COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO GLOBAL COMPLEXITY:
PLANNING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
AND THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT
by
Philip Barnes
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Urban
Affairs and Public Policy
Spring 2015
© 2015 Philip Barnes
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COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO GLOBAL COMPLEXITY:
PLANNING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
AND THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT
by
Philip Barnes
Approved:
__________________________________________________________
Leland Ware, J.D.
Director of the School of Public Policy and Administration
Approved:
__________________________________________________________
George H. Watson, Ph.D.
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Approved:
__________________________________________________________
James G. Richards, Ph.D.
Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Signed:
__________________________________________________________
Daniel Rich, Ph.D.
Professor in charge of dissertation
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Signed:
__________________________________________________________
Andrea Sarzynski, Ph.D.
Member of dissertation committee
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Signed:
__________________________________________________________
David Ames, Ph.D.
Member of dissertation committee
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Signed:
__________________________________________________________
William Ritter, Ph.D.
Member of dissertation committee
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Signed:
__________________________________________________________
Thomas Powers, Ph.D.
Member of dissertation committee
“Where are we going? Is this desirable? What should be done?
Who gains and who loses?” – Bent Flyvbjerg
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Until I completed the process of writing this dissertation, I did not fully
appreciate acknowledgements pages and phrases like, “This project would not have
been possible without the support of....” Now I do. There are a number of people who
deserve credit and my sincerest gratitude for nurturing and guiding me through this
process.
The dissertation committee served as a tremendous scholarly support group.
Dr. Sarzynski assisted with the early iterations of the research methods and was a
constant sounding board for ideas and proposals. Dr. Ames’s insight into the theory
and practice of ecologically-oriented planning were instrumental in bringing my nonexistent knowledge of planning up to speed and piecing together the identity of
Planning Sustainable Communities. Dr. Ritter read the initial (pedestrian) attempt at a
research proposal in 2011 and provided excellent feedback. And through
conversations with Dr. Powers, who graciously accepted my late invitation, I gained a
new awareness of the philosophy of technology and globalization.
There are several School of Public Policy and Administration faculty and staff
members who read portions of this document and discussed qualitative methods with
me: Drs. Danilo Yanich, Joseph Trainer, Tibor Toth, and John McNutt. I am grateful
for your assistance which improved the quality of this inquiry and helped me avoid
wrong turns and dead ends.
I thank my good friends and colleagues Amy Roe, Leon Mach, Edward Smith,
Job Taminau, Michael Humes, and Matt Stern who were always willing to swap
vi
dissertating techniques and allowed me to cathartically share my feelings of
frustration, burnout, and self-loathing. I learned that venting is a great way to flesh
out ideas and jump start the writing process. Thanks for always being great listeners.
I am also grateful to Kristen Hughes for her practical advice and well-timed nudge.
I must thank my family for their unwavering love and encouragement. My
parents, Nancy and Jack, and my sister and brother, Anna and Tony, never second
guessed my decision to leave engineering and return to school to study public policy.
I know that whatever happens next, they will provide me with unconditional support.
My (clairvoyant?) uncle Jim Barnes has a sixth sense and always seemed to know
when to call and chat to boost my morale. My uncle Michael Beauparland also took
interest in this research and showed me how to work through and deal with difficult
circumstances.
Countless thanks go to the individuals who volunteered their time to sit down
with me for an interview and share very personal feelings and aspirations for the
future. Special thanks are due to those in Media, Pennsylvania: Transition Town
Media, Media Borough government, the Environmental Advisory Council, the Media
Planning Commission, and the Delaware County Planning Department. I appreciate
you letting me pop in and out of your community during the course of these past few
years. It is stating the obvious to say that without you, this research would not be
possible. You are the ones making positive changes in Media. Your effort, labor,
energy, and commitment to improving the quality of your lives and the lives of others
is more impressive than the story told here. Hopefully I have done it justice.
I would like to thank the kind and committed individuals who work at
Transition US: Carolyne Stayton, Maggie Fleming, and Marissa Mommaerts. Thank
vii
you for accommodating my request to piggy back on your 2014 survey. Special
thanks, as well, to those who filled out the survey. Your responses are appreciated and
provided great depth to the research.
To my advisor and committee chair Dan Rich, what can I say? You saw early
on how the pieces of this puzzle could, though not necessarily would, fit together. I
didn’t. Your guidance, recommendations, and gentle nudges gave me perspective and
helped me see the pieces more clearly. Toward the end of 2014, each piece came into
focus and seamlessly interlocked to form the big picture. I can see it now, very
clearly. Is that enlightenment? You always made time to read my hazy drafts and
provide extensive and productive feedback, delineating the important details from the
inessential ones. Your willingness to sit and take time to discuss the research was
incredible. How you found all of this time in your busy schedule is a mystery to me,
but I can at least speculate that Nancy is pleased to see me finish (thank you, Nancy).
Beyond this dissertation and your tireless efforts to train me as a scholar, I must also
acknowledge your support for, and faith in, my classroom teaching. Thank you. I am
lucky to call you my mentor and my friend.
