Local economies are the focus for this fifth article in the continuing Synapse series describing information resources for helping achieve sustainable communities. Currently many local communities are losing locally owned businesses and stable, ongoing jobs which pay adequate wages and benefits to support families. As this happens these communities are becoming more dependent on large businesses which are owned and controlled by outsiders including ones in the service and retail sectors which pay low wages. Communities are producing fewer and fewer of the goods and services which their citizens require to meet their basic needs.
Such economic changes contribute to outcomes which often include increased threats of job loss and unemployment, reduced investments in local businesses and other needed local services, shortages of affordable housing, greater threats to safety, greater economic inequities which include more families in poverty, and fewer and lower quality public services including education and health care.
Because of what is happening to local economies and the many negative impacts of these changes, citizens need to learn more about what can be done to create and maintain a local economy which contributes to a higher quality of life, not only for themselves but coming generations, greater social equity and the more protection for and conservation of the natural environment. Leaving these matters to the "experts" or the "usual decision makers" won't establish new directions nor create the influence, accountability and the widespread local involvement that will be necessary to achieve needed changes. Communities have many under-utilized human resources and other assets which, with new directions, strategies, strong grassroots support and broad-based actions, can achieve community sustainability.
The information resources described in this article focus on what needs to be done to strengthen local economies in ways which contribute directly to community sustainability. The strategies, tools, and examples in these resources will help equip individuals and groups to achieve the economic changes which directly contribute to a higher quality of life for everyone in the community and the protection of its environment. Implementing these changes will achieve more locally produced goods and services to meet the community's basic needs and increases in the number and quality of jobs and in the number and diversity of locally owned businesses. Such changes can contribute to improvements in fundamental educational and health services, and reductions in poverty and other inequities. Other positive outcomes for local citizens include higher levels of cooperation and mutual assistance. Such changes will lead to longer term grassroots participation and influence in direction setting and other actions to achieve more sustainable communities.
In the first part of this article, I will describe three key resources, one book and two web sites, which deal comprehensively with what needs to be done to achieve sustainable local economies. While most academic economists and other mainstream sources of information on the economy have largely ignored what is happening to local economies and what needs to be done, fortunately work has begun which addresses these serious problems and neglected potentials. Among these much needed information resources is the work of an unusual U.S. economist, Michael Shuman, which is reported in his 1998 book, Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age. The web sites described in the first part of this article report the ongoing work of two organizations dedicated to strengthening local economies: The New Economics Foundation, a British membership organization founded in 1986, and the Community Economic Development Centre founded in 1989 at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
In the second part of this article, I focus on one of the many tools being developed and used to strengthen local economies. This tool is popularly referred to as "local currencies" and sometimes referred to as "LETS" which are variously interpreted as "local exchange trading systems," or "local employment and trading systems." I decided to focus on this tool because of the strong interest which was expressed in the potential of local currencies for the Grand Traverse Bay Area by participants in recent Neahtawanta Center sponsored salons. These grassroots discussions which took place from August 1997 to April 1998 focused on mounting changes and threats to the quality of life and the environment as well as the untapped potentials for the Grand Traverse Bay area to become more sustainable. Furthermore, to following-up these salons the Center has obtained a small grant from the Kellogg Foundation to pursue work on local sustainability including the potential of a local currency.
The information resources on local currencies described here include seven web sites selected from a larger number of sites devoted to this topic. These selections were based on what each site contributes to the overall coverage of the topic and the quality of information in each of these sites.
The third and final part of this article describes four web sites which are examples of a much larger number of such sites which are created and maintained by local community sustainability projects. Through these projects, local groups are implementing different types of local currencies and related work on the local economy as an important element in broader and more comprehensive programs to achieve community sustainability. These four sites describe what is being done in Ithaca, New York; Olympia, Washington; Vancouver, Canada; and Nottinghamshire, England.
I. Developing Sustainable Local Economies
Going Local: Creating Self Reliant Communities in a Global Age, by Michael H. Shuman. New York: The Free Press, 1998. (cost $25.00)
The author is a progressive economist who sees the ultimately destructive impacts of free trade, economic growth and modernization on ecosystems, communities and families. This is the first of several books on this topic which I expect will be published over the next two to three years.
