Cllr Matthew Brown on the Preston Model and the economics of the imagination.

The scholar Richard Sennett once wrote, “modern capitalism works by colonizing people’s imagination of what is possible”. If it is the case that our current economic model thrives by creating the conditions that suppress rather than unleash the imagination, and if we recognise that now, more than any other time, we need a mass re-nourishing of the collective imagination, then where might we spot examples of 'the economics of the imagination'? Eight years ago, the economy of Preston was crocked. Then its Council decided to take a new approach. Today I'm speaking to Cllr Matthew Brown, the recently-elected leader of Preston City Council. What Preston have achieved should be a model for everywhere else. "Let’s have a bit of imagination about how to get out of this mess" he tells me. I last interviewed him in June 2015, so I started by asking him, when we spoke just before Christmas, what has changed since then?