Finally, to Lee, the combination of your love and support for this journey was
the motivating force that propelled me forward during the slow and arduous periods as
well as the sprint to the finish. Your level of patience and understanding of the
research and writing process are truly remarkable, and it goes without saying that this
dissertation would not have been completed without your constant care. I owe you
more than is humanly possible to give in a lifetime, but that won’t stop me from
trying.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... xvii
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... xviii
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ xxi
Chapter
1
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1
1.1
1.2
This Inquiry ............................................................................................... 1
Global Complexity and Community Responses........................................ 5
1.2.1
1.2.2
1.3
Community Responses .............................................................................. 9
1.3.1
1.3.2
1.3.3
1.4
1.5
Complexity’s Inclusion ................................................................. 6
The Impact of Complexity on Local Communities ....................... 7
Local Community Definition and Rationale ............................... 10
Planning Sustainable Communities ............................................. 12
Transition Movement .................................................................. 13
Research Question ................................................................................... 14
Conducting the Inquiry ............................................................................ 14
1.5.1
Analytic Orientation .................................................................... 15
1.5.1.1
1.5.1.2
1.5.2
Data Collection for Planning Sustainable Communities
Response ...................................................................................... 19
1.5.2.1
1.5.2.2
1.5.2.3
1.5.3
Process of Thematic Analysis ...................................... 16
Potential Pitfalls of Thematic Analysis ........................ 18
Defining the PSC Discourse and Practice .................... 20
Interviews ..................................................................... 21
Field Observations ........................................................ 23
Data Collection for the Transition Movement Response ............ 23
ix
1.5.3.1
1.5.3.2
1.5.3.3
1.5.3.4
1.5.4
1.6
1.7
2
Defining the Transition Movement Discourse and
Practice ......................................................................... 24
Interviews with Transition Movement Activists .......... 25
Participant Observation ................................................ 26
Transition US Survey ................................................... 26
Analyzing the Community Responses......................................... 28
Anticipating the Conclusions .................................................................. 29
Outline of the Dissertation....................................................................... 31
EXPLORING GLOBAL COMPLEXITY ....................................................... 37
2.1
2.2
Introduction ............................................................................................. 37
An Energy and Resource Conscious Theory of Complexity................... 38
2.2.1
2.2.2
2.3
Globalization: A New Era of Complexity ............................................... 44
2.3.1
2.3.2
2.3.3
2.4
Theory of Growth in Complexity ................................................ 41
The Problem of too much Complexity ........................................ 42
Theory of Globalization .............................................................. 44
Delivering the Goods ................................................................... 46
Costs of Globalization ................................................................. 47
Environmental and Social Impact ........................................................... 55
2.4.1
Environmental Sources of Energy and Resources....................... 57
2.4.1.1
2.4.1.2
2.4.2
2.5
Impact of Extracting Environmental Sources of
Energy and Resources .................................................. 58
Impact of Consuming Environmental Sources of
Energy and Resources .................................................. 65
Social Sources of Energy and Resources .................................... 68
Technological Interventions .................................................................... 73
2.5.1
Conceptualizing Technology ....................................................... 74
2.5.1.1
2.5.1.2
2.5.2
Technology as Object-Subject ...................................... 75
Technology as Enabler ................................................. 78
When Technological Intervention Occurs ................................... 80
x
2.5.2.1
2.5.2.2
2.5.3
2.5.4
2.6
3
Unintended and Unanticipated Consequences of Technological
Interventions ................................................................................ 85
Dependency on Technological Interventions .............................. 88
Conclusion ............................................................................................... 90
THE COMMUNITY IMPACTS OF GLOBAL COMPLEXITY .................... 93
3.1
3.2
3.3
Introduction ............................................................................................. 93
Conceptualizing Community ................................................................... 94
The Forces Experienced by Communities ............................................... 95
3.3.1
3.3.2
3.3.3
3.3.4
3.4
3.5
Security ...................................................................................... 105
Material Comfort ....................................................................... 106
Convenience .............................................................................. 108
The Costs of Accommodating Global Complexity ............................... 110
3.5.1
3.5.2
3.5.3
3.6
3.7
3.8
Economic Liberalization ............................................................. 96
Commercialization ...................................................................... 99
Technicization of Social Interaction .......................................... 101
Knowledge Specialization and Skill Elimination ...................... 102
Benefits of Accommodating Global Complexity .................................. 104
3.4.1
3.4.2
3.4.3
4
Intervening to Resolve Social and Environmental
Problems ....................................................................... 81
Intervening to Satisfy a Felt Need ................................ 84
Technological Dependency ....................................................... 111
Loss of Self-Governance ........................................................... 113
Distributive Inequity .................................................................. 115
The Context for Community Response ................................................. 117
Criteria for Evaluating Alternative Community Responses .................. 118
Conclusion ............................................................................................. 121
THE PLANNING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES RESPONSE ............ 124
4.1
4.2
Introduction ........................................................................................... 124
Planning ................................................................................................. 124
4.2.1
4.2.2
Institutionalized Planning .......................................................... 125
Comprehensive Plans ................................................................ 126
xi
4.3
Planning Sustainable Communities Response....................................... 127
4.3.1
4.3.2
The General Sustainability Framework ..................................... 128
The PSC Response Framework ................................................. 130
4.3.2.1
4.3.2.2
4.3.2.3
4.3.3
4.4
Environment ............................................................... 130
Economy ..................................................................... 132
Equity ......................................................................... 133
Advocates of the PSC Response................................................ 135
The Key Themes of the Planning Sustainable Communities
Response ................................................................................................ 137
4.4.1
Smart Growth Land Use ............................................................ 140
4.4.1.1
4.4.1.2
4.4.1.3
4.4.1.4
4.4.1.5
4.4.2
Multi-Modal Transport Choice.................................................. 153
4.4.2.1
4.4.2.2
4.4.2.3
4.4.3
4.4.3.3
Green Collar Jobs ....................................................... 160
Promoting Local Business and Limiting the Big
Box ............................................................................. 162
Diverse, Affordable Housing Options ........................ 165
Public Participation and Place-Making ..................................... 168
4.4.4.1
4.4.4.2
4.4.4.3
4.4.5
Transit-Oriented Development ................................... 155
Transport System Connectivity .................................. 156
Bicycle and Pedestrian-Friendly Infrastructure .......... 158
Economic and Housing Opportunity ......................................... 159
4.4.3.1
4.4.3.2
4.4.4
Mixed Use Development ............................................ 141
