August/September 2007

Building Social Capital
Craig Comstock

The Benefits of Relocalizing
Jan Spencer

The World's First Truly Global Empire Interview with John Perkins
Amy Goodman

An Idea That Can Bring Us Together Interview with Howard Zinn
Jason Francis

Red Earth Descendents to Host Upcoming Native EcoSymposium
Jane Ayers

Sunscreen Scrutiny
Jody Woodruff

The Best Health Care is Reserved for Congress
Don Sloan, MD

Traveling to Kabul with Nonviolent Communication
Selene Aitken

Exploring the Gifts and Opportunities of Mid-Life: A Jungian Perspective
Marla Estes

Living in Sad Times: The Depression Epicemic, and Some Green Notes
Gaea Yudron

Lift Yourself Into A Brand New World
Guy Finley

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

BACK TO TOP

The Benefits of Relocalizing

By Jan Spencer

Jan Spencer’s quarter-acre suburban yard in Eugene, Oregon is dedicated entirely to garden, habitat, water features, food production and solar attributes using permaculture concepts. A bicycle enthusiast, Jan virtually never drives as Eugene is a great town for cycling. His civic involvements focus on suburban and urban land use issues and his perspectives come from a fusion of permaculture, global trends, urban land use, human potential and concern for the natural world. He is active with the Eugene Permaculture Guild, and maintains a healthy schedule of public speaking for culture change. This piece was excerpted from the keynote speech Jan gave last April at the Lane County Reolocalization Conference.

We live in fascinating, if unsettled times. Global trends present us with challenges that won’t go away just because we are not paying attention. Those same trends offer tremendous opportunity.

Historically, we are witness to a convergence of trends including resource scarcity, human caused damage to the environment, increasing global political disruption, and cultural decline in our own country. Relocalization offers a sensible and positive direction for responding to these challenges.

Relocalization, which is about taking care of more of our needs closer to where we live, implicitly includes reducing one’s ecological footprint. It means making thoughtful choices about where one puts his or her time, money and energy. It can mean upsizing one’s civic involvements. It means responsible changes in how we relate to food, energy, the economy and our everyday lives.

Our current economic system, market based global capitalism, is unable to be a partner in creating the kind of world many of us would prefer, rather it is severely in the way. Relocalization is also about culture—the way we live.

On the global scene, emerging competition for resources that are in decline, and cultures in conflict, will translate into much greater political instability, particularly where strategic resources are located.

Culturally, are we manifesting our highest potentials? In important ways yes—many parts of a far more positive direction already exist and these changes will come from individuals, existing civic organizations, new collaborations and networks, not by way of policy from above.

Also informing my thoughts is the question of what the key leverage points—the best places to put our efforts—are for making changes that can lead towards a healthy and peaceful way of life and bring out the best in who we are as individuals and as a community, keeping in mind how different aspects of culture change overlap, intersect in design, and mutually support each other.

The economy (otherwise known as market-based global capitalism) is arguably the most pervasive creation in human history. It is the matrix of global commerce, government complicity, manufactured culture and its consequences and support structures. Our very way of life is shaped by this economic system, and the majority of the most challenging problems we face are products of it.
Further, there are large parts of the economy at odds with other parts. I distinguish between the multinational corporations and the regional/local. The interactions between the two are complex, but globalization is almost always at the expense of local communities and local businesses.
Few will question that there has never been a period in human history where so many people have lived in the affluence we take for granted. The economy has contributed enormously to improved standards of living for billions of people in many parts of the world. Meanwhile, globalization has also left billions behind in poverty and poor health. The rate of species extinction is the greatest for tens of millions of years. Untold positive human potential is lost, distracted by a culture of shallow entertainment.

The reason the global economy is not an ally is due to the current reality that profits from doing business are the key to reinvestments for expanding growth in markets, production and consumption. Most jobs also depend on profits. Hold this thought and join to it the concept of external cost. This means when you pay for something, the actual cash register cost does not cover all the consequences of producing, using and disposing of the product.

Oil presents us with a lengthy set of externalized costs—looking for it, extracting it, transporting it, refining and using it—which all cause pollution. Extraction frequently damages cultures and economies. Auto-centric urban design has divided many neighborhoods, and suburbia is well known for its shortage of social cohesion. Fighting for oil has been the cause of war many times and in many places, and has cost hundreds of billions of dollars to the US alone. Those external costs are essential for this economic system. Real cost accounting would mean what we buy would cost far, far more and many people would not be able to afford the product. No buyers, no profit.

