- Maximilian Thomas
- Toronto
- Canada
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Community!
How nice would it be to live in a place where all the products you used came from local producers and manufactures, where people greeted you when you passed by, where the people in your township came together for those who need the extra hand. I am talking about community!
Over the past 50 years it seems that the community that held people together in the United States has disappeared. As manufactures move overseas to find cheaper prices and the church becomes more and more distant, the people of America change their focus from their communities to themselves.
My passion is to bring community back to America. I would love to hear some suggestions and ideas on to how to make this happen. Anyone who would be interested in joining the journey, please do not hesitate to contact me. All my contact information can be found on my profile page.
So please any suggestions or ideas would be amazing!
Maximilian Thomas
Lets try to create as many community building ideas as we can with the time we have left!
It dosent matter how cooky or far out it seems, post it. We want to try and get as many ideas as possible!
Also I would like to direct you all to an ongoing project which is taking place on Ted. Dejay Davision is creating a TEDx event for his town of Christchurch in New Zeland. It is going to be a youth focused event! He has posted a conversation to try and get some suggestions. Lets give him the support he needs and make this a reality!
Here is the link:
http://www.ted.com/conversations/12565/a_ted_youth_event_organized_an.html
Robert Winner 50+
We argue, we laugh, we cry, we care, we are a community filled with love.
All the best. Bob.
Debra Smith 200+
Colleen Steen 500+
My community is twice as big as yours, and it sounds like it could be the same community! We have two churches, two garages (although lots of guys do car repairs in their home garages as a side job), one small grocery store, two quick stop type stores/gas stations, a big organic farm, where most people shop for produce if they do not have their own gardens (which most of us do). When we have an abundance of produce in our own gardens, it goes to the local food shelf. One of our greatest gifts, is a hardware store where you can buy almost ANYTHING. It is a small business, and they will order anything that is not in stock. All the guys who work there often fix things we bring in...they do almost EVERYTHING and are VERY friendly. We have a little bakery/deli...all organic...mostly produce from the local organic farm.
The same thing as you describe happens here when there is a crisis. We've had a couple fires at farms (it's a farming community), and as soon as all the farmers are finished with their own chores, they are right there to help with the animals, and whatever else needs attention. We have a GREAT volunteer fire dept. and rescue squad, recreational dept., school/community library with a staff that creates and solicits MANY wonderful educational and entertaining programs. Our k-12 school is a seperate entity, unlike most other schools in the state, which are regionalized. Everybody knows everybody and it is GREAT Maximilian, thanks for asking:>)
Most of Vermont is made up of small communities...our largest city is about 50,000 people. One way to encourage community, is with good regional and local development plans. When development occures, we can guide it to create communities by encouraging "mixed use". In other words, a development may be "clustered", and include single and multi-family homes, a small grocery, hardware, garage, gas station, office space that may accomodate doctors and/or other profefssonals, recreational opportunities, etc.
Maximilian Thomas
I now want to visit Vermont. Your community sounds amazing and the fact that excites me the most is your community has meaning. You have farmers, mechanics, store owners, all with a reason to be thier. Love it!
Your last comment is very incitful. This is a point that I am going to use for the basis of bringing small business back. With "mixed use" you create meaning. The people who live in the community live thier for a reason. Also it creates a since of commradorie and pride within the people that live in the community. Do you agree with these points?
Colleen Steen 500+
Come on down!!! Toronto is very lovely too, in a very different way. I have friends I visit there:>)
I agree that it's important for communities to have meaning that creates interactivity with the people in the community. Vermont naturally developed as small rural, many times self sufficient communities, nestled in the mountains. So, the state, regional and local plans reflect that kind of development, which we hope to maintain.
I agree wholeheartedly with the points you make, and encourage town and regional plans, zoning by-laws, planning commissions, development review boards, and all municipal governing boards and laws, which facilitate the creation of the kinds of communities we are speaking of:>)
I DO walk my talk....I've served on the local planning commission & development review board, state downtown development comm., and now serve on the regional planning commission, project review committee & transportation advisory comm..:>)
If we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem!
