Editorial

The outlook for many communities is increasingly bleak. In recent decades, commercial downturns have been buffered by the ability of our governments to provide stimuli, or even to simply keep our civil services healthy and employing people. This is no longer the case.

Governments of all levels, in most jurisdictions, are at the outer reaches of their revenue and debt capacities. Spending contraction is inevitable for most of them.

Where does this leave community?

Many could slowly hollow out at a complete loss as to how to respond to shifting commercial interests and strapped governments.

What to do?

At the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference last week one of the conversational themes was connection. To build resilient communities the ability for citizens to connect with each other and collaborate is critical.

Nobody can argue with the notion that spending social capital to collaborate and build a thriving community is a good idea. Knowing how to do it in practical terms is a little less straightforward.

But there are tools available and assets in every community. Here are some of them:

Appreciative Inquiry Summits
An Appreciative Inquiry Summit, or a series of them, to deal with specific tasks is one way to build connection between people from different walks of life and perspectives. The CoreChange Summit in Cincinnati this weekend is an example.

For these to be successful, the invitation to participate must be open and hospitable. Success is less likely when participants have not freely accepted an invitation to participate. Incredible projects have been borne out of these open, and democratic summits in just about every kind of environment; churches, international bodies, local charities, and big business. It is important for some post-summit infrastructure to be in place after these events to help things moving along. Co-ordination and communication are very much necessary.

Co-operatives
There are co-operatives in every community. Co-operatives are likely to emerge as a third way between government and business. Co-operatives are governed by those who work for, or access goods and services through, them. They very often have a social goal in mind and then structure themselves co-operatively to get that job done. In times to come there will be creative applications of the co-operative model in local community for everything from the making of consumer goods to the delivery of social services, like long-term care. A co-operative is a way for local people with a common purpose to organize a sustainable way to fulfill that purpose. Those dedicated to their communities should get to know their local co-operatives in their community and learn about how they work. In Canada there are associations at the national and provincial level that can help people set up and run a co-operative.  

Being member governed they are better designed for local connection and collaboration.

Co-operatives themselves might consider the contribution their model could make to their communities and do what they can to educate people about how they work.

Credit Unions
These financial institutions can be found in most cities. They range from the big ones like Desjardins and Vancity to hyper-local institutions. They are co-operatives too. They are owned by their members — their depositors, rather than absentee shareholders. This makes them more likely to participate in social and local enterprise. Being co-operatives themselves, they are well suited to be of support to local co-ops. Local finance and local organization are two big ingredients in creating resilient communities.

Social Enterprise
Social enterprise is growing in its application. These are organizations set up with a social goal rather than a commercial one. One brownie company we storied put it this way, "We don’t employ people to make brownies. We make brownies to employ people." These enterprises have local loyalty built in and can be a better way than charity or government programming in many cases. If we are going to eat brownies they might as well be ones made in our backyard.

Local Food Connections
More community connections are emerging around local food. While producers have organized for a variety of purposes in the past there is now growing interest from consumers. As Wendell Berry writes, eating is an agricultural act. When it comes to placemaking there is nothing like becoming aware of the limitations of local, seasonal food production to get people thinking differently. These growing producer/consumer communities are another energy pocket for creating attachment to place and collaboration along local lines.

As the age of austerity continues to mature, connection between citizens dedicated to each other and attached to "place" will be more necessary. Having ways to make hay with that social capital, structurally and sustainably, can make lives meaningful and communities vibrant. The search and application of such tools is not only underway, it provides us pathways to participate in the making of the future we desire.