Monday, April 30, 2007

Out Sick, Local Photo and Small Houses


Well, folks. Today I have a migraine. I usually get one each month and it lasts somewhere between two and three days. This is day one, so, it's possible I won't be posting much, if anything, tomorrow either. My apologies. Nothing takes me down like migraines. Ugh.

I will leave you with this photo I snapped in my backyard yesterday afternoon, and with a URL for a wonderful story my friend Rob sent to me about living on a very small scale.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2007/04/27/carollloyd.DTL


If you're at all interested in learning more about the small house movement, you can also visit:


http://www.resourcesforlife.com/groups/smallhousesociety/


Hasta pronto!

Friday, April 27, 2007

Community Development: Investing in People, Investing in Place


Energy, resources and ongoing commitment are all required to maintain a healthy, thriving community. The term "community investment" might refer to an investment of peoples' time, labor and expertise (sweat equity), or it might refer to a financial commitment. Both are absolutely necessary elements of a robust and sustainable community.

Developing and investing in community is difficult to accomplish if a city or county's priority is to invest it's resources in attracting non-local companies (ostensibly with the hope of generating a few jobs, usually at low wages) instead of in local enterprises. It is also difficult to accomplish when some of a community's hardest working but lowest earning citizens are denied access to reasonably-priced capital, and are forced to rely on predatory lenders.

A number of localities have established Community Development Credit Unions (CDCUs) as a means of providing access to financial resources, support and advocacy, to low-and moderate-income members of their communities. These community institutions are cooperatively owned by their members and governance is shared. CDCUs foster financial independence by providing reasonably-priced loans, safe places to save and financial education and counseling. Many CDCUs also develop partnerships with local businesses and the private sector in order to help revitalize impoverished areas of a community.

And where does the capital for community investment come from? In most cases, the community! Deposit accounts are obtained from local investors or the pooled resources of a community group. These funds are then used to provide small business and emergency loans to lower-income community members.

Although there are not yet nearly enough CDCUs in the U.S., there are many fine models demonstrating this elegant concept and how well it can work to build stronger communities. For more information try typing "Community Development Credit Unions" into Google or visit http://www.natfed.org/ (The National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions).

Happy Friday!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

What's a Community Land Trust? Read on...

What do you think happens to a community when a lot of its real estate is owned by a business or by individuals who speculate in real estate in order to make a profit? For the answer, you probably need only look around you. Wherever you may live right now, odds are good that the situation I've just described is happening. Before I go about giving my answer to the question, I'd like to ask you to consider another question. What philosophy do you think motivates and informs the use of real estate as a revenue-generating venture? Would you consider it a long-term view? Would you consider it a philosophy that takes the needs of others into account?

Speaking in generalities, when much of a community's real estate is tied up in profit-motivated ventures--be it rental property, "flipping" for profit, or the diversification of one's investment portfolio--the non-affluent, non-owning members of a community are effectively prevented from access and long-term, responsible use of a community's land. When real estate is being held for short-to-medium-term private gain, the vast majority of a community's members' housing and agricultural needs are overlooked and "the market" becomes an often insurmountable obstacle. I could talk about the role of predatory, sub-prime lending that purports to provide "opportunity" to those alienated by real estate-for-gain, but since that will take me a little too far off topic, I'll save it for another day. Suffice to say that I believe the current crises in mortgage lending--and the resulting foreclosures--are directly related to real estate as speculation.

Nearly all of us have heard about the shortage of affordable housing, and some of us may even have heard about the shortage of agricultural land. But how many of us link these problems to real estate speculation? Although the problem of land availability and use has many root and perpetuating causes, I believe that at the present time, for non-First Nation peoples, real estate speculation is driving the lack of affordable housing and agricultural land. It is thwarting the efforts of hard-working community members to have a long-term place to call home.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, folks. I'm coming to my topic!

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) were created in the U.S.--sometime in the 1960s--to address the need for local control of land and other resources, and to make affordable housing and agricultural land stewardship possible. CLTs are democratically controlled organizations that hold land for common good. They provide long-term (99 years usually), renewable leasing of land to a community's members. They are usually either focused on conservation of land (such as agricultural land) or on housing and community development. How--you may ask--does this specifically make housing more affordable? CLTs usually enact "limited equity" policies that help maintain the long-term affordability of a property and make home ownership (via long-term lease) possible for persons with low or limited incomes. These policies essentially remove the "market" pressures that have so negatively impacted those with few resources. What's more, CLTs organize neighborhoods and communities, engage in community development and provide financing to try and address the long-term needs of a specific locale.

I only learned of the existence of CLTs about 15 months ago, and although there are now more than 80 CLTs nationwide, I was dismayed to learn there is not, as yet, a CLT in my community. There are more being developed all the time, however. If you're interested in learning more about CLTs, visit the Institute for Community Economics (ICE) website at www.iceclt.org/clt for information.

CLTs. Another way of keeping land and other resources in a shared, localized, community trust. A beautiful idea who's time has come.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Local Economies


I want to extol the many virtues of thriving local economies, but my time today is brief and so I will begin with a quick and dirty argument for local economies. I promise to try and flesh out my reasoning in later posts, but for now, I'll make some rather rough but expedient assertions.

