Create!

Along with direct action and other forms of resistance, a transformational movement must also have a constructive program that builds new institutions based on the values that the movement aspires to achieve. These may eventually replace the old systems. From small, worker-owned cooperatives to national advocacy groups, hundreds of thousands of people around the country are working to create democratic and sustainable systems that meet the basic needs of all people.

Nationalize Greyhound

January 2, 2024 Ben Burgis, Jacobin. Create! Affordability, Greyhound, Nationalization, Public ownership, Transportation

When I was growing up, I could walk from my parents’ place to the Greyhound station in East Lansing, Michigan. There was another one ten minutes’ drive from there in downtown Lansing. At either station, I could buy an inexpensive ticket on the spot and wait inside until my bus came to take me to, for example, visit my sister in Oberlin, Ohio. Neither East Lansing nor Oberlin are anything you could possibly call a “hub,” but it didn’t matter. The Greyhound went everywhere. That’s becoming less and less true. As of the last time I was in Michigan before my parents moved, the East Lansing station was long gone. The Lansing one was still there — at least for the moment.

From Demolition Plans To Neighborhood Ownership

December 30, 2023 Ellie Zimmerman, Unicorn Riot. Create! Community Control, Community Garden, Environmental racism, Minneapolis

Minneapolis, Minnesota — It’s been a long road to ownership of the hotly contested Roof Depot site for the residents of the East Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis, and they recently cleared one more hurdle in their way. On November 8, the City of Minneapolis accepted a guarantee from East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) of their contribution of $3.7 million, effectively sealing EPNI’s end of the deal to purchase the Roof Depot from the city and launch next steps toward their vision for the site. The battle over the Roof Depot began nearly eight years ago in the Minneapolis city government as residents and activists fought to stop the city from demolishing the existing building to construct a new water distribution facility.

Black Investors Take Back Legal Tool To Restore Chicago’s Affordable Housing

December 29, 2023 Kelli Duncan, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, Chicago, Housing, Predatory Lending, Racism

It was early 2020 when Jay Davis realized his family was going to lose his childhood home, a red brick house in Rosemoor on the South Side of Chicago that had been in his family for generations. Davis’ great-uncle had been living there, and as his dementia worsened the one-story house began to deteriorate. When he died, he left it to his son who had serious health issues and could not maintain the home, Davis said. Davis, 41, wanted to keep the house from becoming another vacant lot on the South Side. He understood the significance of homeownership as a tool for building generational wealth that has been denied to many Black Chicagoans due to racist practices like redlining and predatory lending.

Solidarity Economy And The Economics Of Abundance

December 28, 2023 Institute for New Economic Thinking, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Economic Democracy, Local Economy, Solidarity Economy

How do we transform societal structures and pave the way to economic democracy? Professor Jessica Gordon-Nembhard explores the potential of cooperatives and solidarity economics as pathways towards economic democracy and justice. Drawing on historical examples from the civil rights movement and the Knights of Labor in the 1880s, Gordon-Nembhard demonstrates how cooperative economics can counteract the exploitation inherent in capitalist systems. She underlines the importance of communal ownership and shared decision-making as mechanisms for wealth redistribution, arguing that such models can liberate communities from economic exploitation.

Cooperative Ways To Weather The Silver Tsunami

December 26, 2023 Jaisal Noor, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Community, Cooperatives, Retirement, Worker Rights and Jobs

Sierra Allen, 21-year-old barista, had just ended their shift at Baltimore’s Common Ground Cafe on July 2, 2023, when a co-worker texted them the shocking news: Owner Michael Krupp was unceremoniously closing the beloved coffee shop for good and laying off its 30 employees, effective immediately. “It was a moment of shock. I was in a grocery store, and I burst into tears, because no one knew what was going on.” Allen was devastated by the news that they were losing a job that provided stable employment and a supportive community. The layoffs left them struggling financially—to get unemployment and to keep up with mounting bills.

What Abandoning Fossil Fuels Could Look Like In The Arab World

December 24, 2023 Lylla Younes, DeSmog. Create! Arab Countries, Energy, Fossil-free, Oil and Gas, Transformation, Western Asia

For the second year in a row, world leaders met in the Arab world to negotiate the future of the planet. As a backdrop to the United Nations climate conference in Dubai, it’s a fitting venue for a planet-wide shift that scientists say needs to happen: The region has extensive deposits of oil and gas, but also immense, untapped potential for renewable energy. Over the past several years, European governments and corporations have made moves to capitalize off this potential, investing in sprawling mega-projects to capture the sun’s energy from the region’s vast deserts and export the electricity north.

The Lower Sioux Need Homes, So They’re Building Them From Hemp

December 24, 2023 Judith Matloff, Next City. Create! green housing, Hempcrete, Indigenous People, Native Americans, Sustainability

For now, it’s only a gaping hole in the ground, 100-by-100 feet, surrounded by farm machinery and bales of hemp on a sandy patch of earth on the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation in southwestern Minnesota. But when construction is complete next April, the Lower Sioux — also known as part of the Mdewakanton Band of Dakota — will have a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing campus that will allow them to pioneer a green experiment, the first of its kind in the United States. They will have an integrated vertical operation to grow hemp, process it into insulation called hempcrete, and then build healthy homes with it. Right now, no one in the U.S. does all three.