Concentration of Populations ..................................... 144
Open Space/Ecological Preservation .......................... 146
Hydrology-Oriented Land Use and Development ..... 148
Local Agriculture........................................................ 151
Community Influence on Development Directions .... 169
Space- and Place-Making Opportunity ...................... 172
Historic Preservation .................................................. 173
Energy and Natural Resources .................................................. 175
4.4.5.1
4.4.5.2
Energy Efficient Buildings ......................................... 176
Green Building Materials and Construction ............... 177
xii
4.4.5.3
4.5
4.6
5
Renewable Energy Development ............................... 180
The Identity of PSC Response as a Planning Reform Effort................. 183
Conclusion ............................................................................................. 185
THE PSC RESPONSE IN MEDIA, PENNSYLVANIA ............................... 187
5.1
5.2
5.3
Introduction ........................................................................................... 187
Media Borough Profile .......................................................................... 188
Land Use and Planning in Media .......................................................... 190
5.3.1
5.3.2
5.4
Media Comprehensive Plan 2014 Update ............................................. 194
5.4.1
5.4.2
5.5
Current Land Use in Media ....................................................... 191
Previous Planning Efforts in Media .......................................... 193
Moving Toward Sustainability .................................................. 195
The Comprehensive Planning Process ...................................... 197
Elements of the PSC Response in the Plan ........................................... 200
5.5.1
Smart Growth Land Use ............................................................ 200
5.5.1.1
5.5.1.2
5.5.1.3
5.5.1.4
5.5.1.5
5.5.2
Multi-Modal Transport Choice.................................................. 205
5.5.2.1
5.5.2.2
5.5.2.3
5.5.3
Transit-Oriented Development ................................... 206
Transport System Connectivity .................................. 207
Bicycle and Pedestrian-Friendly Infrastructure .......... 208
Economic and Housing Opportunity ......................................... 210
5.5.3.1
5.5.3.2
5.5.3.3
5.5.4
Mixed-Use Development............................................ 200
Concentration of Populations ..................................... 201
Open Space/Ecological Preservation .......................... 202
Hydrology-Oriented Land Use and Development ...... 203
Local Agriculture........................................................ 204
Green-Collar Jobs ....................................................... 210
Promoting Local Business and Limiting the Big
Box ............................................................................. 211
Diverse, Affordable Housing Options ........................ 213
Public Participation and Place-Making ..................................... 215
5.5.4.1
Community Influence on Development Decisions..... 216
xiii
5.5.4.2
5.5.4.3
5.5.5
Energy and Natural Resources .................................................. 219
5.5.5.1
5.5.5.2
5.5.5.3
5.6
6
Energy Efficient Buildings ......................................... 219
Green Building Materials and Construction ............... 221
Renewable Energy Development ............................... 221
Conclusion ............................................................................................. 222
THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT RESPONSE .......................................... 224
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
Introduction ........................................................................................... 224
History of the Transition Movement Response ..................................... 225
A Current Profile of Transition ............................................................. 228
The Key Themes of the Transition Movement Response ..................... 230
6.4.1
6.4.2
6.4.3
Economic Localization .............................................................. 236
Community Building ................................................................. 239
Building Resilience ................................................................... 244
6.4.3.1
6.4.3.2
6.4.4
6.5
6.6
Energy Descent and Energy Transformation ............. 245
Reskilling .................................................................... 248
Politically Neutral Relationship with Local Government ......... 252
Discussion.............................................................................................. 255
6.5.1
6.5.2
6.5.3
7
Space- and Place-Making Opportunity ...................... 216
Historic Preservation .................................................. 218
Self-Reliant, Do-it-Ourselves Community Development ......... 255
Radical yet Accessible ............................................................... 257
A Transition to Libertarian Municipalism? ............................... 258
Conclusion ............................................................................................. 261
THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT RESPONSE IN MEDIA,
PENNSYLVANIA ......................................................................................... 263
7.1
7.2
Introduction ........................................................................................... 263
Transition Town Media ......................................................................... 264
7.2.1
7.2.2
7.3
History ....................................................................................... 264
Current Organizational Structure and Membership .................. 267
Elements of the Transition Movement Response in TTM .................... 269
xiv
7.3.1
7.3.2
7.3.3
Economic Localization .............................................................. 270
Community Building ................................................................. 274
Building Resilience ................................................................... 277
7.3.3.1
7.3.3.2
7.3.4
7.4
8
Politically Neutral Relationship to Local Government ............. 285
Conclusion ............................................................................................. 289
ANALYZING THE PSC AND TRANSITION MOVEMENT
REPSONSES .................................................................................................. 292
8.1
8.2
8.3
Introduction ........................................................................................... 292
Revisiting the Evaluative Criteria ......................................................... 293
Evaluating the Planning Sustainable Communities Response .............. 294
8.3.1
8.3.2
8.3.3
8.4
8.5
Technological Independence ..................................................... 318
Self-Governance ........................................................................ 321
Distributive Equity .................................................................... 323
Analysis of the Transition Movement Response ................................... 329
8.6.1
8.6.2
8.7
Addressing Community Impacts of Complexity ....................... 311
Mitigating Growth in Global Complexity ................................. 314
Evaluating the Transition Movement Response .................................... 318
8.5.1
8.5.2
8.5.3
8.6
Technological Independence ..................................................... 294
Self-Governance ........................................................................ 299
Distributive Equity .................................................................... 303
Analysis of the PSC Response .............................................................. 311
8.4.1
8.4.2
9
Energy Descent and Energy Transformation ............. 279
Reskilling .................................................................... 282
Addressing Community Impacts of Complexity ....................... 330
Mitigating Growth in Global Complexity ................................. 333
Conclusion ............................................................................................. 335
CHANGING DIRECTIONS .......................................................................... 341
9.1
9.2
Introduction ........................................................................................... 341
Capacity for Change .............................................................................. 342
xv
9.2.1
9.2.2
9.3
9.4
The Transition Movement Response in Transition ............................... 350
Recommendations for Collaborative Efforts ......................................... 356
9.4.1
9.4.2
9.4.3
9.4.4
9.4.5
9.4.6
9.5
10
Capacity of the PSC Response .................................................. 343
Capacity of Transition Movement Response ............................ 346
Input during Public Consultation Stages ................................... 356
Transition Initiative Planning Efforts ........................................ 357
Program Design and Implementation Services ......................... 359
Recommended Changes to Local Zoning Ordinances,
Regulations, and Codes ............................................................. 361
Tool Library............................................................................... 363
Transition Movement Advocacy for PSC Efforts ..................... 364