In the face of these increasingly visible and devastating impacts on local communities, Shuman provides his best thinking about how community economic development in the U.S. can succeed in this era of globalization. He devotes separate chapters to three different aspects of greater local self-reliance: "producing locally for local needs," "owning business locally," and "recycling finance locally." Also he gives attention to the importance of governments &emdash;both local and federal&emdash; "removing the enormous number of anti-community subsidies, tax breaks and regulations that govern trade, corporations and banks" as well as implementing "subsidies, investments, contracts and purchases primarily to community corporations."
Shuman concludes the book with a 10-step plan covering major things to be done to help a local economy be more self-reliant. The book also includes organizational contacts and web sites that can assist individuals and organizations to begin actions which help strengthen their local economy.
New Economics Foundation (NEF)
(sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/neweconomics/newecon.html)
NEF was founded in 1986 to "build a just and sustainable economy with ideas and actions that put people and the environment first." Located in London, England this membership organization "draws on a diverse range of practical experience and new thinking over the last decade, much of it among groups that have traditionally been marginalised. It aspires to be an international center for this type of work and certainly provides users an excellent overview and access to the practice of sustainable local economics which is occurring in Great Britain. Both through this site and its publications, the Foundation is an importantú contributor to work on community economics.
One section of this site is devoted to "community economics" because central to the Foundation's vision is what they describe as "autonomous communities with sustainable economies." Quoting from this section, "NEF's aim at a community level is to mobilize people for social and environmental change, to demonstrate change and to promote advocacy in relation to a just and sustainable economy. The program's aims are to improve the activity, effectiveness and profile of the new economy at the community level."
To do this, the program aims to provide communities with seven tools which they characterize as falling into two areas: (1)tools for mobilization which are community indicators and community visions and (2) tools for action which are third sector social auditing, development finance, local currencies, community economic action and social entrepreneurs. The site reports work they have done and are currently pursuing with regard to each of these seven tools.
In the area of local currencies they have produced, with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a publicly available report, LETS (Local Exchange Trading Systems) on Low Income. Currently they "are interested in piloting the American 'time dollars' initiative, where people receive credits for the care services they perform for others and which they can in turn spend on services for themselves."
One of the research associates of NEF is Richard Douthwaite, the well known critic of economic growth. Building on his work, NEF has developed and published Community Works, a pamphlet which describes 34 different options for local action on the economy. Other sections of this site are devoted to: new indicators, governance and accountability, community visioning, sustainable consumption and a listing of their publications with information on how to obtain them.
One part of this site titled, "governance and accountability," is very unusual and, in my judgment, exemplary. For this Foundation, one strand of the new economics is the need for accountability of those with economic power in order to develop greater social and environmental responsibility. NEF is pursuing three areas in this part of their work: (1) social auditing to assess the social impact of organizations, projects or activities, (2) value-based organization to analyze the interaction of organizations with society and the environment and (3) codes of conduct as practical means to securing minimum acceptable standards in the production and distribution of goods.
I commend the New Economics Foundation for applying their work on governance and accountability to their own organization and for including on this site the report of the social audit done on their own organization. I do not recall any other non-profit organization working for social change being so public in communicating a report of an evaluation of itself done according to the values, principles and practices advocated by the organization for adoption throughout the society.
Community Economic Development Centre (CEDC)
(www.sfu.ca/cedc)
The basic goal of this Centre at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada is to "encourage accountable, sustainable and appropriate community economic development in British Columbia." To realize this goal CEDC collaborates with communities in this province and with individuals, institutions and organizations working in the field of community economic development (CED). Their working definition of CED is "a process by which communities can initiate and generate their own solutions to their common economic problems and thereby build long-term community capacity and foster the integration of economic, social and environmental objectives." This definition of economic development is congruent with most definitions of local community sustainability.
One of the major goals of this Web site is publishing resource materials for use of citizens and their communities. The site with its own search engine is constantly being expanded and is a rich and complex one to browse. In July of 1998, this site received an award from Links2Go, a web search site, as one of the twenty-five best sites on the web for information about community development. Given my own positive experiences with this site as a learning resource, I applaud the recognition and respect it is receiving.
The "Gateway to Community Economic Development," one of fifteen sections in this site, is a permanent resource of CED materials. It is arranged to provide for a self-guided exploration of CED through an outlined series of texts on basic topics within this field as well as case studies, reports, projects, research, books, internet links and other materials.
