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Community wealth building provides an important counterpoint to the orthodoxy of place based economic policy in the UK. It puts forward a framework for economic change which shows that local areas can intervene effectively to build wealth from within so that they are less reliant upon extractive forms of economic development. Instead, wealth building within a community is about recognising the wealth that already exists in an area and intervening to encourage that wealth to flow more readily, particularly from capital to labour. This article explores the background to the development of community wealth building in the UK and its connection with the debate on the everyday economy. It finds that there is a close alignment between the objectives of building wealth and the everyday economy, particularly in areas which not only feel 'left behind', but arguably, who have been kept behind by a policy regime which has actively dismantled their sense of place, agency and identity, and in turn, devalued the role and purpose of the businesses and economy that already exists, in favour of elusive 'growth' and/or 'pioneer' sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dynamic of global economic development means that many countries are experiencing uneven development and their citizens are increasingly split between those who can access high-skill jobs and those who cannot. As a result some citizens are living in cosmopolitan areas of growth and others in backwater areas of decline. There are emerging out of these processes two versions of England. In cosmopolitan areas we find an England that is global in outlook, liberal and more plural in its sense of identity. In provincial backwaters we find an England that is inward-looking, relatively illiberal, negative about the EU and immigration, nostalgic and more English in its identity. This bifurcation of England is already having political effects, reflected in the outcome of the 2015 general election. It will further reconfigure politics over the next two decades, creating diverse political citizens and a complex array of challenges and dilemmas for governments, political parties, campaigners and political organisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]