External costs exist in many ways. Vice president Dick Cheney remarked, “The American way of life is not negotiable” which refers to this whirlpool of buying, selling and consuming as being virtually sacred. On behalf of the economy, the government sees fit to spend hundreds of billions each year in the form of military spending. A look at US foreign policy doctrine clearly shows the direct connection between economic interests and a foreign policy that uses force as one of its primary forms of diplomacy. The US military is a massive external cost both in money and lives.

For the most part, our culture has little comprehension about what it takes for it to lead the world in virtually every kind of energy and resource consumption. That lack of connection makes it easy to keep consuming. The economy depends on people not knowing the damage their affluence causes, and it does its best to create profitable distractions. American affluence depends on externalized costs both at home and in the Third World.

The logic of global capitalism reveals no loyalty to its workers. Labor saving technologies and exploiting cheaper labor elsewhere clearly shows the bottom line is profits and not a healthy partnership with workers or a community. Without externalized costs, market based capitalism as we know it ceases to exist. That’s why there is resistance to meaningful reform from industry and both political parties.

This global economic system cannot be a partner in creating an accountable, compassionate, and relocalized world. To assume it will is just time and effort poorly invested. Any kind of meaningful policy reform at the global and national level is unlikely. At the state level there is hope, at the local level more hope. Outside of the official realm—at home, with friends, our social networks—there is enormous potential. Much of that potential comes to us as relocalization.

A Localized Economy

A localized economy picks up where market-based global capitalism ends. One important principle of a localized economy is that of downsizing many of our resource intensive habits. This is a key leverage point. Reducing what we need and use brings us closer to taking care of those needs from local sources with great benefits to the local economy, the environment and culture change.

Also important to keep in mind is that an economy is not only about money, it is about taking care of needs, many of which can be taken care of without money in creative ways that we are not so familiar with—barter, volunteering, local currencies, cooperatives, work trades, avoiding poor investments. Here are a couple of examples:

Home Eeconomics: The home can be an appreciable source of food, energy, water and taking care of one another. Home passive solar design, once built, is essentially free heat. A home with a garden and a bike rider means appreciable transportation energy can come from the back yard. Multigenerational living means young and old can help look after each other. Such a home provides many of its own needs outside the money economy.

Reducing Our Dependence on Automobiles: A key leverage point which can reduce foreign policy misadventures and automobile infrastructure which cost hundreds of billions of dollars every year. The money, engineering skill, material resources and youthful vitality wasted on a car culture can be redirected with great benefit elsewhere such as environmental restoration, public transit, energy conservation programs and urban redesign to reduce auto-dependency. The latter is particularly vital for local economies. Ending automobile dependence will prevent hundreds of billions of dollars in poor investments such as car-induced public health costs.

Relocalizing will require new kinds of work, skills and services. Many existing products and services will make transitions. Some will disappear. Relocalized economic and civic life will need far greater participation and inclusion from all age groups and social and economic backgrounds. Many people who are currently on the fringes will find niches where their participation will be both welcome and valuable for the entire community. Culture change can lead to a far more inclusive society.

A number of churches have partnered with local farms to help bring them economic stability. This wonderful project, called “That’s My Farmer,” can be a model expanded to other kinds of civic benefit. Imagine community supported health care, community supported neighborhood hardware stores and more. Is that really a stretch? Think of places of worship as community supported faith and inspiration. It’s a model with broad application to many aspects of our economy.

There is an urgent need to keep our money in our communities. It is essential that we create opportunities for investing in local people and businesses with creative ideas which benefit the whole community. The challenges that are emerging will be hard to miss and can motivate us to manifest our own latent potentials. A community with shared goals and an elevated level of cohesion has the primary tools to create a humane economy to serve an uplifted culture and its healthy goals.

Relocalizing Food

Of all the essentials for survival, food is the furthest along in terms of localization and can be seen as a model for taking care of other needs. At present, there are numerous organizations and advocates calling for localizing and supporting local and regional food production. Here in Lane County one local food group has determined that we can essentially feed ourselves if current non-food crops are replaced with edible crops and diets change to eat substantially less meat. A network of local churches in “That’s My Farmer” actively support local farms in a highly innovative way. Other organizations can make use of this model.