The section of the site, "Sharing Stories: Community Economic Development in British Columbia (BC)," has been developed through a one year consultation by the B.C. Working Group on CED. This group of individuals and community organizations concluded: "CED has emerged as an alternative to conventional approaches to economic development. It is founded on the belief that problems facing communities&emdash;unemployment, poverty, job loss, environmental degradation, economic instability and loss of community control&emdash;need to be addressed in a holistic and participatory way." In further describing CED as an evolving, on-going process this group has identified and described the following principles as core to this distinctive type of community economic development: equity, participation, community-building, cooperation and collaboration, self-reliance and community control, integration, interdependence, living within ecological limits, capacity-building, diversity and appropriate indicators. This permanent, on-line resource is an extensive compendium of diverse examples of specific CED projects in B.C.
II. Local Exchange Trading Systems and Currencies
Local Exchange Trading Systems on Transaction NET
(www.transaction.net/money/lets/)
Here is a comprehensive and in depth information source on traditional and complementary currencies. I find this to be an invaluable educational and research resource to which I will frequently return as I continue to learn about this important subtopic within the larger topic of sustainable local economies.
This site has specific sections devoted to each of the following: "what is money?," "payment methods," "how money systems work," "design characteristics of currency systems," "social implications of currency systems' features," and a "glossary of terms." I particularly appreciated the description and analysis of national currencies and the practicality of having this glossary of terms because many of the terms used in this area are not the everyday words and concepts with which most of us are familiar. Additionally there are specific sections focused on: "national currencies," "complementary currencies," "Time Dollars," "Ithaca Hours," and "ROCS&emdash;a Robust Complementary Community Currency System Theoretical Model." Having a good description and analysis of national currencies helped me better appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of these traditional currencies which are both the context and part of the reasons for developing and implementing complementary currencies.
Each section of this site includes links and other references to additional information and examples in relation to the topics being presented. Also this site hosts an ongoing, open "Money Conference" to discuss insights on all kinds of money systems with the goal of synthesizing from shared experiences more efficient models of exchange media.
LETSystems
(www.gmlets.u-net.com/)
This site is considered by many people to be the main source of information about local exchange trading systems (LETS) as originally designed by Michael W. Linton in the early 1980s. These systems have been most extensively implemented in Great Britain, Australia and Canada and this site is maintained by LETSGO Manchester.
While the site contains much valuable information, little of it has been updated since August 1996 resulting in some subsections being out-of-date. The site is divided into three major sections: "The Theory," "The Practice," and "Discussion and Development."
The subsection, "LETSytems-A Guide," is the clearest and most succinct description I have found for this particular type of mutual credit system. In other subsections you will find answers to frequently asked questions about LETSystems, a design manual, and materials for administrators and users which can be down loaded.
As you learn about this type of mutual credit system, it will become apparent that Manchester, Great Britain is a community where extensive use, development and controversy concerning LETS has occurred. To understand this important example of the use of LETS, Sidonie Seron's research and writing is very helpful. Her extensive online document, "Local Exchange Trading Systems" describes the history of LETS in Manchester through 1995 as well as providing helpful descriptive and analytic information about LETS generally including its strengths and weaknesses. Seron also offers valuable perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of the emerging global economy and the implications for local economies and potential use of local currencies.
Community Currencies: A New Tool for the 21st Century by Bernard Lietaer
(www.transaction.net/money/cc/cc01.html)
Lietaer's site provides valuable background information on the topic of "community currencies." Information is provided in clearly written, short sections with the titles: "Aligning Moral and Economic Incentives," "Functions of Money," "Conflicts Among the Functions of Money," "Problems with Interest," "Reprogramming the 'Invisible Hand'," "The Validity of 'Booster' Currency," "Historical Precedents," "Community Currency," "Potential Misunderstandings," and "Conclusions."
Lietaer is a research fellow at the Center for Sustainable Resources of the University of California at Berkeley. His previous work in Europe includes being a professor of international finance, heading the Organization and Planning Division of the Central Bank of Belgium, and being a currency trader.
A partial draft of Lietaer's book in progress, Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity Toward a Sustainable Capitalism, is included at this site. He invites feedback on this writing as well as participation in an online conference pertaining to the topics about which he is writing.
Community Information Resource Center
(www.azstarnet.com/~circ/circhome.htm)
While this site describes itself as a "non-profit consulting service, networking hub, and information source connecting people and resources and fostering the development of healthy communities;" it is included in this article primarily because it is a central access point to the work of Thomas Greco who is an active and major U.S. theorist and consultant/practitioner of community currencies and community economics.
Both Greco and the organization identify their target clientele as: "groups and individuals working toward community improvement, self-reliance, social justice, economic opportunity and sustainability." For anyone interested in local currencies and other exchange systems, this site provides a very valuable set of links under the title, "Monetary Transformation."