Lejan . 30+
as sad it may be, community forms temporarily as a strategy of survival within a given situation and environment and changes with them over time.
Let's say your next-door neighbour lives 50 miles from you and the next city is a 100 miles away, the importance of this neighbour was different as if he would just life in the same building within the same town of yours. As availability 'for help' becomes a matter of choice, it becomes a matter of 'selection' for people and by this a change in behaviour towards them.
It is no 'miracle' why people in extreme and usually hostile situations experience a strong sense of 'community', as thiose situations 'forge' people together in the need for 'survival'. Unfortunately this sensation does not last beyond the incident for long. It may form certain 'friendships' which remain, yet the overall community tends to fade.
So as higher our living standard rises, as less need there is for a strong community, as we choose the people we interact with more by liking, than by a common need.
So far I have no idea how that could be changed without giving up our standard of living or savety.
Maximilian Thomas
This brings me to a fundamental point, there needs to be an infrastructure for a community to exist. In your example the infrastructure is created by the extreme situation. For quite a long time in the United States the church was one of the driving forces for this infrastructure. Local businesses also contributed to this. What has happened both of these, the church and small business, have either moved away or lost its impact. The infrastructure has crumbled and fallen. What one of my goals is is to rebuild this infrastructure.
Lejan . 30+
but what do you think made this infrastructure disappear if not this increase in 'choice'?
The examples I have given were pointing at extremes to make the underlying principle more visible, yet they are also working slowly and constantly as the increase of living standard also increases slowly.
Picture these small grocery stores in the 'good old times', lets say the one in 'The Waltons' series and try to imagine you would exchange your 'news of the day' with the cashier in a modern supermarket. Most likely the queue behind you is going to complain about your 'chatting' instead of joining the talk. And why? Because if they wan't to know about the news, they switch their TV's on at home if they feel for it.
This is the attribute of the 'speed of life' we are paying for our living standard.
So any new and alternative inrastructure has to work within the constrains of the given and modernized world, which usually turns out to be contradictory or incompatible with it.
Please don't get me wrong. I am not promoting the current system here, on the contrary, yet if we wish to return back to a more community oriented life, we had to chance our current system first, as it contains the solvent for it. If it was any different, we would not have lost what we once had. And because you can not force anyone into a new infrastucture, the given infrastructure has to be changed, which consists out of a multitude of views, needs and believes which tend to resist a new directive.
On this I am quite culturally pessimistic, as I only see the trend going in our direction in countries which are increasing their standard of living and at times even at tremendous accelerations, like China for instance, were literally a whole army of itinerant labourer are following the job market while loosing most their roots of their origin. And as long as the race for profit is on, as long we will not be able to slow down again to the pace for a vital community...
Maximilian Thomas
I am glad you brought up the points of your 6th paragraph. I must clarify that the system I wish to create is not a product of the old. For us to succeed we must take what we have learned from the past, apply it to the situation we are in, and what is created is a completely new type of system.
You also make a very valid point that we will be up against a number of views, needs and believes. More so than probably ever in history, but that makes it even more exciting for us. With enough hard work and dedication anything is possible. Yes this, especially at this point, a hard goal to imagine happening because of the tremendous obstacles that we face, but as long as we believe, we will never stop working to make it happen.
I would also like to make a comment on your last point about profit. I disagree with that. It is interesting because I am going to use the race for profit to unite people back together.
Lejan . 30+
Maximilian Thomas
Thank you.
Zdenek Smith 100+
The huge shift and one of the best things ever happened to mankind in my opinion is the arrival of the Internet. Because of the Internet we have:
- amazing number of little "communities" in Meetup.com where people get together to share experiences and help each other or the world
- through TED and similar we have growing communities of individuals that want to share ideas and knowledge
- kickstartrt and others organize people around new concept and ideas creating communities that were not possible before
- non-profit organizations
- online groups of engineers and DIY that tackle various problems
and so on.
True that all of this is only but in many cases you have also local groups and meetings around the online communities.
Unfortunately if you do not engage these groups online you and others might feel like we are loosing communities around us.
Cheers
Debra Smith 200+
Maximilian Thomas
Thanks for the comment.