Conclusion ............................................................................................. 367
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 369
10.1 Research Summary ................................................................................ 369
10.2 Implications of the Research ................................................................. 372
10.2.1 Policy Implications .................................................................... 372
10.2.2 Future Research ......................................................................... 375
10.3 Contribution to Knowledge ................................................................... 377
10.3.1 Theoretical Contributions .......................................................... 377
10.3.2 Transition Movement Political Activity .................................... 379
10.3.3 Analytic Insights ........................................................................ 379
10.4 Envisioning a Model Community ......................................................... 382
10.5 The Future of Community in a Complex World ................................... 385
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 389
Appendix
A
B
OFFICIAL TRANSITION INITIATIVES IN THE UNITED STATES ....... 415
INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD PROJECT APPROVAL .................. 420
xvi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1:
Themes of the Planning Sustainable Communities response ................ 140
Table 5.1:
Land uses in Media, PA (Simone Collins, 2014, p. 45) ........................ 191
Table 5.2:
Housing availability in Media, PA (US Census Bureau, 2012) ............ 214
Table 6.1:
Themes of the Transition Movement response ..................................... 235
Table 8.1:
Analysis outcome matrix ....................................................................... 339
Table 9.1:
Proposed local policy changes to facilitate the Transition Movement
response (Calfee & Weissman, 2012) ................................................... 362
Table A.1:
List of official Transition initiatives in the United States ..................... 415
xvii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: Diminishing marginal returns to complexity........................................... 43
Figure 2.2: World population (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment
Agency, 2010; US Census Bureau, 2013) ............................................... 48
Figure 2.3: Worldwide Internet site hosting (Internet Systems Consortium,
2014) ........................................................................................................ 48
Figure 2.4: Worldwide mobile phone subscriptions (International
Telecommunications Union, 2014) ......................................................... 49
Figure 2.5: Global primary energy consumption (British Petroleum, 2014; PBL
Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2010; Smil, 2010;
US Census Bureau, 2013) ....................................................................... 50
Figure 2.6: Copper production (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment
Agency, 2010; US Census Bureau, 2013; US Geological Survey,
2014a) ...................................................................................................... 52
Figure 2.7: Iron ore production (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment
Agency, 2010; US Census Bureau, 2013; US Geological Survey,
2014b) ...................................................................................................... 53
Figure 2.8: Rare earth metal production (PBL Netherlands Environmental
Assessment Agency, 2010; US Census Bureau, 2013; US Geological
Survey, 2014c)......................................................................................... 53
Figure 2.9: World fish production (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2014, p.
4) .............................................................................................................. 54
Figure 2.10: Domestic water withdrawals (Flörke et al., 2013; US Census Bureau,
2013) ........................................................................................................ 54
Figure 2.11: Extraction of tar sands (image credit: Shell Oil under Creative
Commons license .................................................................................... 59
Figure 2.12: Extraction of tar sands (image credit: Dru Oja Jay under Creative
Commons license) ................................................................................... 59
xviii
Figure 2.13: The Deepwater Horizon gusher (image credit: US Geological
Survey) .................................................................................................... 60
Figure 2.14: Desert farming in the Wadi as-Sirhan Basin, Saudi Arabia (image
credit: Google, TerraMetrics) .................................................................. 62
Figure 2.15: Industrial agriculture west of Dodge City, Kansas (image credit:
Google, TerraMetrics) ............................................................................. 62
Figure 2.16: An open pit iron ore mine in Ishpeming, Michigan (image credit:
author’s photograph) ............................................................................... 64
Figure 2.17: Dumpsite in the Philippines (image credit: Global Environment
Facility under Creative Commons license) ............................................. 67
Figure 2.18: Percentage of Americans working 50 hours or more per week
(Williams & Boushey, 2010)................................................................... 71
Figure 2.19: Urbanization enabled by elevator technology (image credit: Samuel
Louise under Creative Commons license)............................................... 79
Figure 2.20: A US Air Force plane applying Corexit over the Gulf of Mexico
(image credit: US Air Force) ................................................................... 83
Figure 2.21: The global complexity dynamic .............................................................. 91
Figure 3.1: The global complexity dynamic and its impact on communities .......... 122
Figure 4.1: City Creek Center, a mixed-use development in Salt Lake City, Utah
(image credit: Photo Dean under Creative Commons License). .......... 143
Figure 4.2: A residential development in Pembroke Pines, Florida (image credit:
Google, Digital Globe, U.S. Geological Survey) .................................. 158
Figure 4.3: A parklet in San Francisco, California (image credit: Mark Hogan
under Creative Commons License) ....................................................... 164
Figure 4.4: A design charrette (image credit: Daniel Farrell under Creative
Commons license) ................................................................................. 171
Figure 4.5: Cob construction (image credit: Gerry Thomasen under Creative
Commons License) ................................................................................ 179
Figure 4.6: Levittown, Pennsylvania (image credit: Wikimedia Commons) .......... 183
xix
Figure 5.1: Media, Pennsylvania with borough limits in red (image credit:
Google, Digital Globe, U.S. Geological Survey, USDA Farm Service
Agency) ................................................................................................. 189
Figure 5.2: Existing Land Use in Media (Simone Collins, 2014, p. 44) ................. 192
Figure 5.3: Front cover of the 2014 Media comprehensive plan ............................. 197
Figure 5.4: Conceptual bike lanes in Media (Simone Collins, 2014, p. 80) ............ 209
Figure 5.5: Dining Under the Stars in Media (image credit: Facebook) ................. 212
Figure 6.1: Map of officially recognized Transition initiatives in the United
States ..................................................................................................... 229
Figure 6.2: Hand spinning yarn at a reskilling event (image credit: author's
photograph) ........................................................................................... 251
Figure 7.1: Flyer for Transition Town Media's first event (courtesy of Transition
Town Media) ......................................................................................... 266
Figure 7.2: The 2014 Media FreeMarket (image credit: author’s photograph) ....... 271
Figure 7.3: The FreeStore logo. ............................................................................... 272
Figure 7.4: The TimeBank Media logo.................................................................... 273
Figure 7.5: A solar array on a Transition member's home (image credit: Transition
Town Media) ......................................................................................... 280
Figure 7.6: An apiarist's homemade hive at a reskilling event (image credit:
author’s photograph) ............................................................................. 283
xx
ABSTRACT
Local communities are under increased pressure to develop socioeconomically by accommodating the forces of global complexity. Yet global
complexity is incredibly energy and resource intensive and generates net negative
consequences for environments and communities at all scales. Local communities
experience adverse impacts when they accommodate global complexity, especially
technological dependence, loss of self-governance, and inequitable distributions of
resources. Furthermore, when they accommodate global complexity, local
communities contribute to its growth which amplifies the impacts and ultimately
perpetuates a harmful cycle.
