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We may not know precisely when we will emerge from the first global pandemic in one hundred years but we do know this: society and governments will face a triple threat from a global recession, a rapidly degrading environment, and enduring inequalities widened further by COVID-19.
Now is the time to focus on creating shared prosperity through secure livelihoods ensuring that every community is flourishing. Now is the time for a new conversation for change – one that involves policy makers and stakeholders, academics and citizens, from across the UK.
The pandemic has clearly exposed the inability of our existing welfare system to provide people with an adequate safety net to navigate times of crisis. The significant rise in food poverty, debt and extreme financial vulnerability caused by the pandemic is clear evidence of this. The failure of the welfare state has been compounded by an economic system that creates economic insecurity, in-work poverty and job precarity.
Working in partnership, Camden Council and the IGP have brought together deep understanding of the people and place of Camden and expert policy thinking to test what it could look like to bring the values and principles of UBS to life at a local level.
Citizen-led research in east London identifies livelihood security as a critical determinant of prosperity for local communities (Moore and Woodcraft, 2019; Woodcraft and Anderson, 2019).
In this paper, we argue that prosperity is understood and experienced in different ways by different age groups. Young people are typically less involved in research about their prosperity than adults. Their views and experiences are therefore less likely to be considered in policy decisions than adults’. However, young people – and particularly adolescents between 14-24 years old – are significantly affected by societal transformation, and are capable of reflecting on and responding to that transformation.
As we enter a new decade the future is increasingly uncertain. This paper focuses on interpreting existing research on localism and the foundational economy in light of recent discussions concerning Universal Basic Services. We argue that localisation of basic services should form the basis of a new industrial strategy for the 2020’s. Investment in the infrastructure of care, health, education, transport and communication would increase people’s capacities, capabilities and opportunities
This report describes four years of research in East London to re-think what prosperity means and develop the UK’s first citizen-led prosperity metrics.
This article examines prosperity as a lived experience in comparison to policy goal, demonstrating how context‐specific meanings and practices challenge the orthodox models and metrics that currently dominate policymaking. The authors demonstrate how situated and engaged research with local residents and citizen scientists provides the basis for developing new prosperity metrics that reflect issues of specific value and concern to individuals and communities in east London.
This report describes the methodology for developing and constructing the Prosperity Index - the UK’s first citizen-led prosperity metrics.
How we think about prosperity is changing. Since the 2008 financial crash, the relationship between economic growth and quality of life has come under scrutiny; new measures of wellbeing, social progress and inclusive growth have proliferated. This article argues these new measures do not go far enough and more must be done to involve citizens and communities in developing locally-situated visions of prosperity.
What is a community and why is community-building important in today’s world? What does it take for a community to flourish and to help improve the lives of those who are a part of it? In recent years, researchers and policy-makers working on prosperity, happiness and wellbeing have reworked traditional notions of progress based on material wealth, and identified community and belonging as major determinants of a good life
Is it possible for culturally diverse communities to flourish? Do diversity and immigration always hinder social prosperity as suggested by much of the recent Brexit rhetoric, or could they improve the quality of our communities?
A new article by Professor Henrietta Moore and Dr Nikolay Mintchev addresses these questions by examining the changing relationship between diversity, inequality and prosperity in the context of London’s rapidly changing population.
This chapter, co-authored by Saffron Woodcraft and Constance Smith, presents IGP’s community-led prosperity model as a planning framework for policy and decision-making about regeneration. It argues that sustainable communities discourse has become detached from lived experience and new citizen-led visions of prosperity are required to reconnect change in the built environment to opportunities for local communities to flourish in sustainable and inclusive ways.