Barry Palmer 50+
And isn't this a shame? Compared to the community I grew up in, as a child, what we have today seems so shallow. I would very much like to improve my community, but as you pointed out, it requires time and energy, and I have none to spare.
Maximilian Thomas
If you would not mind Mr. Palmer sharing what made the community you grew up in so great, I think we would all love to hear!
Barry Palmer 50+
I have found hardware stores with good service, but the service deteriorates after the proprietor retires and the store is bought up by a chain. We don't gather by the cash register any more because we don't have a project every weekend. Many of the things my Dad would fix must now be replaced. And it seems like the people we do see there are changing every month. It is a very different world.
Maximilian Thomas
The point you made in your first paragraph is something that I myself am trying to figure out. Where has all the pride in work gone? It seems as though people no longer care for their jobs, they simply work for their paycheck.
I also absolutely agree with your point in the second paragraph about chains. Big business today deals with their chains as cookie cutter businesses put into several different regions. There is nothing unique about these stores at all. I believe that stores should at the very least be fit to the region. From there we can work outward to make each individual business venture a unique entity.
Thank you once again for your excellent contribution!
pat gilbert 50+
I actually avoid HD as much as possible as I can't stand the place.
Maximilian Thomas
pat gilbert 50+
But I think we are probably an anomaly, when push comes to shove people want more crap for less money.
Fritzie Reisner 100+
http://www.cyclingrachelsmith.com/?p=738
pat gilbert 50+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Let's say we had people who are interested in giving each other a hand if they can and also getting to know their neighbors. Rather than just having, say, a picnic, they get together to see who they can help.
This would not work for one-to-one exchanges typically, because the youngster who might be happy just out of generosity to mow an old lady's lawn may not be the one who needs the writing tutoring she could provide.
Let's say someone wants someone to practice speaking English with for fifteen minutes.
I'd do that for someone without anything in return certainly. Many people would.
It is part of a portfolio of ways communities can connect but surely does not provide a system for comprehensive local economies!
pat gilbert 50+
I think it is peculiar that this is something that used to naturally occur, what changed?
Fritzie Reisner 100+
(for example my neighbor across the way needs some math help for her daughter and in exchange she is going to teach me how to carve wood)
An isolated elderly lady may not in modern urban areas know any teenagers, and teenagers may not just walk up to a little old lady whose lawn looks like it might need mowing.
pat gilbert 50+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
pat gilbert 50+
Another factor is the internet and its almost addictive effects on us which appear to supplant face to face communication.
Fritzie Reisner 100+
The implication of taxes is, I think, more complex.
pat gilbert 50+
If you look at it from a macro point of view and simply that the government does not add value to the economy. Do public servants really deserve 6 figure salaries and retirements that are ridiculous? Does Sarbanes Oxley with an estimated cost of 1.5 trillion per year really add that much value to the economy? Even though it has yet to find one single instance of a financial irregularity in 10 years?
The thing is that cost has to be paid for and it is through higher taxes and more regulations which has an effect on the economy and it is not complex. Of course if you have a government job life is not stressful.
Barry Palmer 50+
For once, I have agreed with everything Pat has said up to this point.
A well defined, measurable goal is necessary.
Maximilian Thomas
I think one of the reasons it seems as if it "doesnt have legs" is there is no real meaning to it. You are just helping someone to help someone. On the contary if the goal was to make your neighbourhood look a little nicer or the person felt it was the right thing to do because this neighbour you work with and he worked your shift so you could be with your kids.
Without an infrastructure there is little meaning. With meaning, this ideal becomes alive and once again proves that it is natural.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
one blast furnace per community? one microchip factory per community? one car factory per community? how could that possibly work?
Maximilian Thomas
Krisztián Pintér 200+
hint: http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html
Maximilian Thomas
Each seperate community creates the produce and products that they are able to make. The consumer buys the produce and products from both the community they live in and (for all of the produce and products not made in that community) buys everything else from the other communities. Remember that all of the communities are inside of the United States.
An example will make this a little clearer.
