Let’s Go Cellular

(Opinion) To live more sustainably in the future, we need to organize ourselves into ​“cells” of people working together to solve a problem. New Haven is a great place to start this new economy, because we are already connected through nonprofits, community organizations and mission-driven businesses.

For the past year, I have been involved in Pivot Projects, a global, interdisciplinary collaboration formed during the Covid-19 crisis. It aims to use systems thinking and augmented intelligence to help communities and the planet become more sustainable and resilient.

My involvement in Pivot Projects started as a global journey. In the end, it brought me back home to New Haven and gave me new insights about the potential for our city to offer better lives for more of our people.

Pivot Projects set up a collection of workgroups to take on different topics and problems relevant to environmental and social sustainability. One focused on economics and politics. Damian Costello, an Irish innovation expert, led the group in the development of a newish approach to economic development, which he called the ​“cellular economy.”

The cellular economy is a phenomenon that exists within the framework of modern capitalism and democratic governance. Small cells of people self-organize to improve economic vitality and human wellbeing and help us live more sustainably and resiliently. The cells might be mission-driven businesses, non-profits, public-private collaborations, community groups, and even less formal, collective enterprises. The most important thing they have in common is that their focus is not on profits and traditional measures of value but on improving human and natural wellbeing.

Many of these cells exist today in the United States and all around the world. Pivot Projects aims to help new ones organize and connect existing ones into a giant network of sharing and collaboration.

As part of the process of testing the cellular economy concepts against the realities of life in the United States, I realized that New Haven is actually a fairly-well-developed example of cellular economics at work.

Our city has always punched above its weight in terms of innovation and industry building. Starting in the early 18th century with Eli Whitney and his inventions, it has been the home to one thriving industry after another. Traditional manufacturing began to die out in the mid-20th century, which created a sizable unemployment and poverty problem in the city’s neighborhoods. The downtown suffered as well.

In the place of manufacturing, the city has reemerged as a major regional center of what’s often called an ​“eds and meds” economy. It benefits greatly from the presence of Yale, three other universities, and other schools in the area. We have a huge regional medical center which not only helps us when we’re sick but generates a lot of good-paying jobs. Yale’s School of Medicine and other schools have become incubators for a thriving biotech startup industry.

Unfortunately, because these educational and healthcare organizations have such a large footprint, more than half of the city’s real estate is not subject to property taxes. As a result, the city has difficulty providing an adequate level of services to large swaths of the population — people who don’t benefit much if at all from the eds and meds economy.

But there is something going on here that gives me hope for the future — the beginnings of a cellular economy. A lot of these cellular activities center on the arts, entertainment, and food. Many of the most vibrant institutions in our city are non-profits, progressive community organizations, or businesses — often family owned — that are innovative and community oriented. You are probably aware already of some or most of these enterprises and initiatives, but it’s worth reflecting on the fact that most cities our size don’t possess this quantity and variety of innovative, progressive organizations. Other places don’t have the energy and dynamism that we have in our alternative economy.

Here are just a few examples:

The New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas: The non-profit cultural organization that puts on an annual festival that brings in artists from all over the world and tourists from all over the region.

The New Haven Documentary Film Festival: It features local and global filmmakers.

NXTHVN: An arts center that empowers emerging artists and curators of color through intergenerational mentorship, professional development, and cross-sector collaboration.

ConnCAT: Based in New Haven’s Science Park, the organization trains unemployed and underemployed adults for careers in culinary and healthcare fields. It operates its own café. It is also redeveloping a rundown commercial strip in the community.

Atticus Bookstore-Cafe/Chabasso Bakery: This family-owned operation just launched an initiative, CT Food Launchpad, where they help local food producers develop products and get them distributed through area supermarkets and shops.

Collab New Haven: It empowers individuals and families — mainly within the Black and Latinx communities — to use entrepreneurship to gain autonomy, build wealth, and shape their communities.

District: It’s an entrepreneurship incubator and ecosystem designed to support people and businesses at every stage. There’s a school within the complex where local people can learn computing, communications, and leadership skills.

ArtSpace: The downtown arts organization operates a gallery but its big project is an annual event, City-Wide Open Studios, where people are invited to visit hundreds of visual artists in their studios or shared spaces, watch them work, and purchase art.

I could go on and on. (The Independent, clearly, is a cell.)

These initiatives and many more gain energy and momentum from one another. Wrap it all together, and we have the potential for developing a dynamic cellular economy capable of improving the quality of life for people of all types and social classes. Notice, this ain’t traditional capitalism but it’s not ​“socialism” either.

Will New Haven’s budding cellular economy be enough create a dynamic city that offers all of its residents a chance at achieving meaningful work, satisfactory incomes, fulsome educational and recreational opportunities, good health, rich social lives, and safety and security? This we don’t know. It helps if we recognize what we have — and do more of it.

What I’m certain of is that this model for building an economy and society is vastly superior to the values and approaches of modern capitalism, where maximizing profits is paramount, and where humans and human values are subservient.

If you want to learn more or get involved, tune into a Pivot Projects Zoom event addressing the cellular economy on Friday at 1:30 p.m. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/607572916?pwd=OW9SUCtManFSQVF3dTRMaDM1ckwvQT09

Let’s go cellular!