We went to Chorlton and Whalley Range Green Festival on Saturday and ran an activity to help people engage with us. We took some of the ideas that underpin “official” thinking on devolution and economic development in the city region and added in some alternative ideas that underpin our own thinking. People had 5 votes which they could distribute among them. Here are the results of this small and unscientific survey.
Social solidarity – being together, caring for and supporting each other and working collectively for good. |
22 |
Equalities & Social justice – building a fairer society with much smaller differences in wealth, income and well-being. |
28 |
Economic Growth – making the economy bigger |
1 |
Infrastructure – investment in roads, railways (e.g. HS2 and 3), airports, telecoms. |
5 |
Jobs – more and better jobs |
9 |
Welfare reform – spending less on benefits and helping people into work. |
4 |
Resilience – making our economy and society better equipped to withstand shocks from climate change, economic turbulence and geopolitical events such as wars. |
11 |
Carbon reduction – rapidly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to zero to try & prevent climate change getting much worse. |
26 |
Competition – positioning Greater Manchester to compete for trade and investment in a global economy. |
1 |
Sustainable finance – reducing debt while ensuring that our money funds things that society and the environment really need and avoiding bubbles, boom and bust. |
17 |
Democratic accountability – ensuring our leaders reflect our interests and views and account for what they are doing through a variety of channels including public meetings. |
13 |
Locally sourced food – more of it produced and processed locally by people, co-ops, SME’s. |
19 |
Scientific or not, the results are of some interest since they indicate that for this audience (not all of whom were stereotypical environmentalists) at least, a society that protects its environment while increasing levels of social solidarity and economic and social resilience matter more than the conventional notions of economic growth and jockeying for position in an international competition.