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Governance Publications

Self-Reliant Cities

Published October 2008
selfreliantcitiescover.jpg
Originally published in 1982, we're making this book available as a free download since many of its discussions are as relevant today as they were 25 years ago. The first half discusses the century-long struggle by cities to gain autonomy and authority from state governments and create their own planning and service delivery capacities. The second part describes the first urban-based localization movements and the successes and challenges. As a standalone document, we've also included the new foreword and the book's last chapter, The Ecological City given the current revived debate about the subject.

Self Reliant Cities - Book [pdf]
Self Reliant Cities - Foreward and Last Chapter [pdf]

Don't Bribe 'Em. Buy 'Em: A strategic proposal on how New Yorkers can create--and control--a minor baseball league of their own

Published November 1998

In the next two years, New Yorkers will spend nearly $50 million dollars to build two stadiums for minor league teams in order to lure away short-season, class A ball clubs from other communities. And in ten years? New Yorkers may well have to consider building bigger stadiums for those same teams so they don't threaten to move as the Yankees are now doing. A better idea: For the same amount of taxpayer money, New Yorkers can create--and own--a minor league comprised of several good ball clubs and still have money left over to put toward stadiums. And New Yorkers can--for years to come--root for teams that are truly rooted in their own community.

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Place Matters Conference Summary

Published November 1998
The Place Matters Conference, held on November 12, 1998 in St. Paul, Minnesota, drew together a mix of businesses, organizations and individuals who, by their very nature, believe that place does indeed matter. These participants were all firmly anchored in their communities, representing small businesses, financial institutions, community-based nonprofits, farmers, and local governments in Minnesota. They were a mix of people who did not normally interact, yet had much in common. They shared a remarkably similar recent history: economic and public policy trends that had made their long-term viability much more tenuous and uncertain. More

Place Matters Conference Summary [pdf]

Communities: Building Authority, Responsibility, and Capacity

Published November 1994
An article by David Morris, reprinted from the State of the Union 1994. More

Communities: Building Authority, Responsibility, and Capacity [pdf]

The Mondragon System: Cooperation at Work

Published November 1992

This 1992 report by David Morris is a review of the Mondragon Cooperative in Spain. The report examines cooperative structure, management, education, finance, and banking.

The Mondragon Cooperative Corporation is a 35 year old experiment in building a comprehensive cooperative society in which labor plays the primary and dominant role. The Cooperative Group has amassed technical, managerial and financial resources comparable to those of a major corporation and used those resources to further social as well as economic goals that emphasize the importance of community and small and medium scale enterprise. More

The Mondragon System: Cooperation at Work [pdf]

Democracy and Autonomy - Speech

Published November 1990
A speech by David Morris presented at The Other Economc Summit in Houston, Texas in July 1990, later published in Annals of Earth (Vol X, No.3, 1992). More

Democracy and Autonomy [pdf]

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