So there are three towns within the United States; Town A, Town B, Town C (obviously this is a very, very small scale, but I am using it for clarity.)
Town A makes Corn. Town B makes Cabbage. Town C was Squash.
So the consumer of Town A buys the corn from Town A (this is the local part). But he was wants Cabbage and Squash. So he must go to (when I say go to I do not mean literally, assume all of these items are sold in a grocery store) Town B and C is get these items.
I hope this is more clear to you.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
1. if town A produces product A, then people there can not choose product A from another producer that is cheaper or better. they have to spend more on worse products.
2. limits competition for goods that can be locally produced. if i produce wheat, i can easily form a cartel with other local wheat producers, and raise prices. shops can't simply buy wheat in the next town. producers will have the power to decide, as opposed to the customer.
3. the entire idea affects only minority of goods. or ... zero? today, everything is intertwined. a farmer uses vehicles, fertilizers, tools that can only be made in huge factories, and have extremely convoluted production pathways from ores and mineral oil through plastics and steel to final products.
4. i don't see why we try to cripple the economy in order to create or promote something that has nothing to do with the economy, namely how people deal with each other. if only forced economic relations can keep a community together, that community is not worth keeping together.
pat gilbert 50+
Which is terrific because you can get a lot of money and you can enforce your delusions about the produce of the aforementioned townships.
Not the least of which is admiration which your subjects will adorn you with this commodity and hang on every word of the sacred now your suppose to's.
Of course there will be a few recalcitrant decenters but as long as I can keep the majority all will be swell.
Sound implausible? Au contraire the last czar of produce (think czar of CRA) is going into retirement as he no longer can fool his constituents after his shenanigans with the CRA and now his solution called the financial reform act which is also mammoth and supposed to fix his previous faux pas. Would this be an example of rothbard's ideas?
Doesn't matter somebody get Nero some rosin for his fiddle.
Maximilian Thomas
The United States is comprised of several regions that are connect through climate and geography. The towns within each of these regions are able to make specific goods and services. Many of the towns within these regions will make/produce similar, if not the same, products. Within each of these regions there are a large number of towns and cities.
To start off with competition will still remain. Yes there may be one specific region that is producing a good, but there are several different companies within that region that are all competing to have their version of the product bought.
Secondly, one both rose the point that a "cartel" could create a monopoly out of the system. There are several points I could make about this, but the most important thing to realize is that this is the United States; there are specific laws and regulations put in place so this very thing (cartels) does not happen. If a company does seem to slip through the cracks of the laws, the government is often fast to act against them, often times resulting in a break up of the company.
Krisztian, I do not really understand your third point. Yes, the system is complex, but if the products can be made, why can they not be applied into the system? We are expecting a very complex system.
I completely disagree with your fourth point. This is something that absolutely effects the economy, and will, in the long run, make the United State economy stronger. Right now a large percentage of manufactoring is being done outside the US. That means the US has become reliant on other countries to build their products. We have lost the infrastructure. Bringing the infrastructure "(manufactoring) back into the US makes the United States less reliant on others and builds a stronger economy.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
the problem with regulation is that it never works as intended, and must grow forever to eliminate the collateral damage it causes. the result is the ever growing power of the state.
about affect on economy: i was talking about the opposite direction. i said that communities can exist without being based on economic relation, so why bother? my exact problem is that you try to create communities though economic means, which might result in better communities, but hurt the economy. so i do agree that it has effect, but the effect is negative.
being reliant is a good thing. in a world economy, division of labor extends beyond borders. the problem is not dependency, but lack of balance. if the US had a zero trade balance, it would matter not that production is outside of the country. it would just mean that the US provides something else, like services or expertise or knowledge in return. the problem today is that the US gives nothing in return, and it will backfire soon. but to solve this, you don't need structural change. you just want the state to stop borrowing and stop expanding the money supply.
pat gilbert 50+
I think for any real involvement to take place there has to be a real purpose or goal with out this it will not fly.
Secondly I think that the government doesn't like individuals doing things like this as it impinges on their rice bowl. A friend of mine is volunteer fire fighter. He tells me the professionals do what they can to nullify their efforts because of this reason.