This dissertation identifies and evaluates two alternative development
strategies that are increasingly popular with communities, Planning Sustainable
Communities and the Transition Movement, to determine if they are effective and
viable responses to global complexity and its local impacts. Planning Sustainable
Communities is an urban planning reform effort that seeks to align planning practice
with the sustainable development framework. The Transition Movement is a
grassroots development strategy designed to prepare communities for the impacts of
peak oil, climate change, and a dysfunctional global economy.
Data is collected through a review of the responses’ literature, semi-structured
interviews with practitioners, participant observation, and an open-ended survey. The
borough of Media, Pennsylvania, where both responses are currently implemented, is
examined to add depth of understanding to the analysis. The data is thematically
xxi
structured and evaluated against relevant criteria: increasing community technological
independence, strengthening local self-governance, enhancing distributive equity, and
confronting and mitigating growth in global complexity.
The analysis demonstrates that both responses are effective and viable
development strategies that can generate net positive outcomes for local communities,
while the Transition Movement response is more effective than the Planning
Sustainable Communities response at mitigating growth in global complexity. To
improve their performance going forward, both responses must acknowledge,
confront, and avoid the potentially inequitable outcomes that could arise through their
local community development strategies. Finally, to generate co-beneficial outcomes
and amplify the positive outcomes for local communities, numerous recommendations
are offered whereby the two responses can cooperate and work together to achieve
shared goals.
xxii
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1
This Inquiry
These days, local communities face a series of development forces set in
motion by a global dynamic process seemingly beyond their control. Community
leaders and citizens are acutely aware of these forces, they perceive them, and they
feel that their choices for how to approach this development landscape are limited.
They often assume that alternative options are closed off, with the exception of
accepting the global movement. Communities are encouraged to accommodate these
forces, to make use of them whenever possible, and those that are successful are able
to prosper for a period of time. But through such accommodation communities further
encourage and strengthen the permanence of the forces and contribute to their
intensification. Those communities that fail to accommodate successfully experience
decline and struggle to maintain cohesion.
This community development dynamic is not new or unique to the twenty first
century. This is not the first time that communities have come under pressure to
navigate through unassailable forces. The Industrial Revolution – along with the
emergence of socially liberal, democratic, and capitalist governing structures – birthed
a remarkable array of seemingly uncontrollable forces on communities. Eighteenth
and nineteenth century markets and technologies arose and disrupted long-standing
social, economic, political, and cultural preferences. At the same time, a rapid
advancement in scientific knowledge confronted religious traditions and cosmologies.
1
The productive livelihoods of entire communities were fundamentally transformed by
new, more powerful energy systems based on coal. Cottage industries and guilds
became unsettled and were finally supplanted when initially clumsy and unreliable
machine-based production systems advanced to the point of being able to mass
manufacture standardized consumer goods.
Agricultural and peasant communities likewise experienced disruptive forces
beyond their control. With the exploitation of coal reserves, developments in
metallurgy, mechanical arts, and physics, new transportation systems and
infrastructures appeared rapidly. Isolated and remote populations witnessed firsthand
how the railroad network expanded horizons. Urbanization – the concentration of
people into cities and factory towns – became an immensely powerful force in the
northern United States and in Western Europe, both for relocating people from remote
areas and as new markets for agricultural products and surpluses. The nuclear
community and family structure of rural agricultural environments were altered
forever as railroads arrived and industry-catalyzed urbanization accelerated in earnest
(Mumford, 1934).
Another wave of forces befell communities with the development of the
automobile and the parallel expansion of infrastructure. The interstate highway
system achieved what the railroads could not: rapid, personalized, long-distance travel.
Fuelled by a new energy source, petro-powered automobiles accelerated and expanded
the urbanization process into a suburban project, thus causing further disruption to
communities. Trade networks expanded as well, continuing the long term
dislodgment of local political and economic networks. Once the transportation
infrastructure was built, the northern factory towns and cities began to experience
2
divestment and decline. The Sun Belt emerged as a highly desirable place to live and
work which led to a southward migration in the United States. Communities in places
like Cleveland, Ohio, Flint, Michigan, Gary, Indiana, Buffalo, New York, and
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became visible symbols for Rust Belt decay.
This is not the first time that communities are confronted with unassailable
forces and asked to navigate the path to a better life. Yet something is different today.
A new dimension to the process is emerging. It was not present in the past, or at least
not as prominent, and it has qualitatively transformed the nature of the community
development process such that the stakes are much higher. The risks are more severe
now, socially and environmentally, and the implications extend beyond the boundaries
of any particular community.
What is happening in community development today does not operate
according to the long-standing theory of markets and technology, in fact what is
occurring directly contradicts this theory. For centuries, changes and transformations
in communities have been rationalized – to the point of being championed – by noting
that creative yet destructive tendencies of markets and technologies are constantly at
play, compelling communities to evolve and adapt. There are always some
communities that do not evolve and adapt and they become victims. Victors, on the
other hand, are those that anticipate market and technological dynamics, plan for the
consequences, compete, and take full advantage of the development process. While
there are both losers and winners in the community development process driven by
markets and technology, and while it is certainly lamentable that some communities
invariably become victims, the outcomes are rationalized based on a theory of
resource efficiency, specifically that the scarce resources that flow through the
3
community development process are put to their highest and best use. Thus in the end
the victims do not lose in vain, but rather their failure ensures that precious resources
are not wasted. Today, this development theory – rationalized through an optimally
efficient relationship between markets, technologies, and resources – does not deliver
the predicted outcome. Resources are not being put to their highest and best use. The
longstanding and fiercely defended theory of efficient allocation of resources via
markets and technology is called into question by a new, emergent variable:
complexity.
