May has been a busy month for CFP! Read more about our events which took place in DC and in Detroit and focused on the economic crisis. Also get an update on CFP's role in initiating the first government Participatory Budgeting project in the country!

May 2009 Newsletter

Cities for Progress

http://www.citiesforprogress.org/

A project of the Institute for Policy Studies

http://www.ips-dc.org/

 

Dear Friends of Cities for Progress/Cities for Peace,

 

WE HAVE BEEN BUSY THIS MAY!! Cities for Progress has helped allies in the fight for economic and social justice by organizing venues on Capitol Hill as well as in the Mid-West for an amplification of Grassroots Remedies for the current Economic Crisis. Below are highlights and links. Please read and see what people around the nation are doing to fix the problem brought to our communities by Wall Street, Greed and Deregulation.

 

Also, along with the Participatory Budgeting Project, Cities for Progress is helping Chicago’s 49^th Ward to implement the first ever Participatory Budgeting process at the municipal level in the U.S.! Highlights below!

 

Send us your inspiring stories of Grassroots Remedies to the Current Economic Crisis!

In Peace and Solidarity,

Karen Dolan, kdolan@igc.org

Pamela Giller, Pamela@ips-dc.org

 

Meltdown in Detroit: Economic Collapse, a People’s Plan for Recovery

The town hall discussion, at Ground Zero of the Economic Crisis: co-hosted by IPS and The Nation, took place on May 23 at Cobo Hall in Detroit and drew a crowd of over 200. The panel examined local solutions as well as the role of Detroit in the national economy. Opening remarks were delivered by Detroit Congressman Rep. John Conyers and the discussion was moderated by The Nation magazine’s John Nichols.

Panelist and Detroit City Councilmember JoAnn Watson proposes

Urban Marshall Plan for Detroit

Remedies for Detroit in Detroit Pastor Bill Wylie-Kellerman’s Sojourner article

For Press Coverage of the event please click the following links:

Detroit News

The Detroiter

The Nation

 

Voices from the Front Lines of the Economic Crisis

IPS’ Cities for Progress organized representatives from progressive poverty-fighting networks to testify at an ad-hoc Congressional hearing on May 12 at 121 Cannon House Office Building. The Congressional Progressive Caucus received their testimony. This event was part of an effort to forge a bold agenda that creates good jobs and advances economic and environmental justice here and abroad.

For video coverage of the event Click Here

For Press Coverage of the event please click the following links:

Nation blog

Free Speech Radio

Links to testimonies of witnesses at this event are posted on the IPS website:

http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/1276

http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/1273

http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/1272

http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/1277

 

FIRST EVER IN THE U.S.!!

Chicago’s 49^th Ward Advances Participatory Budgeting (PB)

Participatory Budgeting has been used as a tool to achieve higher levels of equity and civic engagement in over 1,200 municipalities and public institutions worldwide. IPS’ Cities for Progress and The Participatory Budgeting Project are facilitating the process in Chicago. A workshop held on May 19^th in Chicago marked the next step toward the implementation of PB this coming October which would make Chicago’s 49^th ward the first municipality in the United States to institute a PB process!

For an overview of the process thus far Click Here

 

Institute for Policy Studies is Awarded 2009 Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism

The Hillman Prize was awarded to IPS for our June 30, 2008 collaborative article with the Nation entitled, “The New Inequality.” The article was lauded by the Hillman Foundation as “the best reporting and thinking about…inequality.”

For more details please see The Sydney Hillman Foundation website

 

National Priorities Project Fact Sheets

National Priorities Project has just released a new set of fact sheets that summarizes the impact of the Obama budget at the national and state levels. They are available here

 

 

Peace,

Karen Dolan

Director, Cities for Peace and Cities for Progress

Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies

Washington DC

kdolan@igc.org

 

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Cities for Progress/Cities for Peace is a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. For more than four decades, IPS has transformed ideas into action for peace, justice, and the environment as the nation’s oldest progressive think tank. http://www.ips-dc.org/