RESILIENT COMMUNITY: TRANSITION TOWNS

"How do we enjoy the benefits of globalization without being vulnerable to its excesses?"

The key to our collective future success (from maximal wealth creation to basic survival), will be in how we mitigate the impact of black swans generated by global instability. One of the best approaches I've encountered is to add resilience to the very fabric of our global system, the community.

NOTE: From the controls engineering perspective this approach both simplifies and adds resilience to the design of the global system. In short, it creates a bow-tie control system that enables extremes of complexity without egregious loses in both stability or efficiency (it's a control system that we see in use with both the Internet and in the energy production subsystem used by cells in our bodies).

One of the early (and very smart) approaches to this can be found in the grassroots Transition Towns movement. This movement started in the UK, with an academic paper and a follow on experiment in a town called Totnes (see the excellent 3 part YouTube presentation by founder Rob Hopkins). The movement has expanded to 600 towns across the world at various stages of implementation.

How To Do It
To focus the effort, the movement assumed two of the many potential black swan scenarios (in this case Peak Oil and Global Warming) would likely occur and their arrival would damage local life. This approach led them to focus on a reduction in oil consumption (and thereby long-distance transportation) as a means to improve resilience (a good start). Through trial and error, they were able to generate a blue-print (PDF and more expansive Wiki) for building local resilience entitled the "Transitions Town" network (note that many of these steps use the approach of open source insurgency and even uses the rule of five). Here are the steps:

• Develop a steering group to get it started (a foco). Five people is recommended. Plan to disband this group when things get started.
  
• Raise awareness (basic education on the effects of black swans).
  
• Network with existing groups (go open source).
  
• An event to launch the initiative (the great unleashing).
  
• Form working groups.
  
• Leverage activity with technology (social tech).
  
• Develop visible examples of progress.
  
• Reskilling and teaching (sharing skills/knowledge).
  
• Connect to the government (financial risks).
  
• Connect to elders (narratives and skills).
  
• Let it run itself.
  
• Complete the effort by formalizing a plan through the contributions of the sub-groups.
  

An Economic Case via Risk Mitigation
One of the most interesting offshoots of this movement is that they were able to generate an economic case for their efforts. Through audits of the energy use by local businesses, they were able to demonstrate the financial risks the businesses faced if energy prices spiked. This provided the movement with the opportunity to help the business source local resource alternatives and/or develop new opportunities that presented less risk.

Author's Note: I'd like to flesh this out in more detail, perhaps through a investigative trip sponsored by a magazine looking for a great article on the future of communities/consumption/etc.

Comments

[moon]

My comment is pedantic: peak oil and global warming, by virtue of being able to think and discuss them a priori, are not black swans, but grey swans.

I enjoy the resiliency theme; thanks for the transition towns info. Didn't even know that I live in (or at least very near) one.

[PeakOilBoy]

There are two important resources for getting started if you are a municipal planner:

Portland, Oregon's Peak Oil response plan:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.portlandonline.com%2Fshared%2Fcfm%2Fimage.cfm%3Fid%3D145732&ei=wqL6R_K8FouIgwPNteQX&usg=AFQjCNGOvZJG7xoLGG_Ih_Cn0o34beOmHw&sig2=yXhDsjw9P65wH1ZHXKnRHw

And David Blume's intense relocalization plan:
http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com/?bid=2&aid=CD1&opt=

There is a way, we just need the willpower. Once people are suffering enough, then these answers will probably become a lot more popular.

Food grown at home is tasty anyway!