Because of complexity, or more precisely growth in complexity, the world’s
resources are rapidly being depleted. Instead of being put to their highest and best use,
resources are simply being used up, and not for narrow or specific applications but
rather to maintain an unnecessary and overly-complex system of markets and
technology. The present development process is using resource to undermine itself, in
clear violation of the principle of efficient allocation of resources. Communities that
accommodate and engage in market dynamics and compete for scarce resources are
paradoxically the ones generating inefficiencies. A phenomenon akin to the Tragedy
of the Commons is occurring where communities that succeed and prosper according
to traditional development logic actually contribute to the process of resource
exhaustion because their success induces growth in complexity.
This inquiry is based on the premise that given present conditions and
dynamics, the well-travelled community development strategy has lost its ability to
deliver the promised benefits at minimal cost. It must be abandoned for new
alternatives that are consciously designed around the social and environmental
challenges facing the world today. Now, more than ever, communities must summon
4
the available knowledge, tools, and courage to fully exercise their agency and chart a
new path. Failure to do so will eventually lead to significant deterioration of social
and environmental conditions, not just for specific communities or individual
ecosystems, but for the planet as a whole. Rejecting the status quo, changing course,
and addressing the fundamental challenges of community development is not only
possible, it is inevitable. Change can come voluntarily, with certain yet minimal
sacrifice, or change will be involuntary, in which case the negative consequences will
be far worse. This research project is part of an ongoing, worldwide, collaborative
effort to advocate for and help guide communities on the intentional pathway.
This dissertation examines and analyzes the current community development
challenge. The research begins with an in-depth investigation of the emerging
dynamic that is increasingly influencing community development. It explores how
this dynamic is intensifying a series of forces impacting communities. The inquiry
then identifies and evaluates two community development alternatives – Planning
Sustainable Communities and the Transition Movement – that address these forces and
seek to mitigate the impacts. The research explores how the two development
alternatives are expressed and implemented in an actual community. Finally, the
dissertation analyzes the two strategies for their ability to meet the emerging
challenges of community development and it concludes on their effectiveness,
capacities, and prospects.
1.2
Global Complexity and Community Responses
Contemporary critics and observers have portrayed today’s forces in different
ways, for example by emphasizing various features of political theory, modernization,
capitalism, markets, as well as technology and resource utilization (Eisenstein, 2007;
5
Foster, 1999; Norgaard, 1994; Scott, 1998). More recent characterizations are
grounded in theories of globalization (Bauman, 1998; Friedman, 2005). The impact of
globalization undoubtedly generates a new dimensionality to development forces and
the implications for communities at all scales, from villages to nations. Just as
communities in the past were subject to pressures they could not contain or manage,
globalization seemingly functions independent of human control and input. There is
no center to globalization, no easily identifiable nexus of power, nor is there a human
or technological core. Thus from the community’s point of view, the perception is
that the globalization phenomenon is an autonomous, naturally occurring, and
unavoidable process. Its pressures and impacts are real, and most importantly they
cannot be stopped because the process is so protean and uncontrolled. Thomas
Friedman (2005, p. 469), writing about globalization, simply argues that “you can’t
stop it, except at great cost to human development.” Communities interpret these
present conditions and predictions to mean that globalization will almost certainly
intensify going forward, and the sooner the community accommodates these
immutable pressures, the better off it will be. This is not incorrect, it is simply
incomplete. Most depictions of community change, like those of globalization, do not
account for the underlying factors driving the dynamic process forward; a process that
appears self-reinforcing and poses significant challenges including environmental
degradation, the depletion of natural resources, and the growing social costs of
technological development and intervention.
1.2.1
Complexity’s Inclusion
What is missing from previous accounts is the cause and consequence of
complexity in social and technological systems. Complexity in a system, such as a
6
society or a technological network, is characterized by a series of parameters including
the number of discrete or individual parts, the degree of connectivity between them,
and the relative differentiation or specialization between parts. System complexity is
present when each of these disparate, differentiated parts is integrated into a
functioning whole. Magnitudes of complexity in social and technological systems lie
on a spectrum, from the simple to the complex.
This inquiry investigates the impact and implications of complexity for
community development choice. The research analyzes the manner in which
complexity, at a certain point, significantly magnifies and intensifies the forces
experienced by communities and becomes a powerful and pervasive force in its own
right. The inquiry describes a process through which growth in complexity becomes
normalized as a result of technological choices. A vicious cycle is perpetuated
wherein complexity catalyzes increased resource utilization, environmental costs, and
social problems, all of which are addressed with technological interventions that
ultimately induce further growth in complexity. The research examines how
community development options are narrowed as complexity grows. The inquiry
investigates the hidden yet significant costs of complexity and the challenges faced by
communities in paying those costs. In summary, this research explores the process
generating higher and higher levels of complexity and the challenges complexity poses
for communities.
1.2.2
The Impact of Complexity on Local Communities
The growth in complexity engenders higher costs that are paid for with energy
and resources. Energy and resources are exploited from two locations. The first is
from the earth itself. Advanced technologies and methods are employed to extract
7
energy, resources, and environmental services from nature. Thus the increased
demand for energy and resources is partly met by a simultaneous increase in the
exploitation of these inputs from the earth due to the enhanced speed and efficiency of
extraction enabled by highly-advanced technological interventions. Second, the
exploitation of energy and resources occurs in the social realm which is especially
consequential for communities.
When complexity increases, greater demands are placed on a community’s
time, energy, and resources which weakens community self-reliance and capacity for
autonomous choice. Consequently, as a result of complexity and the energy and
resource costs, there are three significant yet under-examined adverse impacts that
weakened communities experience. The first is greater community dependency on
advanced technologies. In the name of efficiency and effectiveness, communities
come to rely on a tremendous world-wide technological system to meet even their
most basic needs such as food and clothing. The second impact is a loss of capacity
for self-governance. Communities are pressured to cede control of decision-making
authority which ultimately limits their ability to govern and manage their energy and
resources as they see fit. The third significant impact, related to but separate from the
first two, is increased inequities. Whole communities (as well as specific segments of
communities) are given privileged access to the benefits of development outcomes
while the costs are borne by other communities (or different segments within the
community). Each of these community level impacts is more prevalent today, both in
quantitative and qualitative terms, with the rapid emergence and continual increases in
complexity.