Local food is a key leverage point. It helps keep money local. It also avoids transportation costs and carbon emissions and sidesteps many of the uncertainties relating to oil and climate change. In a localized food system, we can expect more agricultural work to be done by humans. Imagine people from town spending time on a farm at important times of the season for a new kind of community-participated agriculture.

There are a number of other very impressive projects and programs to promote local agriculture—school garden projects, farm to cafeteria, farmers markets, community gardens, the urban farm at University of Oregon—all of which build a culture of cohesion.

Relocalizing food will mean crop transitions and developing local markets. Crops for local use can provide energy, medicine and also fiber. Oregon State University could become a powerhouse of research and development for useful food, fuel and fiber crops to replace what now must be brought from a distance. OSU can also provide research and development for low-tech farm implements. Many towns in Oregon are having similar discussions.

Agriculture happens in town as well. Since exper-iencing a drastic reduction in oil imports, Cuba has been forced to relocalize in all areas of their economy and way of life. Remarkable amounts of mostly organically grown foods are produced within Cuban cities and towns, and they have developed a nationwide agricultural research and education infrastructure.

Exchanging grass for garden, the “Food Not Lawns” concept, contains enormous potential. Instead of a lawn mowing clientele, I foresee enterprising people making arrangements with property owners to convert all or parts of their properties into food production and sharing the produce with the property owner. Any surplus could go to a neighborhood market. People with limited space and mobility can grow food effectively in containers. Rooftop gardens are also a great idea, along with planting in open spaces at churches, schools, business and public property with interested people taking care of the gardens, trees and harvest. Lessons can also be learned from the city of Corvallis which is collaborating with concerned citizens to make inventories by neighborhoods to determine what agricultural assets exist in different parts of town.

With a shift in economic circumstance, local food security ideas will become increasingly popular.

Energy & Land Use

We should make conservation—a key leverage point—an absolute priority. Reducing demand puts managing demand closer within reach. We can avoid much of what is currently needed in the first place. Architecture and design standards can be a great energy saver. Making full use of the sunny south sides of houses and commercial buildings for passive solar are only common sense. All new construction should be with elevated energy conservation and solar standards using non toxic materials. We can also retrofit existing homes with passive solar—many suburban houses can convert south facing garages into solar spaces by replacing the garage door with glass and transforming the space inside for more productive use.

Local bio fuels need to be a part of the mix on the farm and for essential services like fire trucks, ambulances. Redesigning the urban landscape along with upgraded public transportation should be a high priority so that the use of automobiles becomes much less of a need.

Neighboring cities and towns can best move in a direction where they develop their own more independent economies so they are no longer bedroom communities. Bus and train service between towns needs to be upgraded, such as between Eugene and Coos Bay, south to Medford and north to Portland. Imagine, in the 1920s there were twelve trains per day between Eugene and Portland!

Land use is an absolutely critical part of both urban and rural relocalization, and is a tremendous key leverage point. Land use is the stage and set for how we live—intimately related to transportation, energy, public health, the economy and foreign policy. Making the best use possible of remaining affordable energy and resources to redesign and rebuild our towns, cities and rural areas to dramatically reduce auto dependence will be essential.

Relocalizing the urban landscape means making much better use of what is already here. Towns and cities can become more compact, with the goods and services people need much closer to where they live.

Goals put forth by a culture of cohesion would include an urban space that is attractive, inspiring, a joyful place to live, work and play. Think of edible landscaping, public outdoor meeting areas, green spaces, community centers, smart designs which make the best use of solar assets and natural drainage while protecting the best soil for food production. Compact and thoughtful urban design reduces the need for cars and can nurture community cohesion.

Towns in the coastal hills and Cascades can develop new products and services such as restoring the forests to ensure clean water. Wildcrafting medicinals from the forests, making furniture and other useful value added products can help restore rural economies.

Relocalized agriculture can stimulate a renaissance. We can look forward to a more labor intensive form of agriculture which will mean more people living in small towns, agricultural settlements and co-ops. Canneries and processing facilities can become new industries along with local grain processing.

Back in town, block planning offers wonderful po-tential, and is a great key leverage point in land use. Imagine an entire residential block making the best use possible of available space, transforming what is currently taken up by automobiles into play-space, gardens, child care areas, small businesses, solar designed bungalows and more.

