Wayne Maceyka has a
single, clear, suggestion: Go local, in all aspects, (re)building robust,
agile, stable societies and economies in the process. In part 2 of his 3 part
series, he focuses on the organizations currently happening to help support
that.
I
mentioned Michael Shuman's book Going Local in the first post of this series, and for those
interested in exploring ways to localize their economies, it’s a good
resource. Civic
Economics,
with staff in both Austin, TX and Chicago, IL is another organization providing
innovative consulting services for local economic development efforts.
On
Michael Shuman’s Small-mart website, there are additional resources
available to local economy advocates and defenders. In the Small-mart blog, he announced the combination of Small-mart and
The Business Alliance for local Living Economies "BALLE”. BALLE formed out of a fortuitous meeting between Laury
Hammel and Judy Wicks, both board members of the Social Venture Network and has been focusing on helping build resilient local
economies since 2001.
The
organization has grown to include 75 community networks with over 20,000
entrepreneurs & members across the US & Canada. Look for “Sustainable Business Networks”
in your area to connect with interesting and
creative people working in the local economic development space.
Developing local
currencies are a way to keep capital in communities and build stronger
connections between people and businesses. Famous examples are Ithaca HOURs, from Ithaca, NY and BerkShares from Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts (forgive
my Northeast focus; I am sure there are more successful examples out there, and
I’d love to hear about them, below in the comments). The IthacaHOURs site offers resources for communities
interested in developing local currencies of their own. It’s worth checking out.
Of recent interest in the
conversation about alternative economic models is the rise of the
"slowmoney" investment philosophy through the Slow
Money Alliance;
“patient capital" seeking to provide investors financial payback as well
as social and environmental capital appreciation through agricultural
investment. They seek to bring money back down to earth. The effort is something of an
off-shoot (or maybe a continuation) of the thinking around Slowfood, seeking to reconnect eaters with their food
sources. The key questions asked by the Slow Money Alliance, and ones that I
feel generate some interesting ideas are:
- What would the world be like if we invested 50% of
our assets within 50 miles of where we live?
- What if there was a new generation of companies that
gave away 50% of their profits?
- What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?
The first
Slow Money Conference occurred in Sante Fe, NM and received quite a bit of
press, with articles in the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME, and Business Week. Is there a market for "patient
capital"?
Perhaps there are enough investors that have had enough with the
speculation that seems to pass for "investing" now-a-days and will be
content to fund a local food enterprise and reap the slow and steady reward of
building multiple forms of capital. Are there enough of these investors to
change our course?
A somewhat different
take on the relocalization concept comes from the Transition
Towns Initiative. My take is that this
initiative has come to the conclusion that we’ll be facing a far different
energy situation within the next 20 years (peak oil is mentioned overtly) and therefore will be forced
to bring basic necessities for life “back home”. They’re seeking to bring people together and draw upon the
existing community skills to redevelop capabilities to meet basic needs
locally.
The New
York Times Magazine had a lengthy article on the concept (coinciding with the
financial crisis of course) entitled The End Is Near! (Yay!). I’m not sure the article’s title accurately reflects what
many people think, though a recent rather scathing Worldchanging post echoed some of the NYTimes’
sentiments (I replied to that post here); that the Transition Initiative has accepted a future of
scarcity and proceed with an ideological rather than fact-based mission.
I’ll
leave you to draw your own conclusions, and would be interested to hear your
thoughts on this, and who else you see taking proactive action to effectively localize, below.
In the 3rd
and final part of this series on localization, we’ll look at how food,
transportation and infrastructure play a part in this equation.
~~~
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image credit: Reyes on Flickr
