Best of Communities: Xiii. Cooperative Economics and Creating Community Where Yo

Publisher Marketing: XIII. Cooperative Economics and Creating Community Where You Are On the three-legged stool of sustainability, less attention has been given to economics than to the more robust ecological and social dimensions. But that doesn't mean it's less important. (It's hard to keep a stool upright with only two legs.) Half the articles in this bundle are focused on what we're learning about values-based ways to make a living (which is a quality of life issue if there ever was one). The other stories are devoted to taking the inspiration of community beyond the boundary of shared property. If you figure that there are only 100,000 people in the US living in some form of self-identified intentional community, yet 100 million wanting a greater sense of community in their life, it's obvious that we should be exporting what we're learning to neighborhoods, churches, schools, and workplaces almost everywhere. Half of the 20 articles in this bundle focus on that expansive task. This Digital Issue of Cooperative Economics and Creating Community Where You Are includes: 1. Recipe for a Thriving Community by Jonathan Dawson, #119 2. Regaining Our Sense of Oneness through Localization by Helena Norberg-Hodge, #154, 15-16 . 3. Our Own Money: A Recipe for Local Economic Revival (including Local Currencies, Stephen Burke) by by Albert Bates, #133 4. When a Dollar Is Worth More than 100 Cents by Gwynelle Dismukes, #136 5. Social Class & Money in Community by Allen Hancock, #98 6. Our Community Revolving Loan Fund: How Walnut Street Co-op Financed Its Property by Tree Bressen, #128 7. Inventing a Rural Economy, Business by Business: How The Farm Lost its Community Subsidy and Formed a Stable Economy in Its Place by Douglas Stephenson, #116 8. Self-Reliance, Right Livelihood, and Economic "Realities" Finding Peace in Compromise by Abeja Hummel, #158 9. Communities That Serve Others...and Love Doing It by Darin Fenger, #131 10. Free to Serve: Notes from a Needs-Based Economy by Chris Foraker, #141 11. Householding: Communal Living on a Small Scale by Elizabeth Barrette, #144 12. Balancing Act: How Much Are You Willing to Share? by Janel Healy, #152 13. The Values of Shared Ownership by Tim Miller, #159 14. The Quest for Community: A Personal Journey into the Grey Zone by Tree Bressen, #139 15. Gardens of Gratitude: ATwo-Day Garden Party Blitz in L. A. by Ginny LeRossignol Blades, #144 16. Chicken a la West Birch Avenue by Hilary Giovale, #142 17. Lighten Up: A Community Energy-Reduction Experiment by Kelly Barth, #143 18. What Are the Boundaries of an Intentional Community? An Experiment in Geographically-Dispersed Community-Building by Don Schneider and Elin England, #143 19. Greening Your H'Hood David Leach, #157 20. Let's Do Greywater First! by Laura Dvorak and J. Brush, #137 Contributor Bio:  Dawson, Jonathan Jonathan Dawson is a consultant specializing in small enterprise developmentContributor Bio:  Norberg-Hodge, Helena Born in 1946, Paul Gilk grew up on a small homestead farm in northern Wisconsin. From work horses, threshing crews and silo-filling rings, huge gardens, quilting bees and one-room schools, township demographics changed in twenty-five years from thirty farms to three. Returning to northern Wisconsin from St. Louis in 1979, Gilk built a cottage in the woods of what had been part of the family farm. Several years of intensive study followed. The question that preoccupied him was Why are small farms dying? In the early 1990s, he reconstructed a nineteenth-century log house and, in 1995, married Suzanna Juon. He has made a living by farm work, woods work, carpentry, writing, and folk music. Contributor Bio:  Bates, Albert Albert Bates is an Environmental Educator and Founder of the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Tennessee. He has been instrumental in facilitating the growth of the worldwide ecovillage movement into an organization of more than 20,000 communities on six continents with more than one million residents.