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Why Are American Communities Dying?

April 8, 2019

Why Are American Communities Dying?

Most Americans who have been around for a while know life is nothing like it used to be. When someone wanted a job one was found with a little bit of searching. Today jobs are difficult to find, especially in small communities. 

When I was growing up in the 70’s, there were several car dealers in my community. There were three tractor dealers and too many mom and pop stores to count. Today there are two used car dealers and the nearest tractor dealer is twenty miles away. So how is it that we now have more people, but fewer businesses to employ them?

A nations wealth is derived from having a product to sell. That wealth needs to circulate in towns and cities to compound the wealth effect and create jobs and businesses. When wealth is not created or it is siphoned off to other places, the wealth effect can not happen, and in many cases goes into reverse. A community needs a certain amount of service related jobs to function but it also needs some type of production jobs to bring in money from the outside. This can be mining , agriculture or manufacturing type jobs, but they must exist to insure a healthy economy.

America has two major problems today. A large amount of our production is done outside the country eliminating production jobs in local communities and many of the small local businesses that kept wealth within communities have been supplanted by large corporations that siphon wealth out of communities and send it to wall street. 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Cosmo-Localization’: Can Thinking Globally and Producing Locally Really Save Our Planet?

February 6, 2018

christopher-burns-368617

‘COSMO-LOCALIZATION’: CAN THINKING GLOBALLY AND PRODUCING LOCALLY REALLY SAVE OUR PLANET?

Fablabs, makerspaces, emerging global knowledge commons… These are but some of the outcomes of a growing movement that champions globally-sourced designs for local economic activity. Its core idea is simple: local ownership of the means to produce basic manufactures and services can change our economic paradigm, making our cities self-sufficient and help the planet.

Sharon Ede, urbanist and activist based in Australia has recently launched AUDAcities, a catalyst for relocalising production in cities. She shared her insights on the opportunities of making cities regenerative and more sustainable as well as the limits of cosmo-localization.

TECHNOLOGY, AS WE ALL KNOW, IS NOT NEUTRAL. MAKING THE TRANSITION TO SELF-SUFFICIENT CITIES NEEDS A CULTURAL SHIFT, NOT JUST A TECHNOLOGICAL ONE. SO, HOW DO WE DESIGN OPEN-SOURCE TOOLS THAT FOSTER A CHANGE IN BEHAVIOURS AND ARE INCLUSIVE?

Technology will go where cultural, social and economic values direct it. A cultural shift will include open source tools, and the kinds of processes we need to create those – but a cultural shift will require much more.

Governments can and do play a significant role in shaping culture through policy and regulation, and contrary to popular belief about where innovation originates, the state is not only a key entrepreneurial actor but also has a huge opportunity to reinvent itself as the ‘partner state’ – where government responds to the contributory democracy we are seeing emerge as a force that does with, not for or to, the communities it serves.The technology, and who owns it, is just a manifestation of what we value.

THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF DEBATE ABOUT THE REAL BENEFITS OF LOCAL PRODUCTION, ESPECIALLY THAT LAST-MILE DELIVERY IS MORE HARMFUL TO THE ENVIRONMENT THAN THE BENEFITS IT BRINGS. IN YOUR EXPERIENCE, WHAT IS THE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT OF A PRODUCT THAT HAS BEEN GLOBALLY DESIGNED AND LOCALLY MANUFACTURED?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What It Means To and Why It Matters That We Buy Local

March 18, 2016

Fresh apples in baskets on display at a farmer's market

WHAT IT MEANS TO AND WHY IT MATTERS THAT WE BUY LOCAL

Buying local is quickly becoming a trend, and though some folks may not have noticed the slow change in supermarkets and the growing numbers of farmers’ markets, only occasionally visiting the US (where I was born) or the UK (where my wife was born) has really made it have an impact on us. Each time, we notice more. We are excited about the change. It’s great to go back a try local treats we don’t often get abroad, and it’s nice to have the information to opt into more responsible purchases.

Whether it’s mindless masses following a fashion or rise in consumer consciousness, staying local does matter on the grand scale. This morning I read an interesting, inspiring (and, for any permaculturalists, not altogether ground-breaking) article about “Replanting America”. According to a study from The University of California, Merced, it would be possible to locally produce 90% of the nation’s nutritional needs for a well-balanced diet, using only the existing farmland in America. It would just mean using that land to grow something besides corn, soy and other cash crops and growing food instead.

Farmers’ Market (Courtesy of Gemma Billings)
Farmers’ Market (Courtesy of Gemma Billings)

While I’ve seen lots and lots of these kinds of studies and claims over the years, the part of this one that struck me was that apparently scientists from earth and environmental disciplines aren’t that stoked on local food because it doesn’t actually make such a big difference in the scheme of emissions. The claim follows that transportation makes up only about a tenth of the total emissions from food production, with farms accounting for the rest. I know current farm practices are horrible, but I’m not sure such ideas are addressing the big picture.

SO, THEN, WHY DOES BUYING LOCAL MATTER?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Local Economy or Local-Washing?

August 5, 2015

Buy local

Local Economy or Local-Washing?

“Local” has become a buzzword. Today there’s eco-localism, local food and local farming, local media movements, as well as regional, state, and even national ad campaigns urging us to “eat local” and “buy local.”

Local’s gone global, but what exactly does the term mean anymore?

David Levine, of the American Sustainable Business Council, discusses the “triple bottom line” of social, environmental, and economic impacts. “Local by itself is not enough,” he tells Yes! Magazine. Levine does not want, for example, people buying “local first” from a locally owned sweatshop, toxic chemical plant or dirty manufacturing facility.

Add some democracy to your localism

The goal is having community-led, community-controlled economies where the decision-making is by those who are feeling the effects of the decisions that are made. This type of development comes under the rubric of what is becoming called Commonomics — economic democracies that foster local self-reliance.

Farmer-philosopher Wendell Berry defines economy this way

I mean not economics but economy, the making of the human household upon the earth; the arts of adapting kindly the many, many human households to the earth’s many eco-systems and human neighborhoods.

By now, we all know the signs of a human household that’s been hollowed out.

We’ve seen the food deserts and the chronically vacant homes, the ghostly downtown storefronts and the municipalities being courted by sweet-talking corporations that suck up public resources and then run away. We’re familiar with the tension in towns where the only thing that the rich and poor have in common are the roads. We know what it’s like to be close, everywhere, to the same chain coffee shop and two hours away from the “local” hospital. We see the sprawl that’s eating the woodlands.

– See more at: http://transitionvoice.com/2015/08/local-economy-or-local-washing/#sthash.TzCsMNug.dpuf

 

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