Talks a lot about planning, on a national level. Oops! Once again, Agenda 21 rears its ugly stealthy head for me! And, as Alperovitz puts it, the question always is, “Who has the power?” He does focus on bottom-up initiatives, while also noting, in certain areas, the need to scale up. Alperovitz: “The principle is ‘You always stay at the lowest level necessary’.”

Talks about an incredible urban agriculture experiment in Cleveland to revitalize a poor neighborhood of 40,000 people via decentralized ownership with quasi-public resources to help do it. Says that Atlanta is now beginning to do this, as well as several in Washington, D.C.

So even though —

“Mondragon [in Spain] with 80,000 workers, has been very successful with a very democratic distribution of income; on the other hand, they’re operating in the global market, and are dependent on market conditions and the vicissitudes of capitalism.”

He notes that there’s now lots of experimentation in this country, though it goes mainly unreported. He thinks this is the most important period in American history, bar none, because we’re at the end of the line in the old economic system, and “People are being forced to innovate.” Yet, he cautions: “You don’t talk about any of [these transformative changes] without throwing some decades on the table.”

He says to check out community-wealth.org. I just did. WOW!

Via commondreams

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JjicvAjGEY#t=38]