What is a local economy, you may ask, and how is it different from any other economy anywhere? At its most basic an economy is really just a name for human activity related to producing, distributing, exchanging and consuming goods and services. In the present day the majority of societies use some form of currency (money) as the unit of exchange for a good or service, because each society has decided that the money represents a store of value. In most cases these currencies are also backed by a nation's banks. But I digress...In our era of globalization, at least in the U.S., our prevailing economy is based on goods and services that have been extracted, produced, and distributed from virtually everywhere. Take, for example, a box of Earl Gray tea in your pantry. The tea leaves were likely grown in India, then transported to a processing facility where they were dried and put into tea bags, the materials for which were probably extracted and manufactured on another continent and shipped to the tea processing facility. If the company selling the tea is "environmentally conscious" the tea bags will not be individually wrapped but will simply be put into a box or canister, which was also likely made in some other city or country, and transported to the processing facility. Once the tea is packaged, it will be transported to a storage facility where it will await distribution to cities and towns all over the world. Are you following this? Using the Earl Gray tea as an example, it is probably safe to say that, in our current globalized economy, the majority of the goods and services we depend on have similar, if not even more obscure and distant origins and distribution. The globalized economy is NOT a local economy.

Let's take a closer look at what it means that the Earl Gray tea you purchased for $4 at the local supermarket was brought to you by the global economy. Do you know where the tea was grown? Do you know how it was cultivated or how the growers and pickers are treated? Do you know if petrochemicals were applied to the tea plants in order to enhance growth or discourage insects and/or fungus? Do you know what affect that particular tea company has on the surrounding community? Are they a good employer? Does the company minimize pollutants and act as a good steward of the land? Were people displaced from their homes so that the company could clear the land for agriculture? There are a million other questions that could be asked of this one small part of the process that brings you your cup of tea, but the point is, you probably don't know the answer to any of them. You also don't have much, if any, control over them. How does that make you feel?

A local economy, just like it sounds, localizes to a community the activities of extraction or recovery, production, distribution, exchange and consumption. So, conversely, products brought to you by a local economy are products that you, or someone you know, will likely be able to weigh in about. What's more, a locally sourced and produced good--let's say, a bottle of fruit juice--should leave you with few, if any, of the aforementioned questions unanswered. Local economies are transparent economies. They are also almost always more democratic. What are some other positive attributes of local economies? What follows is a far from exhaustive, but reasonably thorough list.

1) Local economies require relationships. When was the last time you met the person who grew your food or built your bicycle? When was the last time you were able to provide feedback to the person who built your bookshelf?

2) Local economies mean fewer hoops. What do I mean by that? In a truly localized economy, the person making the decisions about a good or service that I need probably lives nearby. Any fallout from a poor choice will be readily apparent, and will require resolution to the satisfaction of the community. This is very different from a transnational or even a national corporation that can shield itself from criticism and any community obligations because it doesn't have a home within one community.

3) It is harder for local producers and companies to externalize their costs. Price is just one means (and often a not very good one) of measuring a product's cost. There are countless other indexes of cost that should be important considerations. Once a resource is extracted, is there enough remaining for continued production of the product, or will the rate of extraction eventually use everything up? Does the production of the product create other biproducts that cannot be safely disposed of? Was one or more persons displaced so that the producer could build a facility? All of these are additional costs usually not reflected in the prices of goods in a global economy. Because a community truly feels the full costs of any economic activity, a local economy is likely to be one in which producers incorporate the full cost of doing business into the price of their product. A local economy is also likely to be much more interested in developing goods and services that can be extracted and produced sustainably.

4) In local economies goods and services are often based on local needs and demands. Make sense? Enough said.

5) Local economies are in a position to promote business models of cooperation and sharing rather than competing and hoarding.

6) Accountability is much more readily facilitated in a local economy.

7) Local economies are interdependent and require cooperation.

8) Local economies are much more likely to produce a living wage due to mechanisms for feedback and accountability.

9) Local economies keep wealth localized.

10) Local economies mean local regulation and oversight of health and safety.

11) Local economies generally eschew mass production, affording workers the ability to see the fruits of their labor through numerous stages of production, and to take pride in their contribution to a much more apparent "big picture."

As previously noted, this list is far from exhaustive. But it's a start, and it's all I have time for today. Local economies hold tremendous promise for all of us as we begin to discover how fragile and unsustainable our current globalized economy really is.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

That's My Farmer!


One of the best reasons to buy your food locally is connection. Who among us feels connected to our neighbors let alone the persons who grow our food and create the fuel we need to sustain us? The truth is, as a society we've become profoundly disconnected from each other and from the source of those things that make it possible to keep going. Is it any wonder that many Americans feel isolated, insecure and depressed? Although the problem I describe extends well beyond the bounds of agriculture, increasing our connection to the orgins of our food is one sure way to re-infuse our lives with the oft-missing human element.

How can you gain access to local food, you ask? Well, if you do most of your grocery shopping at a chain store, chances are good that your food is coming from large distribution centers located hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. Chances are also good that many of the products on the shelves have their origins in places all over the globe. So, your best bet for trying to access local food is finding the nearest farmers' market. Weekly farmers' markets are springing up all over the place. Not sure where your nearest farmers' market is? Go to www.localharvest.org to search their directory of farmers' markets across the U.S.

At your local farmers' market you'll mill about looking at the wonderful and often unique variety of freshly picked produce. You'll also invariably interact with the people from whom you are buying tomatoes (or salad greens or garlic, you get the idea!). Often times the people selling the produce are the very same people who had a hand in growing the food. Ever wonder how long it takes to grow a tomato from seed to juicy, red fruit? Ask! Are you curious about what, if any, sprays were used on the produce? Ask! And be sure to ask where the food was grown. Why? Because this gives you a tangible connection to a place, for one. Additionally, it may lead to an inclination to visit the farm someday. Especially if it's only a 20-minute drive away. Farmers' markets are great places to strike up conversations and, whether you mean to or not, you can learn a lot in the process. If nothing else you can know the producers of your veggies on sight, and the next time you see them you can proclaim "That's my farmer!"