How South Bend was transformed as part of a growing trend toward a more cooperative society
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| Photo by Brian Butko under a Creative Commons license from flickr.com. |
(South Bend, Indiana) August 3, 2035. Just a few years ago, the sight of downtown streets in South Bend thronged with shoppers, office workers and entertainment seekers would have been shocking. Once upon a time you could shoot a cannon down South Bend’s Main Street at 8 p.m. with little risk of casualties. But downtown is now bustling with people day and night, many who come not to work or shop but to be where the action is.
Over the past five years, 6,800 new housing units have been built in the area, along with a spate of new offices, restaurants, bars, stores, theaters and galleries. South Bend’s newly completed downtown farmer’s market complex draws tens of thousands of visitors each day, and Lafayette Street is referred to as the “Wall Street of Credit Unions,” with more than a dozen cooperatively owned financial institutions headquartered along a three-block stretch. One of these, the Mondragon American Trust (MAT), which popularized the concept of transforming suburban subdivisions into eco-villages, is now larger than all but two Wall Street banks.
As much as anywhere in the United States, South Bend has prospered by capitalizing on the promise of the commons—which means assets belonging to all of us, from water and wilderness to the Internet and cultural treasures. The commons also refers to a new ethic of sharing and cooperation, which has come to influence decision making at all levels in South Bend, bringing big changes to city hall, business offices and neighborhood groups.
While the ideas of the commons sound theoretical and abstract, commons-based policies show practical results. The South Bend unemployment rate hovers below 1 percent, and the city ranks high for the quality of its municipal services and the strength of its civic organizations. Because such a sizable share of economic activity rests in the hands of locally owned businesses and cooperatives, South Bend’s new wealth is spread around the community, not piped to a corporate head- quarters far away.
High school graduation rates are the highest ever in the city’s history, with 93 percent of students going on to college or technical training programs. The St. Joseph River and local lakes are clean enough for fishing and swimming. Three light rail lines, coupled with policies to promote bicycling and pedestrian-friendly neighborhood businesses, give the once-gritty city an almost Parisian quality of urban charm.
“I don’t know of another place that has done a more thorough job of bringing government, community groups, non-profit institutions and private business together to solve pressing problems and make sure that future generations enjoy the bounty of the commons in their daily lives,” declares Salaam Sanchez, director of the prestigious E.F. Schumacher School of Business at the University of Puerto Rico. “South Bend is pointing us in the direction of a sustainable, prosperous and—dare I say— pleasurable future.”
While South Bend has accomplished the most of any American community in promoting a vision of the commons—thanks to the enthusiastic work of citizens coming out of neighborhood organizations, social movements, labor unions, the business community and religious congregations—you see similar policies being put into action everywhere
from Bangor to Berkeley, Ottawa to Oaxaca.
Nearby Gary, Indiana—once an economic basket case in anyone’s eyes—is now thriving as the center of the revived Lake Michigan fishing industry. Hard-hit Buffalo, New York, flourishes as the home of world-renowned green engineering firms. Even after the closing of its military bases, San Antonio is booming thanks to its emergence as a music and media capital known as the “Tex-Mex Hollywood.”
Probably the greatest impact of the commons all over the world has come in the flowering of community and civic organizations dedicated to improving people’s lives. Kieran Chang, best-selling self-help author states, “From the rise of shared-family housing to the teen service corps and the creation of new neighborhood plazas in almost every town, the commons brightens our lives from morning to midnight. It amounts to a spectacular shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’.”
Indeed, the daily rhythm of modern society has evolved dramatically since the harried days when demands of the market economy drove almost every aspect of life. “The long working hours, financial anxiety and lack of time for family, fun, friends and faith seem like a bad dream now,” Chang offers. “The rediscovery of the commons prompted people to think more about what really mattered to them.”
The spirit of the commons is on full display here at the Common Wealth Festival in South Bend, which opened last night. At the TED (technology/entertainment/design) Bazaar, folks are urged to download the latest movies, music, blogs, software, greenware, smartware, slowware, poetry, architectural codes, news reports, video mash-ups, engineering specs, gaming templates, typography, and fashion designs from everywhere across the planet. At the same time, festival-goers can sample 75 different beers, 19 wines, 13 bourbons, 31 vinegars, 116 cheeses, 56 different kinds of sausage and eight varieties of West African-style cassava brew, all made right inside the city limits.
“South Bend is the center of the universe—to those of us who live here,” exclaims Mayor Lakeesha Kluzynski, who admits to liking the Polish sausages best. “That’s the great gift of the commons—letting us discover the wonderful things around us that we all share.”
—JAY WALLJASPER
