Future Here Now: Come together. With your money.
I’m limiting this to two pieces today—both got long, and honestly, they deserve it.
I’ve taken a more direct angle this time. Let me know if it hits.
🏘️ A good place to live… together
🔗 https://nonprofitquarterly.org/a-good-place-to-live
One of the quiet “Sea Changes” that mainstream media keeps missing:
👉 It is dramatically easier today for unrelated people to own things together than it was 30 or 40 years ago.
The example here focuses on cooperatively owned mobile home parks—but that’s just one slice of a much bigger shift.
You see it in:
🏢 Small business co-ops
🏘️ Community-owned real estate
🤝 Co-housing models
💡 Shared investment structures
And here’s the thing: it’s happening everywhere… but in such a scattered way that we don’t have a clean, centralized measure of it.
Still—people working in this space will tell you:
🔥 Demand is exploding.
⚙️ Why now?
Two big reasons:
1. Technology finally caught up
The internet makes it easier than ever to:
🌐 Find models
👥 Gather participants
📊 Coordinate ownership
⚡ Operate at scale
Things that were once painfully manual are now frictionless.
2. People are done watching from the sidelines
Despite all the noise about billionaires and tech icons, more people are asking a simple question:
👉 Why am I paying into systems I don’t own?
If you’re paying rent…
If you’re earning a paycheck…
💥 Why not pay yourself?
Because when ownership stays local:
💰 Wealth circulates locally
🏘️ Communities stabilize
📈 People build real equity
🛠️ Making it real
This doesn’t just happen magically.
Organizations are stepping in:
🔹 Training and support programs (like cooperative development groups)
🔹 Hybrid investment models combining local + institutional capital
🔹 Community-led ownership transitions
Because yes—this is easier than before…
…but it’s still not easy.
📊 The opportunity
As thousands of small business owners approach retirement:
⚠️ We can either watch those businesses disappear or get absorbed…
✅ Or transition them into community ownership
Cooperative models shouldn’t be a niche idea.
They should be core infrastructure for anyone serious about economic development.
📉 The bigger they are, the harder they…
🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/white-collar-recession-hits-tech-6250412/
This second piece leans a bit into clickbait—but the underlying trend?
Not surprising at all.
💣 The uncomfortable truth
About 20 years ago, we made a quiet deal:
👉 We decided to fund tech—especially software—through venture capital.
And on paper, it made sense.
How else do you pay a team of highly paid engineers in expensive cities to build your “Uber for dog walkers”?
⚠️ The problem: it’s a devil’s bargain
The VC model depends on:
📈 10X returns
💥 Because most bets fail
That creates a narrow path:
➡️ Sell to a bigger company
➡️ Go public (IPO)
That’s it.
🚫 What’s NOT allowed?
❌ Build a stable, profitable business
❌ Stay small and sustainable
❌ Reinvest and grow steadily
In this system, those outcomes are considered… failures.
🏭 The result?
The tech industry—ironically the place we expect innovation—
Has largely recreated:
🏢 Industrial-era thinking
💰 Extractive growth models
⚙️ Scale at all costs
And when growth slows?
👷 Workers get treated less like innovators…
…and more like assembly line labor.
🔄 It doesn’t have to be this way
Tech fell into this trap partly because:
📦 It lacks tangible assets
🏦 Banks struggle to fund it
📉 Traditional financing doesn’t fit
But we also lost something important:
👉 Local investment systems
Once upon a time:
📍 Local stock exchanges existed
📊 Returns were reasonable
🤝 Communities invested in themselves
💡 The alternative path
Models like:
🏘️ Cooperative ownership
📈 Local stock exchanges
🤝 Community investment ecosystems
Offer something radically different:
👉 Growth without extraction
👉 Ownership without exit pressure
👉 Wealth that stays where it’s created
🔥 So what now?
This isn’t theory.
This is already happening.
The only question is whether more people will:
👀 Watch it happen
…or
💥 Participate in it
🚀 Your next move
If this resonates, don’t just scroll past it.
📚 Buy books that expand how you think about ownership and economics
📰 Subscribe to Future Here Now: https://www.substack.com/
🌍 Explore deeper work: http://wiseeconomy.com/
🎤 Bring this conversation to your organization
→ Inquire about speaking & workshops
💬 And if you’re already part of this audience:
Stay with it. Share it. Build on it.
Because viewership isn’t just numbers—it’s momentum.
✨ Final thought
The future isn’t being decided in boardrooms alone.
It’s being shaped in neighborhoods…
in small groups…
in people deciding:
👉 We’re going to own this. Together.