8
1.3
Community Responses
At this point, the critical reader may be tempted to argue that the inquiry has
fallen into a determinist trap; that the forces on communities are unassailable,
inevitable, and that the only option communities have is to accommodate present
conditions and hope to succeed. This supposition is incorrect. There is indeed
structure to the world that restricts development options available to communities.
Communities are not completely free floating units with the infinite and unbounded
ability to think, know, and a do as they please. Still, given the existing structural
limitations, it does not follow that there is zero possibility for communities to exercise
agency and make decisions to respond to the prevailing forces.
One such community response, the anti-globalization movement, demands the
right to self-rule, self-sufficiency, and autonomous decision-making. This response is
well-known and many positive outcomes have been achieved in spite of the immense
and relentless pressures on communities (Agarwal & Narain, 1995; Clapp &
Dauvergne, 2011; Feffer, 2002). The anti-globalization response actively resists
modern development forces and this requires strong buy-in from all community
members. This community option is often perceived by outsiders as overly-radical
because it does not conform to development orthodoxy, indeed it confronts it head on.
Another form of resistance can be seen in the Amish communities that for centuries
have worked diligently to repel and resist modern development practices and preserve
a traditional way of life (Kraybill, 2001).
Yet while active community resistance may be highly effective in some cases
(witness the resilience of the Amish), it is not politically feasible or socially acceptable
for most communities. There are very few communities in the United States that
could reasonably be considered as full-scale examples of community resistance to
9
development. This research focuses on alternatives that many communities may find
credible and applicable to their current situation and predicament and that enables
them to exercise agency without withdrawing from development altogether.
Any viable community response must therefore be politically, economically,
and socially acceptable and also practically feasible and accessible. Taking these
criteria into account, two community development responses that have gained growing
salience among scholars and community advocates are the Planning Sustainable
Communities response and the Transition Movement response. Clearly, these are not
the only two community development options that meet the criteria for this research.
Emerging movements like eco-villages and community land trusts satisfy the criteria
as well and this research is an in-depth analysis of several options rather than a survey
of all possible options. Furthermore, this analysis focuses only on the local
community scale rather than considering communities of varying scales. Before
previewing the Planning Sustainable Communities and Transition Movement
responses, this matter of scale must be addressed.
1.3.1
Local Community Definition and Rationale
For this research, the concept of local community is characterized by a number
of dimensions. First, the research focuses on small-to-medium sized communities
situated at the conceptual gradient between “town” and “small city.” Distinct spatial
boundaries do not necessarily have to be crystal clear, as in a well-defined perimeter
around the community, but neither is there complete ambiguity or uncertainty over
where the community begins and ends. The population of a local community is
between a few thousand people and several tens of thousands of people. The types of
communities that are excluded from the scope of the research are isolated
10
communities as well as dense urban communities representative of inner-city
locations.
There are a number of reasons why the research is limited to small-to-medium
size communities that are neither remote nor centralized in mega-regions. First, from
a practical standpoint, any research project where “community” has no well-defined
geographic scale will lack feasibility. Second, communities in the small-to-medium
range are large enough to be relevant yet still small enough to be accessible. Millions
of people live and work in small-to-medium sized communities in the United States
and are impacted by the development decisions taken, so the research results can make
a positive contribution to their lives. In small-to-medium size communities,
contacting and accessing individuals and decision-makers is relatively easy and the
richness of the collected data enhances the analysis. Third, the decision to focus on
small-to-medium communities is personal. The author was born and raised in a small
city with a population of approximately 6,000 people. There is a level of familiarity
with this size of community, the nature of the challenges faced, and the dispositions
and attitudes of the individuals that comprise these sorts of communities.
In the United States, many local communities that satisfy the conceptual
dimensions described above are engaging in the Planning Sustainable Communities
and Transition Movement responses. These two community development strategies
are the focus of this research. It is therefore important to briefly preview their
definitions of the development problem currently facing communities and the practical
strategies they propose to resolve the problem.
11
1.3.2
Planning Sustainable Communities
The Planning Sustainable Communities (PSC) response is an evolution of the
discipline and practice of urban and town planning and is influenced by the design
considerations advanced through the framework of sustainable development (Wheeler,
2013, Chapter 2) . The response is motivated by the desire to find a more appropriate
and “sustainable” balance of economic, environmental, and equitable development
outcomes at the community level. Local community governing councils are initiators
and implementers of the PSC response, but the response’s primary agents and
advocates are practicing planners, planning theorists, and private developers and their
consultants such as architects.
The PSC response is employed when a municipal government initiates a
strategic and intentional development plan and solicits expertise and recommendations
from professional planners, planning theorists, and developers. In return, the
response’s advocates seek to improve the social and environmental aspects of life
within the community by proposing development directions that align with the
principles of sustainability. Many villages, towns, and cities across the United States
have solicited and implemented sustainability-oriented plan as a general purpose
method for creating a more livable built environment. Popular initiatives within such
plans include curbside recycling and composting, expanding bicycle infrastructure,
efficient water use, storm water management, community agriculture projects,
affordable housing, low-impact development, enhanced public transportation options,
green space preservation, air and water pollution control, and renewable energy and
energy efficiency projects. Plans for creating sustainable communities may be larger
comprehensive or master plans but also ad hoc plans that still fall under the banner of
sustainability, such as the creation of a community-wide bicycle network.
12
Community member input and influence is a significant factor that contributes
to the scope, scale, and ultimate effectiveness of the PSC response. Correspondingly,
municipalities containing residents who are engaged in and passionate about
environmental and social issues will have more robust sustainability plans than
municipalities containing residents who are agnostic or hostile on those same issues.