In order for the individual to prosper he has to have small groups to work with as with a family, church, boy scouts, chamber of commerce, etc. The problem is when the larger government creates an environment that does not allow this to occur as with high taxes, regulations, licensing etc. as this burdens the individual to the point of not having the time to do these activities.
http://www.ted.com/conversations/9808/how_do_we_get_back_the_neighbo.html
Maximilian Thomas
pat gilbert 50+
Maximilian Thomas
I want to bring small business back. It is important to have manufacturing and produce to be made, if possible, in the communities that can.
As a second to this, to make sure that the impact is more felt, to have secondary non for profit organizations to create an infrastructure so that they communities to be self suuficient.
Maximilian Thomas
Once there is an establishment of people dedicated to a cause, then work can start, with real, attainable goals attachted to it. I personally have a series of rough ideas to complete a series of goals I have in mind.
I think the problem at hand has less to do with the environment the government has created and more to do with the fact that people have no infrastructure for community to exist.
We can look at business for an example. We have moved from small, local businesses creating produce and operating the manufacturing to large, cookie cutter corporations bringing in the produce and moving the moanufacturing overseas. So we have changed from having towns working together to create a product to a series of high level executives making the decision on where the products should come from. So the towns have lost their pride, lost that bond that brought them together, lost the sense of who they were.
Now this is just one example, but there are several others. I honestly think that presented in the correct light the government would actually endorse a change in community.
Thank you for the comment!
pat gilbert 50+
Where a product comes from is irrelevant to my previous post.
Maximilian Thomas
My goal is to bring small businesses back to America.
pat gilbert 50+
Maximilian Thomas
pat gilbert 50+
Basic point of logic is that you have to compare what is to what was, this is done by a metric.
If you can't think up a metric that reflect progress in this endeavor then you do not have a goal as by definition a goal can be measured.
The old maxim of if you want to manage it then you have to measure it.
Where this gets a little tricky is in the area of is it a purpose or a goal.
For example I have the purpose of waking TEDsters up to the dangers of socialism. Ok great how do I measure my sucess? I can't therefore it is not a goal.
If I had the goal of getting TEDsters to register as Republicans (funny huh?) now that is a goal as I can count how many TEDsters I got to register or change their registration to Republican.
Maximilian Thomas
pat gilbert 50+
I will add that the goal of bringing back small business from overseas is dubious. Small business doesn't usually get off shored in the first place. And that is going to start shifting anyway as the Chinese are starting to make more money so the advantage is diminishing and that by 2015 they will be gone.
The factors in off shoring are not just money but also taxes and regulations with the highest corporate taxes in the world and some of the most onerous regulations not the least of which is Sarbanes Oxley.
Another factor is some of the worst educated individual in industrialized countries. This is absolutely caused at least mostly by goverment meddling.
Maximilian Thomas
For now I feel that we need to soldify what we believe, what we would like to see happen and how to go about doing it before we decide how to judge how effective it is. Now, I am not saying that it is not important, on the contary, I believe it is very important, but I think that we are not at that stage yet. Yes, we could create one today, but it would simply evolve as we did until we soldified what our views, believes and goals are.
pat gilbert 50+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
There are thirty-one TED talks indexed under the theme Community.
Maximilian Thomas
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Maximilian Thomas
Fritzie Reisner 100+
And there are many more, but these were the ones that came to me off the top of my head.
I am glad Pat also refered you to the link to one of the recent TED conversations on this.
There was a second conversation at the same time on City 2.0, the most recent TED prize winner.
Maximilian Thomas
Matthew Stephenson
Maximilian Thomas
With enough people, enough minds all working together, anything will be possible. This goal is attainable, yes it will be a long and tough road, but it will be achieved if we keep our heads high through the tough times and keep pushing through.
Matthew Stephenson
Maximilian Thomas
You are absolutely correct, the people who make up this core will need to be extraordinary. But, this will only make up a tiny percentage of the entire project. For us to succeed we do not need to be composed of super people. What we need ordinary people who are willing to make a change. We need ordinary people who are loyal and willing to work hard. What we need are people who are willing to believe.