Building Grassroots Momentum to Drive Prosperity in Global Communities: UrbanChange
The concept of community has a long history, practically since the onset of the very first civilizations thousands of years ago. Whether you live in a city, town, village, neighborhood, or tribe, your environment shapes your self-image, your pride, and your identity. Want to have a say and make a positive impact on your surroundings? The key lies in action from community members like you. We’ll describe the process right here in this article.
The story of the community is varied by geographical location, time, climate, and many other cultural and political factors, yet the basic narrative remains the same. The story of the community is shaped around how leaders have either enabled or stagnated its success.
Throughout history, there have been periods of empires reigning over a majority of the civilized world. From Imperial China to Ancient Egypt, from the Mongols to the Romans. These superpowers had their heyday and then made a much less impressive exit into historical accounts, textbooks, and Wikipedia pages. But all of these empires had one thing in common: they were economic and military superpowers with the ability to trade globally and foster economic activity across the span of huge land masses.
The modern community, be it a neighborhood in Berlin, Lagos or Sao Paulo, differs greatly from these ancient empires in terms of landmasses, populations, cultural norms, definitions of prosperity, goals, systems of governance, and many other distinctions. But “there is nothing new under the sun,” as the saying goes, and every community in 2023 still needs economic prosperity and security to be successful.
Community: what it is and why it matters
We’ve spoken about ancient empires, cities, neighborhoods, and tribes, but let’s solidify our definition of the Urban Community — the one that we are talking about here. Urban Communities are groups of people who live together (geographically) and are (usually) governed by a body of local government. An Urban Community will have its own social structure, businesses, economy, and, yes, its own problems.
Centralized systems of governance are not the ideal environment for communities to grow and prosper. UrbanChange is setting out to change this by introducing decentralization and bottom-up community action with the goal of creating real, lasting change, which accelerates positive growth and impact.
The Problem: top-down governance
Communities are almost always centralized and governed by a few leaders. These might be city governments, apartment building managers, or tribe leaders. There are manifold problems with centralized community governance:
- The interests of the leaders might conflict with the interests of the community.
- The reach of centralized initiatives is limited.
- The need to employ paid workers and invest costly efforts in spreading the word about initiatives.
Furthermore, in a system of top-down leadership, it is difficult to encourage community members to get involved and impact the community in any meaningful way. And even if we, as individuals, wanted to make a difference, it is a long and difficult road to make a real impact on a community with a centralized system of governance.
Imagine the state government of Lagos, Nigeria, wants to clean up the streets. Without UrbanChange, there are a couple of actions the leaders can take:
- Enforce a fine on littering
- Raise taxes and hire street cleaners
These solutions may work if implemented properly, but they are costly and superficial, and they do not work to resolve the root of the problem.
The Solution: building bottom-up momentum
What if people suddenly cared more about their immediate environments and were given the tools to make a positive difference very easily? These tools are what UrbanChange is introducing to communities across the globe in order to encourage economic growth and security through the initiatives of local governments and organizations.
Let’s take a sneak peek into how the UrbanChange system works using our Lagos example. With UrbanChange, once the state government recognizes that the streets need to be cleaned, they would open an initiative, “Clean Lagos” or “Clean up the streets,” and fund the campaign, giving each participant an economic incentive to join.
This incentive takes the form of a LocalCoin, let’s say “Lagos Coin” for the purposes of the example. Each participant would earn a certain number of Lagos Coins from a pool set aside by the state government for the initiative. These coins carry monetary value, pegged to a stablecoin, to be used at local shops, businesses, and services, further promoting local prosperity and growth.
Not only does this method fix the problem, but it also gets the community aware, involved, and active in solving the problems at hand, creating a more unified and stronger community that works together and reaps the rewards of their efforts. A more effective and rewarding system would be difficult to imagine.
Local Heroes — the Key to Positive Change
UrbanChange is not only powered by the community, it is also introduced by the community. UrbanChange is a grassroots cause, a movement that will grow from the momentum of the people. Government bodies and centralized leaders will not drive UrbanChange on their own; they need a push from their people to adopt the protocol. UrbanChange starts with people, people who want to see their communities grow and prosper. We need ambassadors: “local heroes” to lead the momentum that will bring UrbanChange to their communities.
Local heroes are community members who care. They want their living situation and their surroundings to reflect the best possible outcome. These people are ‘heroes’ because they lead their communities toward positive change in any number of ways. They are proud of their community but think they can be prouder. They are driven to build thriving economies through a tokenized system and vote on issues to steer the community in a positive direction. These leaders will hold influential power to determine the rules of the tokenized system that will govern their community: incentives, governance, token supply, and rewards.
Most importantly, local heroes are heroes because they introduce the system that will drive economic prosperity and security to their community and make life better, safer, and more prosperous for every member.
Right now, UrbanChange is looking for Local Heroes to bring UrbanChange to their communities. Would you like to give your community the tools to grow, prosper, and unite under common missions to make it a better, more fun, happier, and prouder place to exist?
Join UrbanChange on Discord to learn more and begin your journey.
