Think big, act small

Elinor Ostrom is the intellectual hero of the community power movement. Her radical vision confirms what many of us already know; that mobilised communities can innovate, create, and play to the needs of their unique local strengths.

This has profound implications for how we run our public services and move forward as a society, with more power devolved to communities and local voices placed firmly at the heart of neighbourhood plans.

In this major new piece of work by New Local, supported by Local Trust, Power to Change and the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society at King’s College London, Dr Simon Kaye unpacks Ostrom’s ideas, and explores how they can be a reality for communities around the country.

Read the executive summary here and Simon’s blog on why the Big Local programme provides an important blueprint for how Ostrom’s theories can work in practice.