Building Partnerships is currently collaborating on a pilot project with the Connecticut Center for a New Economy to develop a Community Economic Blueprint for the region.
By soliciting input from over
1000 community
leaders
on the issues that matter most
to their constituencies,
and how
these problems might
be solved, the Blueprint process
will connect a comprehensive
agenda for organizing and advocacy
to a broad-based source of
grassroots power.
With the loss of New Haven's manufacturing base and the dominance of
service sector jobs, the challenge for the growing progressive coalition is to determine how grassroots leaders, major employers and public bodies can work together to create real, family-sustaining opportunities for
New Haven's working people and marginalized communities.
The Community Economic Blueprint will be a comprehensive policy platform that:
- identifies key issues and challenges facing working families in the regional economy;
- describes how these issues are linked and must be addressed within an integrated agenda;
- establishes common ground between isolated and sometimes hostile factions of the community; and
- proposes specific campaigns for joint action that will advance the common agenda.
To achieve these goals, the Blueprint must be based on a process of broad public participation that challenges the notion that the success of the business community brings prosperity for all, and proposes alternative measures of community well-being.
