Community-Driven Municipal Model (CDMM)
A municipal-capacity framework for building permanent local assets, lowering essential household costs, expanding productive capacity and reinvesting sustainable value into stronger communities.
Core Three: Housing Autonomy + Municipal Grocery Autonomy (MGA) + Fuel Autonomy.
Statistics Canada's 2023 Survey of Household Spending found that shelter (32.1%), transportation (15.8%) and food (15.7%) were the three largest average household spending categories. Together they represented 63.6% of average household spending on goods and services. CDMM's Core Three are designed around those recurring pressures.
CDMM is a proposal framework. It does not assume municipalities possess powers that provincial or federal law has not granted. Forward-looking outcomes must be presented as scenarios until demonstrated.
Community Services Autonomy — childcare, community hubs, hygiene/laundry, emergency supports, service navigation, nonprofit/church partnerships and locally identified gaps.
Community Safety Autonomy — prevention, crisis-response coordination, Law Enforcement as a Support Service, referral pathways, public-space safety, data-informed deployment and accountability.
Financial Autonomy / Municipal Finance & Asset Accumulation — community banking concepts, development/project finance, reserves, debt, capital, asset accumulation and reinvestment. This layer connects every sector and is subject to substantial regulation.
CDMM begins with housing, food and fuel/transport-energy because these needs are universal, recurring and closely tied to household stability. The Core Three can also create physical assets, procurement leverage, local supply chains and operating capacity that support later Autonomies.
The Core Three are a common starting point, not a requirement that every municipality launch identical enterprises.
Root Response — CDMM directly changes a major structural mechanism.
Deep Reduction — CDMM attacks several major causes but other systems remain necessary.
Supporting Effect — CDMM improves resilience or outcomes without controlling the primary root.
Outside CDMM — the primary root is outside ordinary municipal authority.
Key examples:
Income - housing - food - transportation - energy - childcare - basic education/training = Household Retained Income
HRI is a proposed CDMM master affordability indicator. It asks whether households actually have more money left for savings, emergencies, family needs, ownership and local spending after essential costs.
HRI should be reported by household type, income group and geography rather than as a single citywide average.
Every CDMM publication should distinguish:
A project should move through baseline, feasibility, legal review, pilot, evaluation and then scale/redesign/stop based on measured results.