It's hard not to notice two things going on at the same time right now. To pull from the beginning of a long-ish magazine article I just finished for Sentient Times, "The first is that large numbers of people who may never have felt fully comfortable with where they’ve parked their retirement savings and investment accounts are desperately wondering how to keep what’s left of them from vaporizing in the global meltdown. Over time some of these folks have been watching the “relocalization” movement — the cluster of efforts to strengthen and grow sustainable locally-owned enterprises so that resources circulate in the community instead of leaking to far-off corporate headquarters — with more and more interest. That’s condition number one. The second is that a growing number of creative local people want to start enterprises that would support their families (and other families as well, in some cases) and serve their community in healthy ways. What often holds them back is the absence of capital to start or expand their businesses."So how to put these two pieces together? The answer, I think, is a vital key to building healthy community out of the ashes raining down on us. If the longer piece linked above is more than you want to read, I digested in in this week's Tidings column.