In addition to providing an annotated listing of Greco's major publications (including his well regarded 1994 book: New Money for Healthy Communities), this site provides information on how to purchase these materials and offers online availability to some of Greco's current ?writings. I recommend his draft chapter titled, "Improving Local Currencies, or How to Make a Good Thing Better," (February, 1988) which provides a thoughtful critical comparison of the two most frequently found alternative, local mutual credit systems: local exchange trading systems and local currencies. In a similar vein, his June 22, 1998, short paper, "Proper Management of the System Trading Account in Mutual Credit and Local Currency Systems," addresses an important, little written about topic which is central to all types of mutual credit systems.
According to information on this site, Greco is working on a new book dealing with the economics of sustainable communities which should be of major interest to everyone working on community sustainability. Providing you only with the clue that Greco is working on a second new book with the title, "Beyond the State: Restructuring Economics, Politics and Society," I leave it to you to discover and enjoy other parts of this site.
International Journal of Community Currency Research
(www.lmu.ac.uk/dbe/cndem/ijccr/index.htm )
This is a pilot effort to attract and disseminate articles providing theoretical perspectives and empirical investigations of contemporary community currency systems as well as historical ones. Support for this effort comes from Latrobe University in Bendigo, Australia and Leeds Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom. To date only the first, 1997 issue of the journal appears on this web site along with information about how to contribute to future issues which the journal's organizers expect to be available online.
E.F. Schumacher Society: Local Currencies
(www.schumachersociety.org)
Here you will find interesting and useful information which includes a recent history of local currencies along with an important article by Robert Swann and Susan Witt, "Local Currencies: Catalysts for Sustainable Regional Economies."
Local Currency News, a newsletter devoted to this topic, is published by the Society but is not available online. Information on how to subscribe can be found here. Also this site includes a listing and brief description of local currency groups in North America which are already operating as well as ones in the planning stage.
The Schumacher Society site contains many other sections which report on other major activities of the Society which was founded in 1980 and is located in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts. Founders of the Society were Robert Swann and a group of Schumacher's American friends and colleagues. The emphases of the Society are: local currency experiments, regionally based economic systems, community land trusts, decentralism and human-scale societies.
The Center's resources include a five-thousand volume computer-indexed library of books, pamphlets, tapes and specialized bibliographies. In these holdings are all of E.F. Schumacher's books along with collections of written works by other pioneers of decentralism including Ralph Borsodi.
Newsletters of the Society are available online along with announcements of the organization's activities.
Time Dollar Institute
(www.cfg.com/timedollar)
Established by Edgar Cahn in 1995, the Institute describes itself as "?a non-profit corporation that creates and sponsors initiatives so that the beneficiaries of social programs can become co-producers of education, justice, self-sufficiency, opportunity, community development and social change." Unlike many tools for community development and local economic development, this one demonstrates in its rationale and operating applications serious attention to addressing injustice and making positive community contributions to increase social equity.
Time dollars are defined as: credits earned by volunteers providing sevices to others. A recipient of these credits can use them to purchase services they need from other people participating in a local Time Dollars system or these credits can be given as gifts to local people or organizations needing volunteers. This site includes very helpful descriptions of functioning time dollar programs in the following diverse and critically important areas of community functioning: juvenile justice and youth court, education and peer tutoring, legal representation, health care, neighborhood development, welfare to work employment agency, community safety and access for higher education and learning credits.
The Institute's web site is very comprehensive and regularly updated. The information ranges from valuable theoretical and practical explanations of time dollars in relation to the existing global economy to annotated listings of functioning time dollar programs which are organized by state within the U.S. Other sections of the site describe applications of this system of local community exchange in England and Japan.
It is clear that this tool for community building through exchange of services has been clearly thought through and practically developed and implemented both in diverse areas of community functioning as well as in diverse geographic communities throughout the United States.
Planners and implementers of local community sustainability efforts need to give careful attention to the potential applications of this tool within their own community.
III. Specific Examples from States, Provinces and Localities
Ithaca Hours
(www.lightlink.com/hours/ithacahours/)
Since it began operations in 1991, this local currency project has issued over $60,000 of its own paper money and has involved over 1,200 participants. Ithaca Hours serves the city of Ithaca and the surrounding Tompkins County in upstate New York. Its founder and leader, Paul Glover, says, "thousands of purchases and many new friendships have been made with this cash, and about $2,000,000 of local trading has been added to the Grassroots National Product."
