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and housing and agriculture will continue to increase. This is known, although the pace of change is not yet knowable. Economic crises brought about by global climate change and energy shortages will become more frequent. The time, hassle, and cost of traveling long distances to distant counties to work and shop will become more onerous for those of us living in a rural area.
But, we can shift our values from, for example, getting the “cheapest” prices at a distant supermarket or box store where a person is anonymous, to getting the highest quality, locally, along with conversations with neighbors and growers.
There is already a small but articulate cadre of citizens here who espouse the ideas and values of building local economy. See, for example, a recent discussion on rappnet about the benefits of locally raised healthy meat. At the same time, many people feel that these ideas are impractical or unaffordable, even “elitist” - witness again some of the same discussions on rappnet.
What would it take to strengthen and deepen the local economy and community? There is no one silver bullet for sure. This is an incremental process, if it goes in that direction at all. The book “Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future,” by Bill McKibben contains hundreds of examples and stories of ways in which communities have strengthened local economy, and why the people in these communities pursued these activities.
The notion of a strong local economy is not a dominant idea in this locality at this time. I believe that the primary driver of development in this direction will be the increasing numbers of our citizens who take on this idea, in one form or another. How can this change happen? There are many way's. One is to champion and make more visible the successful enterpris
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