Elinor Ostrom

This interests me. I’ve never come across Nobel prize winning economist, Elinor Ostrom. I’m going to learn more because this coincides with much that inspires me.

Scale matters. For Ostrom, localism is the only real model of democracy. The current – minimal – view of democracy – where we occasionally vote for a representative at one or another tier of government, maybe pick an option in an occasional referendum – is fine for what it is. But there are deeper kinds of legitimacy when decisions are made closer to home – giving people meaningful control over the institutions, services, and assets that have the biggest impact on our own neighbourhoods.