout the years, initiatives like The Integration Initiative and City Accelerator supported cities to create “one table,” where government, philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and the business community could come together and take action – redesigning things like procurement policies, transit-oriented development efforts, and workforce development.
Today, we are watching a massive dismantling and destruction of the public investment and community development ecosystem in our country, orchestrated with precision and speed by the current administration. For those committed to an equitable and inclusive economy, our response must be equally expeditious, understanding there are some things worth protecting and defending and some that must be lost so they can be rebuilt better. Living Cities has learned across the years that instead of working around long-broken public systems, inherently designed to exclude, we exist to re-engineer them for the next generation.
Just as nature calls for both an active imagination and cyclical destruction, so must our efforts to cultivate a new American Dream. To expect food to grow and ripen from dirt and seed takes a great deal of belief in what could be but is yet unseen. It takes dedicated, often painfully slow action to make that reality come to be. It also takes death and destruction to create a new harvest- allowing the soil to lay fallow for certain seasons and grow beneficial cover crops that suppress weeds, break up the soil, and attract pollinators. Even more goodness comes when those same crops are unceremoniously destroyed, turned into the soil to decompose and provide nutrients that will enrich future harvests. For those working for a new economy, how can we not get distracted by the current destruction and instead imagine what could be next?
The Living Cities collaborative recently convened in Detroit to focus on this question. Stakeholders across our network gathered for an extended set of discussions on the current challenges to equitable community development. Co-hosted by the Kresge Foundation and anchored in Detroit’s long history of racial and geographic segregation, the gathering offered a space to deepen commitments to equity, elevate resilient local strategies, and align efforts around the urgency of action. The following insights grew out of our time together.
All eyes are watching to see the kind of fruit that comes from efficiency efforts and the global stance that claims to center American interests, if these efforts can deliver an economy that works for every person in the US. Philanthropy cannot wait and see, however. We must continue to support bold leadership and reimagine systems for human flourishing.
Americans are demanding a new economic reality, especially the generation that will come of age into a more diverse and technologically advanced nation than ever before. Living Cities is committed to driving aligned action towards an economy that works for everyone, starting with cultivating our collective imagination towards what is possible and building on what has come before. Let us not get distracted or deterred by the mess of a tilled field but continue working to seed the harvest for the future.