Hoopa Valley Tribe Reclaim Over 10,000 Acres

December 22, 2023 Last Real Indians. Create! Hoopa Valley Tribe, Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Sovereignty, Land Rights

The Hoopa Valley Tribe announced today the acquisition of 10,395 acres of land bordering the western boundary of the Tribe’s Reservation. The return of the Hupa Mountain property brings the Tribe’s landholdings to a total of over 102,000 acres. When the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation was created, the Hupa people lost access to and use of more than two-thirds of their ancestral lands. The Tribe’s $14.1 million purchase of the land rightfully returns management, conservation, and use of the land to Hupa People. “Today is a day of intense celebration for our Tribe,” said Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Joe Davis.

International Migrants Day: How To Change The System?

December 21, 2023 Neal Resnikoff, Orinoco Tribune. Create! Capitalism, Chicago, Latin America, Migrants, migration crisis

The UN General Assembly proclaimed December 18 International Migrants Day in 2000. It took into account the large and increasing number of migrants in the world. It aimed to further the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. The Convention recognizes the human rights of migrant workers and promotes their access to justice as well as to humane and lawful working and living conditions. It provides guidance on the elaboration of national migration policies and for international cooperation based on respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Venezuela And Guyana To Maintain Direct Dialogue On Essequibo

December 17, 2023 José Luis Granados Ceja, Venezuelanalysis. Create! Diplomacy, Disputed land, Essequibo, Guyana, Venezuela, Zone of Peace

Mexico City, Mexico – Venezuela and Guyana agreed Thursday to an ongoing direct dialogue between the two countries following a first meeting between their respective leaders in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his Guyanese counterpart Irfaan Ali met at the airport in Kingstown alongside representatives from CARICOM, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Brazil, Colombia, and the United Nations. The two leaders gathered following a letter by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines calling on the leaders to diffuse rising tensions between Venezuela and Guyana.

What We Can Learn From One Florida Community About Climate Resilience

December 14, 2023 Danielle Arigoni, Next City. Create! Climate Change, climate crisis, Extreme weather, Florida, Housing, Resilience

The health and safety we enjoy as individuals and the opportunities for employment, education, and recreation available to us are shaped to a large degree by the built environment in which we live. For the past 70 years, the vast majority of new housing development has followed the example of Levittown, New York. The city now serves as the poster child for a seemingly endless wave of car-dependent greenfield suburban sprawl developments that not only helped to generate the carbon emissions that contribute to the climate crisis we now face but also modeled a form of growth that provided opportunity for wealth creation for some households and not others.

COP28 Has Failed; New App Helps Public Take Matters Into Their Own Hands

December 12, 2023 Steve Topple, The Canary. Create! climate crisis, COP28, Fossil Fuels, greenwashing

As COP28 draws to a close – mired in inaction and controversy – a new app is launching to let the public take matters into their own hands. “Earthize” will allow people to avoid any companies that greenwash, invest in fossil fuels, or damage the environment. That is, you can now stop using corporations that fuel the climate and biodiversity crises. At the end of COP28 on Tuesday 12 December, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) promised to try again to strike a deal as the Dubai climate summit passed its deadline. At-risk nations and Western powers rejected a proposal that stopped short of phasing out fossil fuels.

California Is Showing The Potential Of Strip Mall-To-Housing Conversions

December 11, 2023 Ahmad Abu-Khalaf, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, California, Development, Housing

State and local jurisdictions are desperately looking for new ways to speed up affordable housing development as the supply of homes falls short of demand nearly everywhere in the U.S. This fall, the Biden-Harris administration announced new resources to support commercial conversions to create affordable housing. While much of the focus is on office conversions, an idea that swept the nation as millions of Americans transitioned to remote work, relatively few office buildings are physically suitable for conversion. The costs can be incredibly high and the surrounding neighborhoods, often in business districts, are not necessarily conducive to new housing and the needs of residents.

The Transit Equity Movement Wins Biggest Zero Fare Victory Yet

December 10, 2023 Liam Crisan, Inequality.org. Create! Albuquerque, New Mexico, Racial Justice, Transit Equity, Transportation, Victory

Albuquerque, New Mexico - It’s happening: The city of Albuquerque is permanently eliminating public bus fares, becoming the largest U.S. city to embrace this critical step toward racial and economic equity. A coalition headed by Together for Brothers — a community organizing and power-building group led by and for young men of color — made the victory possible. In an interview with Inequality.org, the group’s Co-Founder and Executive Director, Christopher Ramirez, explained that it all started in 2017 when Together for Brothers applied for a Health Impact Assessment grant. “When we were applying for the grant, we had a couple sessions with the young men of color we were working with,” Ramirez said.

Paris Plans An Urban Forest For A Busy Roundabout

December 8, 2023 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. Create! Bikes, Environment, France, Global heating, Paris, Transportation, Urban Design

Paris will plant an “urban forest” at Place de Catalogne, a busy roundabout with close proximity to the Gare Montparnasse railway station. The city will add nearly 500 trees to the roundabout. The new urban forest project will help with cooling to combat the urban heat island effect as well as contribute to an overall plan for improving air quality and reducing emissions that contribute to global warming. “The temperatures one could feel in this little forest will be 4 degrees lower compared to what we could have outside it and so, it will be very pleasant,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo said, as reported by Reuters.

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