[gmoke]

You might want to go to the Transition Towns conference in Oxford, UK this September. See http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/building-resilience-conference.php for more

Portland's Peak Oil Plan is indeed very good. John Kauffman presented on it at the MA State House on April I as part of an educational panel preparatory to initiating a Peak Oil Caucus here. The 11 point plan:
Reduce oil and gas use 50% in 25 years
Educate the citizenry
Engage civic leaders
Amend land use patterns
Make smart infrastructure investments
Encourage efficient and renewable transport choices
Expand energy efficiency programs
Preserve local food production capability
Promote sustainable business opportunities
Preserve the safety net and protect vulnerable populations
Plan for emergencies

My notes from the State House meeting at
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/31/222223/445/192/487962

[julianj]

Since I discovered Peak Oil and watched the Military-Industrial-Stupidity complex at work around the world it has been hard to feel positive.

I attended an important environmental conference in the UK in Jan 07, and Transition Towns were a huge buzz there. They've taken off like a rocket - Rob Hopkins described it as the fastest-growing social movement he'd ever encountered. I am sure that there will be numerous difficulties, but I think what energises people that it is "bottom-up" networking which does not wait for the OK from an out-of-touch hierarchy but "starts the show right here and now". Local govt and politicians have little option but to fall in behind the transitioners.

Note that you don't form a committee: you "unleash" a transition initiative. Rob and others use innovative structures to avoid the apathy that comes with much "do-gooder" bureaucracy.

Please see my article on TTs in Carbon News:

http://www.carbonmanagers.com/newsletter/carbonnews/20-03-08/

[julianj]

I must however correct one minor error: the first TT was Kinsale in Ireland where Rob Hopkins and students created the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan, the first UK one was Totnes.

http://transitionculture.org/2005/11/24/kinsale-energy-descent-action-plan/

[Duncan Kinder]

A fabled resource is the Highlander Center in New Market, TN:
http://www.highlandercenter.org/about.asp

about:

Highlander serves as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the South. We work with people fighting for justice, equality and sustainability, supporting their efforts to take collective action to shape their own destiny. Through popular education, participatory research, and cultural work, we help create spaces -- at Highlander and in local communities -- where people gain knowledge, hope and courage, expanding their ideas of what is possible. We develop leadership and help create and support strong, democratic organizations that work for justice, equality and sustainability in their own communities and that join with others to build broad movements for social, economic and restorative environmental change.

The founding principle and guiding philosophy of Highlander is that the answers to the problems facing society lie in the experiences of ordinary people. Those experiences, so often belittled and denigrated in our society, are the keys to grassroots power.

Today, that philosophy is reflected in the educational programs and services offered by the 21st-century Highlander Center. Highlander serves Appalachia and the South with programs designed to build strong and successful social-change activism and community organizing led by the people who suffer most from the injustices of society. Highlander helps activists to become more effective community educators and organizers, informed about the important issues driving conditions in communities today.

:end_of_about

A true tale about Highlander:

Shortly before the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, and others came to Highlander for training. While Rosa Parks' famous refusal to give up her seat on the bus was spontaneous as was the boycott in response; they in more general terms had previously been looking for some sort of active response to Jim Crow. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in other words, was a Black Swan.

An apparently analogous organization based in Southeastern Ohio is Rural Action
http://www.ruralaction.org/index.html

(I actually once was on the board of it in its prior incarnation as the Appalachian Ohio Public Interest Campaign, but have long since lost contact with it.)

Another interesting organization: The National Cooperative Bank:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cooperative_Bank

"NCB is dedicated to strengthening communities nationwide through the delivery of banking and financial services, complemented by a special focus on cooperative expansion and economic development.

Primary markets include the basic ingredients of vibrant communities: housing, education, healthcare, cultural centers, local businesses and social services. In addition, NCB has a growing community banking network in southwestern Ohio."

[Will]

There's interesting work along this line going on in Sweden. I found the book, The Natural Step for Communities: How Cities and Towns Can Change to Sustainable Practices par Sarah James et Torbjorn Lahti, very enlightening.

[felixdzerzhinsky]

Given your interest in resilient communities I though you might find this useful.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/museletter_192_resilient_communities

And Lee Clarke's book: "Worst Cases : Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination"

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/108597in.html