Magic City Connect
Architecting Birmingham’s first community-owned discovery platform and B-Corp reinvestment ecosystem.
The Ecosystem Challenge
"Birmingham’s 99 neighborhoods possess deep cultural value that traditional discovery platforms fail to monetize for the benefit of the residents themselves."
Current discovery models (Yelp, Google) extract data from local businesses without returning structural value to the community. This creates a "Data Extraction Gap."
Magic City Connect solves this by legalizing community stewardship through a B-Corp structure, turning every digital interaction into a physical improvement in Birmingham's neighborhoods.
Financial Stewardship Model
Revenue Inflow
- Tiered Listings: $30–$200/mo options for local SMEs to enhance digital visibility.
- Community Investment: Buy-in starting at $1,000, allowing residents to participate in profit-sharing.
- Contextual Advertising: Hyper-local ad placements targeted by neighborhood discovery patterns.
Reinvestment Outflow (20%)
- Infrastructure: Community gardens and neighborhood health programs.
- Equity: Direct funding for local development projects across the 99 neighborhoods.
- Transparency: Open-ledger reporting on reinvestment impact per district.
Cross-neighborhood validation of discovery habits and willingness to support community-owned models.
Percentage of local businesses willing to pay for enhanced, community-aligned listings.
Anticipated gross revenue based on phased rollout and market penetration.
Phased Implementation Blueprint
CORE DISCOVERY: Establishing the 99-neighborhood data layer and directory.
COMMUNITY INVESTMENT: Launching the profit-sharing equity engine.
NEIGHBORHOOD PROJECTS: First 20% reinvestment cycles begin.
Ecosystem Philosophy
"Technology as Public Utility"
Magic City Connect is a demonstration that technology can operate as a public utility rather than a parasitic extractor. By utilizing a B-Corp structure, we encode social responsibility directly into the platform’s DNA. This isn't just an app; it is a scalable blueprint for urban self-sufficiency.