We like the sound of a "values-based urban living laboratory". It's flourishing in Romania, and is called "OurCluj"
A striking incursion of the values of cosmo-localism and CANs into the heart of the financial world, via this piece in the Financial Times from the Romanian social entrepreneur Barbara Bulc, founder of Global Development and the SDG CoLab. Extract below:
Over the past three years, I have helped develop OurCluj, a 10-year initiative in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca that seeks to improve the wellbeing of young residents by creating a space for collective reflection and connection.
In a study I co-authored with Eric Gordon and colleagues, we call it a “values-based urban living laboratory” because it fosters innovation based on trust and care before growth. It is part of the global OurCity initiative which recognises that systemic change requires time and persistent engagement.
The aim is to involve local non-profit organisations, government, businesses, and communities to test and assess projects — such as the recently launched social innovation fund to support young entrepreneurs.
Urban innovation requires not just an assemblage of projects and practices, but a more ambitious approach that reflects on the past and imagines the future. Artists play an important role in spurring imagination and bringing participants together, while a wide range of groups is experimenting with sharing power, funding decisions, and building trust.
Bulc goes on to mention, as fellow travellers, initiatives such as Doughnut Economics Action Lab and Transition Network (both well known in these pages). She concludes:
Our planet’s multiple crises cannot be solved with conventional thinking, top-down management, and hierarchical social structures. These have been tried and failed. Dominant financing practices are also ill-suited to finding solutions.
Instead, we need to consider these new approaches, which are often bottom-up, collaborative and inclusive. They create spaces for imagination and embody basic values that support wellbeing. They are creating change in people, organisations and societies.
Cities undergoing rapid social and economic transformation are uniquely placed to foster these novel ways of working together with a bold ambition for the wellbeing of all. In doing so, they may provide a compass for a thriving future for humanity.