Imagine attractive multistory, mixed use urban vil-lages built on existing parking lots. Those locations are already commercial, often with existing businesses, bus routes and utilities. The multistory redevelopment can include new goods, services, employment and culture specifically for that location. Rooftops could become gardens to supply the village natural food store. There could be edible landscaping, convenient transit to other areas and downtown.

Suburbia can also offer useful assets. Think of turn-ing grass to garden, include solar redesign, rain water catchment, extending the growing season with cold frames, removing concrete, and creating community and fun. There are already well over a dozen suburban renewal projects in Eugene where substantial needs of the residents are met by onsite resources.

Land use has the potential for being a catalyst, and an enormous key leverage point, for culture change. The jobs created by urban redesign would be great for the local economy. Community visioning, cooperative planning, work parties, benefits to the environment, local security and public health bring people together like nothing before has.

Culture Change

By culture change, I refer to a robust redefinition of the goals of society and how to move towards them. This culture change arises from two related facts:

First, globalized market capitalism is wrecking the planet’s environment, is on thinning ice, and hits “delete” on a great deal of positive human potential. Too many aspects of the global economic system interfere with positive human progress.

Second is an emerging uplift of the human spirit and manifesting of positive human potential. As the global economy staggers and fractures, positive human uplift will increasingly manifest.

One would be naïve to think that this historic change is a simple matter. There are other agendas in our world today that will not embrace the kind of future many of us would prefer. The more we can build a culture of cohesion based on positive values and goals, the better the chances are for a positive outcome.

A peaceful ecoculture’s values could come from the Koran, the Bible, the Torah, from Buddhist, humanist or pagan musings and just common sense. Compassion, modesty, honesty, material simplicity, reverence for nature—all are considered virtues in practically every great philosophy. What a difference if those virtues, rather than expensive “cheap thrills,” were the basis for a civilization.

Recall when you’ve had a powerful experience with your higher self. I hope that’s easy and that the experience was recent. What were the circumstances? You probably were not in a hurry. It could have been in a beautiful place, maybe in nature, maybe in a human created space. Could be you were with people you enjoy and have strong bonds with. You may have been involved in a healthy community project or a festival or totally on your own.

We can take this positive sensation beyond our closest friends. How would it be if we lived in a neighborhood and community where such experiences were far more common because there was a far higher level of cohesion? A place where you knew you had solid elevated ideals in common with many more people around you. In effect, your inner circle of friends was greatly expanded.

This concept is an enormously important key leverage point. A culture of cohesion—with healthy, popular, shared values and goals—will make wise choices and move towards its goals using its resources and assets in a highly productive way.

Imagine if our economy was defined by a culture of cohesion and that economy was a partner providing the goods and services to support those thoughtful goals and ideals.

Slowing down and taking some time to assess our lives is essential. How can we be faithful to our highest aspirations when we take little time to think about them? Reducing one’s financial overhead is highly recommended. Simplifying our material lives—a self made key leverage point—means less need to work for money, less impact on the environment, more time for family, contemplation, and community involvement.

Volunteer with groups that resonate with your ideals; donate money when possible; join neighborhood organizations; start a social concerns group in your church; commit to a healthy local diet; start a mutual assistance network with friends and neighbors; cultivate your own potentials; learn some new positive and practical skills relating to relocalization; stay closer to home—and then start a block planning project!

Part of the answer to how best to share these ideals and visions with others is to walk the talk and to have fun. Culture change has to look better than what we currently have, and it needs to engage our higher selves.

If one tweaks his or her perceptions a bit, we can see many ingredients of culture change are already with us. There are many nonprofits already doing important work relevant to culture change—many people are already part of this change and may not even know it—you have company!

Building on existing cohesion is a shortcut towards an expanding culture of cohesion. Popular community values, goals and ideals can multiply the effectiveness and rate of culture change. We can make far more effective use of existing social organizations—churches, neighborhood groups, service associations—all of which already have an elevated level of cohesion. That cohesion can be amplified and focused with a well-defined purpose: being leaders in the movement to relocalize how we live.

We should have much greater expectations of what we can do as individuals and as a community. We all have the best renewable energy resource available to us—our own imaginations and faith. We can manifest so much more of what we would prefer to see.

Jan Spencer can be reached at spencerj@efn.org. Visit www.suburbanpermaculture.org for photos and links to other articles and organizations.