How River School Farm grows healthy food in the desert
It’s a normal day at River School Farm, a central hub in Reno’s local food scene. I’m here to find out what that scene looks like, and what part River School Farm plays in its past and future.
Jessica Reeder
Student Coops: the cutting edge of the new economy
While pundits debated failing macro-economic strategies in the media frenzy surrounding election day, students at NASCO Institute shared proven community-driven economic solutions, from coops to alternative currencies.
Is social entrepreneurship the rich saving the poor?
Social entrepreneurship, if done properly, creates, fosters, and grows communities with new opportunities which were never within their reach before.
Changing Bike Culture in the Eternal City
When I first came to Rome as a student, in the fall of 2009, I saw few bikes on the streets.
How to Start a Community Currency
The centralized creation of money and credit has a profoundly negative effect on local economies, sovereignty, and cohesiveness. Bankers value profit at all costs, while locally-controlled institutions tend to hold other values – like community, justice and sustainability – more highly.
Reflections on Co-Cycle, Worker Co-ops, and Hope
A curious shift occurred as Co-Cycle made its way through the Midwest. We have begun to articulate what exactly it is we’re learning–we’re asking more in-depth questions as we meet more co-ops; we are beginning to make connections between different models, whether consumer or worker owned; and, on the flip side, more people are asking us in-depth questions about our model, process, and how we began and what we’ve learned. Our identity is still forming, but, as compared to the first half of the tour, Co-Cycle is beginning to grasp the impact and importance of its own mission.
Montreal: City of Bikes
Last year I visited Montreal to attend the Ecocity World Summit, a biannual gathering of visionaries from around the globe committed to creating cities where people live in mutually enriching relationship with each other and with the Earth. Looking at cities as living breathing organisms, with all their residents human and non-human forming an intricate web of interdependence, the very idea of an ecocity is rooted in a sharing principle, where citizens understand not only the physical value of making the most of our natural resources, but the cultural, spiritual, ecological, and ultimately, economic value inherent in building networks and communities.
New California law powers up home food production
Late last month, the California State Assembly passed new legislation that would assure legal status for small-scale cottage industries that sell baked goods and other “non-potentially hazardous” food items produced in home kitchens.
A life of abundance without money
Daniel Suelo, 51, has spent the morning gorging himself on young green shoots of tumbleweed and fixing a rack to the back of his new (gifted) bike with a spool of bailing wire. Suelo gets around on a bike or by the flick of his thumb, on discarded spools of bailing wire and other useful throwaways, and on the generosity of others. Money has been absent from his life ever since he gave away the last of his savings twelve years ago, a move he says brought an authenticity and richness to his life that wasn’t there before.
Geographer David Harvey on Urban Commons
Mainstream discourse about cities is dominated by free-market, pro-growth ideas that has continued unabated even after the flaws of capitalism were made glaringly obvious by the 2008 financial meltdown…The commons is the goose that lays the golden eggs. Without the commons, there is no market or future. If every resource is commodified, if every square inch of real estate is subjected to speculative forces, if every calorie of every urbanite is used to simply meet bread and board, then we seal off the future. Without commons, there’s no room for people to maneuver, there’s no space for change, and no space for life. The future is literally born out of commons.
‘Money & Life’ documentary frames new economy of living systems
Katie Teague’s Money and Life documentary asks us to look at money in a whole new way.
How to start a tool library
Though it seems like a relatively unique idea, around 40 community tool libraries already exist throughout the United States, from Philadelphia to Seattle and south to Oakland and New Orleans. Each has its own unique flavor but most operate roughly the same way by accepting tool donations from the community and then lending those tools out for free–or nearly free–to anyone capable of presenting an ID and signing a waiver. Through that basic setup, some tool libraries have been happily participating in the sharing economy for over 20 years.