Today we publish our full report: Policies for the City Region. The timing couldn’t be better as now is the run up to the first election of a Greater Manchester mayor.  In it we explore and promote policies and practices to help society and economy in Greater Manchester meet the key challenges of climate change and environmental destruction, together with inequality and economic vulnerability.

The Greater Manchester devolution arrangement has been criticised for being the result of a top-down initiative, a deal negotiated in secret between the Treasury and municipal leaders in Greater Manchester, with its imposed mayor and lack of consultation with citizens –  let alone their meaningful participation.  But that in itself has led to an upsurge in initiatives from the community to shape the policies that we need for social, economic and environmental justice and security in the challenging period ahead of us all.  Our Policies for the City Region is one such contribution.  Others include the Greater Manchester People’s Plan, DivaManc, and the mobilisation against the planning approaches favoured by the region’s leaders.

We take a distinctive approach, one we’ve called Treading Lightly for Shared Prosperity. because it recognises that continued material growth of our economy is impossible, and that just a surely as “growth” produces wealth and innovation, so it also produces poverty, inequality and uniformity.  In starting from this understanding we have a arrived at a package of policies, consistent with our alternative Viable Economy approach, that while overlapping with (and building on) the proposals and ideas of others, is, we believe, coherent and uniquely relevant to the crises of our times.  We do not pretend to have covered everything, nor to have got everything right, but we invite readers to borrow our ideas, to develop them, and to let us have feedback, telling us what you think of them but more importantly what you do with them.

The full, 30 page version, fully referenced with explanations for our policy priorities and ideas. Policies for the City Region.

March, 2017

Also available, the short, 4 page version.  Policies for the City Region: Treading Lightly for Shared Prosperity.

January, 2017

Other work in this series can be found HERE, and our full publication list HERE.