The Cleveland Model
By Gar Alperovitz, Ted Howard & Thad Williamson
This article appeared in the March 1, 2010 edition of The Nation.
February 11, 2010
Something important is happening in Cleveland: a new model of
large-scale worker- and community-benefiting enterprises is beginning to
build serious momentum in one of the cities most dramatically impacted
by the nation's decaying economy. The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry
(ECL)--a worker-owned, industrial-size, thoroughly "green"
operation--opened its doors late last fall in Glenville, a neighborhood
with a median income hovering around $18,000. It's the first of ten
major enterprises in the works in Cleveland, where the poverty rate is
more than 30 percent and the population has declined from 900,000 to
less than 450,000 since 1950.