VISION

VISION

SUSTAINABILITY

A Glasgow built around ecological and environmental justice, where residents are empowered by a resident-owned public transport system and access to food growing and green spaces as we transition towards real zero-carbon targets.

HEALTH AND HOMES

A Glasgow made more livable for all it’s residents, centred around care, health and wellbeing with secure, affordable, good quality housing and meaningful poverty reduction programs.

SOLIDARITY AND JUSTICE

A Glasgow where the violence of colonisation, oppression and patriarchy has been unravelled, unlearned and over-turned so that safety, welcome for all and compassion characterise life here. A Glasgow that works with other cities across the world to promote the values of peace, justice and love.

ECONOMIC THINKING

A Glasgow where democratic and economic relationships have shifted their focus away from distorted notions of what represents productivity, efficiency, ambition, and growth. A Glasgow that works to resolve the damage that such policies have had on its workers and residents, and creates a more inclusive understanding of how economic activity is envisioned.

POWER AND DEMOCRACY

A Glasgow with greater democratic accountability, where power is more evenly distributed, and residents and communities are empowered to participate in making decisions that affect them.

EDUCATION AND LEARNING

A Glasgow where young people are informed, prepared and empowered to tackle the many uncertainties and challenges of our future.  A Glasgow in which age, income and other factors do not act as barriers to accessing educational services and resources.

PURPOSE

1. To explore how another Glasgow is possible. 
2. To disrupt the “inevitable” nature of extractive and oppressive forces within Glasgow and hold power to account. 
3. To accelerate the democratisation of processes of power and collective decision making.
4. To build counter-institutions for residents and broader, cooperative power.

ORGANISING PRINCIPLES

1. The People’s Plan is a process, practice and platform. We frame generative questions as much as articulate answers. We work with how as much as what.
   
2. We connect across themes and areas of work, recognising the interconnections between the city, people and the environment.
3. We reject the limits and barriers imposed by austerity and oppression. We refuse to accept that we don’t matter by showing solidarity with each other, supporting creativity and learning from one another.
4. We embrace critical thinking and personal reflection – educating ourselves and each other.
5. We adopt a ‘build and fight’ approach to make demands for a safer and more sustainable city

OUTLINE STRATEGY

This is an outline of our strategy, because we want to make space to be responsive and guided by our principles and values and the unfolding situation in Glasgow. 

We are working to achieve our vision of another Glasgow. In doing so we will explore where power lies in Glasgow. We will hold power to account and experiment with direct and participative forms of democracy. We will work in ways that inform what a ’new’ municipal politics looks like. The three core strands of our approach are:

GOVERNING GLASGOW:

Monitoring and critiquing the current direction of policy in Glasgow and what it means for the city and the people who live here. 

PEOPLE TAKE GLASGOW:

Projects and processes designed to educate, empower and engage people in Glasgow in thinking about how our cities and communities are organised. 

GLASGOW RECLAIMED:

Drawing together the ‘landscape of resistance’ – the network of organisations working to improve life in Glasgow – and collating an alternative platform of policies to transform the city.

JOURNEY

The pandemic made it even more abundantly clear that we live in a world of haves and have nots where the numbers of the have nots are growing daily. During lockdown, the SANE Collective and Enough! Scotland joined together with individuals, groups and organisations in a series of Conversations for Change about the state of Glasgow and what the alternatives might be. This was based on a belief that the potential for cities to realise social justice is largely untapped. Connections were made between those who were working with children in poverty, refugees and asylum seekers, women fleeing violence, young people who are facing unemployment and the way that many city policies and strategies are standing in the way of resolving the problems that people face.

Out of this, we started on the journey towards A People’s Plan for Glasgow. This is a process, a practice and platform. It started as a collaboration of Conversations for Change participants co-creating an alternative plan for people and the city. The idea for a ‘humanifesto’ emerged which rejected the market based, corporate perspective that had failed to offer many residents wellbeing in any form and which has patently contributed to the way the Covid crisis has been handled. It was a collective attempt to offer hope during dark times by building on the way we turned to, and supported each other, in our communities, when major parts of the state were failing us during the pandemic.

Subsequently, drawing on the themes that emerged from Conversations for Change, a People’s Plan week was launched and between 22nd and 27th February 2021, 15 different sessions were open to the public online. These sessions covered issues such as fair planning, children’s play, community growing, the struggle for an effective public transport system, fair trade and cooperatives, tackling violence against women and developing a fair and just local economy.

The summing up session of Peoples Plan week drew out five themes to organise around as one strand of the People’s Plan process going forward. These themes were:

1. Developing a caring economy as the basis of an alternative form of economic planning for the city

2. Forging a democratic transformation built round the ideas of radical municipalism, people’s assemblies, development councils and where elected representatives are more answerable to the people

3. Recognising the interconnections between place, people and the environment drawing together fair planning where protecting community spaces, facilities and resources from closure and cuts, a fair transport system, protecting community spaces, facilities and resources from closure and cuts

4. Developing city where everyone is treated fairly and justly recognising that people can face many different forms of injustice and making clear and transparent what this means and how it might be addressed

5. Growing a ‘Dear Green Place’ where the climate crisis is taken seriously, and where land and space is made over for community food production

At the same time, the need to describe the Landscape of Resistance emerged as a vital piece of the People’s Plan jigsaw. This both overlapped with the themes above and focused more on the types of activity that exist in Glasgow. All of these ideas are now taking shape and are represented throughout this website.