Because of the success of Ithaca Hours locally and as a model for other localities, this site is highly recommended for people working to develop sustainable local economies. Here you will find a basic description of Ithaca Hours, a listing of the participating businesses, samples of the currency, success stories, an archive of major articles which have appeared in Hour Town, the newsletter, of this project, and a listing of the media coverage received by the project along with selected quotes from this coverage.
This site provides information about the availability of a Hometown Money Starter Kit. It provides start-up and maintenance information along with many of the successful policies, practices and tools which have been developed by the Ithaca Hours Project. To date, this kit has been sent to over 600 communities in 47 states. As part of its willingness to share information with other communities interested in local currency, this site provides a comprehensive listing of other local currencies now in operation as well as ones which are in the planning stage.
Sound Exchange
(www.olywa.net/vision)
Begun in 1996 as a project of Olympia, Washington's Sustainable Community Roundtable; Sound Exchange is responsible for the development and implementation of Sound Hours, this area's local currency. While it was initially modeled on Ithaca Hours, subsequently it has developed independently as its leaders have given priority to the distinctive needs and opportunities of the South Puget Sound area.
The site is maintained primarily for local participants in this currency who are seeking to receive and provide specific services and to participate in promoting and otherwise supporting Sound Dollars. Secondarily, the site is available locally for non-participants and others seeking to become members in order to exchange goods and services by using this currency and to outsiders seeking information to help develop other local currencies.
Here you will find a basic description of Sound Hours and answers to the most frequently asked questions concerning this currency along with a view of the currency itself. A well organized, full index listing participating individuals and businesses is available along with information about how to become a member. Here users of this currency can find a list of people desiring services from members of Sound Exchange along with descriptions of the services being sought.
This site maintains a list of other local currencies with an emphasis on the west coast. A link is available from this site to the Exchange's parent organization, the Sustainable Community Roundtable.
Vancouver Local Exchange Trading System
(www.vcn.bc./lets/)
The site is subtitled, "a community barter system." The system described is a small one, but its web site is very clearly structured and, as a consequence, quite informative. It appears that the site is fairly regularly updated at least relative to the size and activity of this trading system.
The site provides users from outside of this system with a specific example of a local exchange trading system (LETS) and clear information on how such a system functions. Using this site can also stimulate specific ideas based on the choices which have been made by the group of Vancouver citizens who planned and implemented this system.
The site also has a good set of links to other relevant sites dealing with local exchange systems and their relationships to community sustainability.
Sustainability in Nottinghamshire
(www.gn.apc.org)
Here you will find reports of the ongoing work on sustainability within the Shire of Nottingham, England. A shire is roughly equivalent to a county level political unit in the U.S. Nottinghamshire's sustainability efforts began in response to the United Nations' Earth Summit. A major report adopted by this meeting charged local governments to prepare "Local Agenda 21 strategies for sustainable development&emdash;balancing environmental, social and economic factors&emdash;to bring a better quality of life for all without damaging the planet's life support systems."
A description of this site is included in this article because Nottinghamshire's sustainability effort illustrates one where the local environment has received much greater attention than the local economy. Despite this imbalance, one section of the site reports on a conference held in this locality "to raise the profile of economic aspects." Not unlike other local sustainability efforts which began by emphasizing the natural environment, Nottinghamshire after five years of work recognized that insufficient attention had been given to the local economy. The section of this web site labeled "Project" and "Economy" reports on the Nottinghamshire conference, "Building a Sustainable Local Economy." The report includes the conference's major topics, presentations and planned follow-up actions. The foci of the conference were: poverty, self-employment, and the progress of larger businesses in contributing to local sustainability.
I also recommend examining the section of the site which is titled, "What the Heck is Sustainable Development?" More than most local sustainability projects, this one has developed brief answers to this often asked and important question.
These answers are informative and readily understandable.
On this site, other Notting-hamshire projects also are described. These projects are in the areas of health organizations, spiritual groups and multicultural groups. Often local sustainability initiatives have failed to explicitly incorporate and place major emphasis on issues and organizations in the area of health, multiculturalism and spirituality. Examining what Nottinghamshire has done in these areas can provide important ideas for other local sustainability projects. Also examination of these sections will show some of the difficulties and potentials for connecting these topics and their supporting interest groups with visions and actions for developing local economies.
Additional sections of this site are devoted to descriptions of what is being done by businesses, voluntary organizations and local governments within this shire to contribute to its Local Agenda 21 strategy and actions implementing the strategy.