Municipalism via Cardano

Leverage Cardano blockchain to empower local communities with a scaleable platform designed for collective ownership across the globe.

Community organizer, President and founder of two investment clubs, tech focused entrepreneur, expert on Race, Power, & globalization.

When approaching the global oppression of working class (poor) people from a high level it seems nearly impossible to tackle the beast of system we know today as capitalism. The answer is a truth revealed to me in meditation about how to approach life; one moment at a time. We must leverage blockchain technology like Cardano to enable small scale collaboration which in turn leads to large scale change. My solution is munincipalism.

Munincipalism is a directly democratic self-government, a political system that is based on radical decentralization and confederalism and supported by ecological philosophy. In short, cities governed by munincipalism should function as self-governing communes. 

Approaching a system like municipalism appears idealistic from a high level, that is why we must take small steps to turn this idea into reality. The first step is via collective ownership. 

Even today, the United States is extremely segregated. Chicago is one (ranked 4th according to https://belonging.berkeley.edu/most-least-segregated-cities)of the most segregated cities in the nation. Regardless of income, 90% of Black people in Chicago live in impoverished areas. Though this is a separate problem to be addressed it is still an important reality to understand. 

There are more than 55,000 vacant buildings in Cook County (Chicago) and the overwhelming majority of these buildings plague South Side residents, where over 90% of Black people in Chicago reside. The South Side of Chicago covers more than 50% of the city's land area alone. The causal relationship between vacant buildings and crime are well researched. The result of this deadly combination are devalued, crime ridden neighborhoods with defunded schools because education funding in the United States is directly tied to local property taxes (tax rev collected based on value of local homes). In short, ownership is an exceedingly important foundational piece that affects local schools, safety, food, and medical care.

With these data in mind, I will layout how we take the first step to combating this systemic oppression with collective ownership. My company, Plasia, has partnered with Ladano, software that registers land titles via a mobile phone application and an open-source cadastre map that is tokenized on the Cardano blockchain. These transactions are made legally-binding by local legal professionals. Also, please see the attached roadmap.

Roadmap

1). Leverage relationships with partners: Stablecoin (hopefully Cardano's stable coin) Blockchains (the entity), Ladano, and Audeo Labs to build Plasia Collective platform. The deliverables of this platform are: defi solution that leverages blockchain tech to enable financial collaboration, transparent display of ownership (in combination with Landano), automates accounting/taxes, secure storage of documents.

2). My company, Plasia has to either purchase the real asset, or use strategic partnerships with current owners or municipal governments to sell/tokenize the asset. We will deploy our pilot in Aurora, Illinois the second largest city in Illinois with a population of 180,000+ people. I have close connections with many alderwomen/aldermen, the mayor Richard Irvin and his constituents. There are many vacant buildings downtown owned by outside investors who simply buy and hold looking to make easy money. As well as city owned buildings waiting for ideas from entrepreneurs. The city ultimately suffers as result. Median household income in Aurora is around 70,000 USD which is higher than Denver, Colorado who saw immense success with their minibond program. 

3). A price is set for the asset

4). Asset is made available for sell for a specific amount of time to the current local community first, then to former residents, then to neighboring cities/towns and lastly to outside investors if the goal is not accomplished in the first 3 waves. Funds are tied to a smart contract that can only be used to purchase the specific asset.

5). Once the goal is reached, Plasia creates a legal entity for the collaborators that requires signatures from each collaborator (this will admittedly be one of the greatest hurdles that needs to be automated and ironed out).

6). The purchase is made through the created entity with a stablecoin so that it is legally binding and does not require members to be accredited investors 

7). Collaborators can chose to utilize Plasia to help manage the building and next steps, or community can chose operate on its own, completely in the hands of the people.

The most difficult part of making this idea into reality is government bureaucracy. There are strict parameters and rules set in place that make collaboration difficult. Most platforms attempting to do anything like this focus on accredited investors because of the inherit risk involved and the difficulty of deployment from a legal standpoint. However, open sourced platforms like Decidim illuminate the path to success. 

The overall goal is municipalism and we begin that journey with collective ownership. I would prefer to operate with municipalities who are open to deploying a project like this first, but if they are not willing we are prepared to rely solely on the people. 

Cost

Based on market data it would take around 640 hours or 16 business weeks to create a dapp like this. I came to this number on the cost to build a fully fleshed out banking application. I will leverage my relationships with Blockchains and Audeo Labs for development. 640 hours x $120/hr = $76,800. I'll add 20% or $15,360 for unforeseen circumstances for a total of $92,160.

"When you own your own country, you have dignity. When you have something of your own, you have dignity. But whenever you are begging for a chance to participate in that which belongs to someone else, or use that which belongs to someone else, on an equal basis with the owner, that's not dignity, that's ignorance." -Malcolm X

See: The Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) — stipulates that when the owner of a rental property in D.C. wants to sell, they must first give tenants the opportunity to match the third-party offer.

Angel Investment Programs that provide tax incentives to investors attract money and resources (investors can receive a tax credit of up to 25% for investing in new local businesses) -have proven to be ineffective thus far according to attached study.

NEIC in Minnesota (Investment Co-Op of more than 200 people Denver 2014 mini-bonds old out in 20 minutes raising 12 million dollars 

Cambridge Massachusetts sells $800,000 in mini-bonds in 1 day, $2.5 million in one week

https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/state-tax-credits-for-angel-investors-backfire/ but may find new use in this project. 

https://www.neic.coop/

https://www.denverpost.com/2014/08/04/denvers-500-mini-bonds-sell-out-in-first-hour-raising-12-million/

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/02/21/city-cambridge-mini-bonds-investments/

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/21/1057759740/outside-of-atlanta-black-families-are-buying-land-to-create-a-safe-haven