Our Manifesto

Love It Share It is an open source forum for ideas, debate and action.

Its aim is to create new scenarios and visions for how Leeds could be in the future. It takes as a starting point that Leeds is at an important crossroads. The city has made some good choices and some poor ones - and there is not wholesale agreement about the current direction of travel. Many people feel excluded and little ownership over decisions that are made about the future of the city.

The forum will gather and share our knowledge and stories to propose imaginative futures. It seeks to draw upon the most abundant and potent source of new ideas and practices that a city has – its people.

Love It Share It seeks to celebrate the special qualities of the local. It aims to work through an open network of people and agencies interested in developing new strategies and priorities for the city. We hold the view that Leeds should command international respect for its ability to create alternative futures to ensure a fair and ethical environment for all.

Love It Share It aims to be:

- open and reflexive
- embraces a broad spectrum of ideas and practices
- generates new stories whilst celebrating the old ones
- is quick witted and enthusiastic
- encourages experimentation and risk taking.

Love It Share It has three overlapping aspirations:

Conviviality: supporting a diversity of forms of living
Resilience: consolidating economic and social patterns that are tolerant of external change
Beauty: nurturing a cityscape that exhibits a compelling material and human infrastructure.

The forum has been launched by a number of creative practitioners, academics and activists, who live and work in Leeds, through a programme of talks, workshops and research projects. The forum will be run through a wiki to ensure that alternative voices can speak to wider audiences and that participation in the creation of new scenarios for the city is broad and diverse.