The Future We're Building: A Wellbeing Economy Directory for Every City

How AI helped map economic alternatives that put people and planet first—and why this matters more than ever

Photo by Caio

I have some exciting news to share with you. With the help of AI (and inspired by the work of

J. Friday

at The Saving the World Strategy Guide), I've been working on a comprehensive Wellbeing Economy Directory covering cities across the United States. This isn't just another business directory—it's a roadmap to economic alternatives that prioritize people and planet alongside profit.

It’s not finished, but it’s a start. From Seattle's thriving network of cooperatives and community gardens to similar initiatives sprouting in cities nationwide, these directories reveal an economic ecosystem that most people don't even know exists. Credit unions that keep wealth local. Worker-owned businesses where employees have real power. Community-supported agriculture that connects neighbors to their food sources. Tool libraries that prove we don't need to own everything individually. Seed libraries preserving biodiversity while building community connections.

But here's what makes this project particularly meaningful: it represents exactly the kind of human-AI collaboration we need to navigate our rapidly changing world.

The AI Anxiety is Real—And Valid

Let's be honest about the elephant in the room. Many people are terrified that AI will eliminate jobs, concentrate wealth even further, and leave communities behind. These aren't irrational fears—they're based on patterns we've seen with previous technological revolutions. When automation comes to an economy built on extraction and competition, the benefits typically flow upward while the costs flow down.

The question isn't whether AI will transform our economy—it's already happening. The question is: what kind of economy will emerge from that transformation?

Why the Wellbeing Economy is Our Answer

This is where the wellbeing economy offers a different path forward. Instead of optimizing purely for profit and growth, wellbeing economies optimize for human flourishing, community resilience, and ecological health. They're built on principles of cooperation, local ownership, and shared prosperity.

Here's why this matters in an AI-driven world:

Resilient Communities Weather Change Better. When economic power is distributed across many cooperative businesses, community-owned institutions, and local networks, communities become less vulnerable to external shocks. If a distant corporation decides to automate away local jobs, a community with strong cooperatives, local banks, and mutual aid networks has alternatives.

AI Can Amplify Cooperation, Not Just Competition. The same technologies that can eliminate jobs can also make cooperative ownership more feasible. AI can help small businesses compete with giants, enable better resource sharing through platforms, and reduce the administrative burden that often makes cooperative management challenging.

Local Economies Create AI-Resistant Value. Much of what makes communities thrive—growing food, caring for children and elders, creating art, maintaining neighborhoods, building relationships—requires human presence and connection. These are exactly the kinds of work that AI cannot replicate and that local, cooperative economies excel at supporting.

Democratic Ownership Shapes How Technology Gets Used. In worker-owned cooperatives, employees have a say in whether and how automation gets implemented. Do we use AI to eliminate jobs, or to eliminate drudgery while maintaining employment? In community-owned enterprises, these become democratic decisions rather than boardroom calculations.

How This Directory Came to Be

Creating these directories required processing thousands of websites, cross-referencing databases, and synthesizing information about hundreds of organizations across dozens of cities. It would have taken me years to do this manually—if I could have done it at all.

But AI didn't replace human insight and values. Instead, it amplified my ability to identify, research, and organize information about organizations that embody wellbeing economy principles. The AI helped with the data processing, but the vision, criteria, and curation remained deeply human.

This is what beneficial AI collaboration looks like: technology serving human goals rather than replacing human judgment.

What's Next

This is just the beginning. My plan is to expand these directories to cover every major city in the United States, then extend into Canada. But more importantly, they are living documents that help people find and build the economic alternatives we all need.

Whether you're looking to move your money to a credit union, join a food cooperative, find a worker-owned business to support, or start your own cooperative venture, these directories can help you discover what's already possible in your community.

The Economy We Choose

The future isn't something that happens to us—it's something we build. As AI transforms what's possible, we get to choose what kind of economy emerges from that transformation.

We can choose an economy where technological power concentrates in fewer hands, where human relationships become increasingly mediated by algorithms, and where communities become more vulnerable to distant decisions.

Or we can choose an economy where technology serves democracy, where innovation strengthens rather than displaces communities, and where prosperity is shared rather than hoarded.

The wellbeing economy is already being built in cities across the country. These directories just help you see it, join it, and strengthen it.

The Wellbeing Economy Directory is available now — and still growing. Browse your city's directory to discover the economic alternatives already thriving in your community—and imagine what becomes possible when we build on these foundations together.

And if you don’t find your city on the list, comment below or DM me!