Bold Ideas: Community- Led Local Ownership
Community members and organizations are central to the DGEP model. This is an intentional model of community economic ecosystem upbuilding, focused on “Level 3 Economic Development,” which means economic development with community ownership and without forced displacement.
Community members, including children and families, as well as community founded-and-led organizations, are already engaged in DGEP’s planning, construction, operation, and evaluation – and will continue so.
Most notably, the community will also be the owners. DGEP upbuilding includes: apprenticeships, internships, human and social capital development, capacity, agency and confidence building, and vehicles for diffusing these learnings throughout the community.
The community will own portfolios of appreciable assets changing the community’s relationship to a racially unjust social system and beginning to repair the injustices that have developed and festered over 400 years.
These learnings and portfolios will serve as “Preparation for Reparations.” DGEP’s community partners will be spreaders of this model across the world.