Matthew Brown is Labour's leader of Preston City Council and a
Senior Fellow for the Democracy Collaborative, tasked also with
promoting Community Wealth Building across the UK and abroad.
Rhian E. Jones is a writer, historian and author of four books on
politics and popular culture. She is a founding editor of the New
Socialist website and now edits Red Pepper and writes for Tribune
magazine.
“At a time when the challenges our society faces can often seem too
remote and complex to tackle, Paint Your Town Red provides
activists and campaigners with a critical insight into how they can
transform their local economies from the ground up."
"A very useful tool to describe how cities and towns can assess
their current socio-economic paradigms and formulate new social
transformation models based on economic democracy. Preston is
leading today what Mondragon was starting decades ago."
"This book is everything we need right now — a how-to guide to
municipal socialism that works, right now in the present day,
compiled by one of the contemporary left's best writers and one of
its best councillors. Informative, clear, passionate and
thoughtful, it should be mandatory reading for all socialists."
"Of all the political experiments tried in the UK over the past
decade of painful austerity and polarisation, the city of Preston
ranks easily among the most daring and intriguing. This is an
honest story of how it began, and the lessons it can teach the rest
of us."
“Paint Your Town Red is a timely reminder that despite years
of austerity and neoliberalism there are now genuine economic
alternatives emerging in many towns, cities and regions across the
UK.
"At a time of compounding economic, social and environmental
challenges, Paint Your Town Red offers a powerful and
detailed roadmap for how local public authorities, institutions and
citizens can leave deprivation behind and rebuild their
communities."
“Preston’s Matthew Brown has co-authored Paint Your Town Red with
writer and historian Rhian E Jones, explaining how the Preston
model works and providing a toolkit for towns that want to
reproduce its successes."
“The ‘Preston model’, as it is called, could, if applied all over
the country, be revolutionary."
“This well-conceived pamphlet offers an alternative solution to
localised decline: ‘community wealth-building’, which couples local
regeneration with local empowerment by developing ‘small and
socially conscious enterprises, including worker-owned businesses,
community land trusts and community banks’.”
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