When we talk about regeneration, productivity and prosperity the smartest, most modern thing we can do is include everyone across neighbourhoods, create a full work economy and wipe out debt.
Changing a culture of exclusion and false elites that have developed over longer than seventy years into a more balanced, just, prosperous and peaceful economy won’t be easy but the advantages and benefits of social inclusion are extraordinary. Tracing the path of democracy to ensure representation of everyone will ensure the health of everyone.
It’s important to see the world we have as multilayered: not of manipulable data but of people. Nothing works optimally if a layer of people input is missing and that’s what’s wrong at the neighbourhood level. It goes back to the second world war and involves us in thinking about creating a real participatory democracy with capacity in Britain.
To do this we need to go into the neighbourhoods again with a kinder, generous eye: to value, acknowledge and change perception of who and what is there, what the aspirations can be after generations and generations of put down, exclusion, harm, deprivation, debt, criminalisation and incarceration.
We need to re-brand all the neighbourhoods of Nottingham.
signsofanopencity 