Since launching in June, SteadystateManchester has gathered strength and begun its programme of work to put forward a powerful and feasible vision of a steady state city. The work followed interventions to try to encourage Manchester City Council to take serious interest in promoting a local steady state economy. That work in itself brought together a number of people committed to the idea who agreed to continue to work not just with the council but also with other key groups and sectors in the city.

These are some of the things we’ve done so far:-
Committed ourselves to producing a major report in October and using this report, not as the end of the story but to set the scene for further work that will help focus the work of many parties from various sectors.
Held two participative meetings attended by a total of 35 people. (see report on the second one)
Set up a management group to coordinate and lead the various workstreams.
Set up a website: steadystatemanchester.net
Established several working groups (details below)
Produced videos that can be watched on steadystatemanchester.net explaining what we are doing. Here’s a link to the one explaining how we will write the report.
Identified that little work is going on elsewhere on necessary and feasible policies to move towards a steady state economy at municipal and regional levels. However we have identified some work and will be learning from and building on this.
Obtained the support of distinguished experts on steady state economics,
who will act as advisors for and reviewers of our work.
Talked about the project to several groups.
Developed our own thinking.
and – launched a competition: see http://steadystatemanchester.net/2012/07/18/competition-how-do-we-engage-all-individuals-neighbourhoods-and-organisations/

Working Groups
Economy
We have a small group to work on the economy theme including activists and academics.  We also have some offers of support and advice from experts on steady state economics from outside Manchester.  There is little work done to date anywhere on steady state economic policy at a city or regional policy so we are in a good position to make a significant contribution.  Anyone who is in a position to contribute, please contact Mark Burton mark.burton[AT]poptel.org (copy and replace [AT] with @).

Culture
A group is forming to write up proposals about what a low-carbon culture would look like, and what steps artists, musicians, actors, writers and so on can play in making that a reality

Food
We have a food survey (please fill it in!), and are busy asking various organisations to respond to questions about how Manchester could radically increase the amount of food it grows, reduce waste, and get people making more “low-carbon” choices
….
Solidarity
A group of people is already examining the question “what does practical solidarity with poor and vulnerable people – and ‘activists’ – in the Majority World look like” – if you have ideas about this, please send them in!
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Biodiversity
Dave Bishop, of Friends of Chorlton Meadows is working on this, solo at present. If you want to get involved, please send an email to us at steadystatemanchester@gmail.com and we will fwd it on…

Education
A group is forming to look at the nature of environmental education in Manchester, its successes and challenges, and ALSO at the training and skills that will be relevant for Manchester in the coming decades.
…

And here is what you can do.
Fill in a “I’d like to get involved” survey.
Send us your ideas, links to helpful work and people – don’t worry that we might have this information already – we’d rather get it twice than not at all.
Get involved in one of the teams that isn’t writing policy proposals (a daunting prospect for many, ourselves included
Come to our next meeting on the evening of Wednesday 12th September where we’ll do some collective thinking on the core ideas and proposals for SteadystateManchester
Join one of the working groups – just let us know what you are interested in.
Let us know of any developments in the city that are relevant to the initiative.