1.3.3
Transition Movement
The Transition Movement (or simply Transition) is a resolutely bottom-up
community development response informed by the social, economic, and ecological
implications of three global phenomena: peak oil, climate change, and a dysfunctional
global economy. Seeking to fill the void left open by what is perceived to be
governments’ inattentiveness to these issues and their inability to directly mitigate,
adapt, or even acknowledge the seriousness of these issues, the Transition Movement
response stresses the critical importance of community planning and action to confront
the inevitable consequences of a world with scarce and expensive oil, a changed
climate, and a global economy that struggles to grow. The response’s grassroots
approach to development is directly influenced by the belief that if the political and
economic status quo is maintained, serious national governmental responses to
effectively prevent and mitigate peak oil, climate change, and macroeconomic
dysfunction will be both ineffective and tardy (Hopkins, 2008, 2011a).
There are number of actions and projects that all Transition communities are
encouraged to take such as developing an energy descent plan, building partnerships
with local governments, and creating individual working groups to focus on areas of
interest to the response’s community development agenda (Hopkins, 2008). Working
groups center on topics like local food security, local economic revitalization, energy
13
conservation, and mental healthcare. The Transition Movement response takes pains
to be as open and inclusive as possible so any community member who wishes to
become involved is welcome to join a local Transition chapter – what is frequently
called an “initiative” – or else start one if no initiative is present in their community.
Transition initiatives typically form in smaller towns or medium sized cities, although
some act as regional coordinating hubs for smaller, surrounding groups. At the
beginning of 2015 there were 153 initiatives in the United States and nearly 1,200
around the world (Hopkins, 2014; Transition US, 2015).
1.4
Research Question
This dissertation involves a rigorous, multi-faceted analysis of the problem
surrounding contemporary community development and an evaluation of two
alternative approaches to community development. Consequently, there is a two-part
research question for this research: What are the causes and consequences of the
community development problem, and do the PSC and Transition Movement
responses pose viable, alternative community development strategies?
1.5
Conducting the Inquiry
To conduct the analysis and answer the research question, an appropriate
methodology must be accompanied by valid, applicable, and feasible data collection
and analysis methods. This section explains and rationalizes the approach to
conducting the inquiry and it clearly identifies and explains the multiple methods by
which data was gathered and analyzed to answer the research questions.
14
1.5.1
Analytic Orientation
The PSC and Transition Movement responses are deeply embedded in
community discourses and practices and find expression in multiple forms such as
texts, language, and social action. Fundamentally, the responses are value-rational
community development strategies which are not fully reducible to discrete,
quantitative bits of information. They can be broken down, but only to a point, and
they must be viewed holistically in addition to a careful inspection of component
parts. The contributions of complexity theory further support an analytic orientation
of holism, limited-reductionism, and non-linearity. Given the transdisciplinary and
multi-dimensional nature of the research topic, the inquiry adopts a qualitative analytic
orientation – one that is appropriate for complex and non-linear phenomena – that
allows the incorporation of multiple types of data collected through various methods.
Discourse, content, and narrative analyses are options, but these all contain one
significant drawback: the analysis is conducted at the level of words, text, and
language. These options are overly narrow because social action and behavior cannot
be incorporated to the extent the research questions demand. Even though community
development strategies are initially expressed through discourse, they are also
implemented by human agency and collective action so a qualitative analytic
framework that can accommodate discourse and practice is required (Flyvbjerg,
2001).
Thematic analysis is well suited to this type of research (Guest, MacQueen, &
Namey, 2012). Critically, thematic analysis is broad enough to permit both discourse
and social practice to be integrated into a comprehensive inquiry. Many different
types of data – interview transcripts, field note write-ups, published texts – can be
integrated into the same analysis which offers flexibility to context and discipline.
15
Moreover, thematic analysis is an acceptable technique for interpreting complex
phenomena and processes in numerous disciplines of inquiry (Boyatzis, 1998, p. 6)
because it demands an established, iterative, and self-reflexive process that, when used
with skill, penetrates through the superficial to reveal in-depth knowledge and
understanding (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Finally, thematic analysis is frequently used
by social science researchers because it embodies ‘do-ability’, or feasibility (Marshall
& Rossman, 2010). Importantly, from the standpoint of answering research question,
the ability to incorporate both discourse and practice into thematic analysis gives the
appropriate tools for determining how the PSC and Transition Movement responses
define the community development problem, as well as their operational strategies for
addressing the problem. Discourse and practice combine into problem-solving
themes.
1.5.1.1
Process of Thematic Analysis
Braun and Clarke (2006) describe an iterative process of thematic analysis for
psychological studies that is also useable for social science disciplines such as public
policy and community development studies. They discuss the step-by-step “phases”
that researchers must progress through in any thematic analysis. They note, however,
that thematic analysis is not “a linear process of simply moving from one phase to the
next. Instead, it is a more recursive process, where movement is back and forth as
needed, throughout the phases” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 86).
The process and phases of thematic analysis are consistent with the general
guidelines for conducting a qualitative inquiry (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The first
phase is immersion in the data, whether that is reading the relevant literature,
conducting and transcribing interviews, or engaging in participant observation. The
16
goal of this phase is to familiarize oneself with the subject and to begin to identify
patterns of text, language, or action that may serve as codes. In the second phase, the
researcher builds off the insights gained in data immersion to create codes, define
them clearly, and then apply them to the data while considering the implications for
answering the research question. Following this phase, the researcher surveys the
coded data, looks at their descriptions and their applications, and then combines the
codes into relevant and coherent themes. These themes must be clearly articulated and
defined because the analysis is performed on the themes. It is important to define the
themes that were created, but it is equally important to identify those themes which are
absent. In other words, the researcher must be aware of what themes are missing that
could be needed to answer the research question. If there are key themes that are
absent, it is not imperative to create them by ‘forcing’ codes together or ‘squeezing’
the data. Instead, in the fourth phase the researcher should revisit the data and if he or
she cannot locate the appropriate combination of codes, then the absence of a theme
can become an integral part of the analysis. Also, in this phase, the researcher begins
to superimpose the themes on the theoretical framework to judge their appropriateness
and coherence. If the themes do not fit the theory and do not help to answer the
research question, then the researcher must step back and revisit phase three. In the
fifth phase, the researcher interprets the themes through the inquiry’s theoretical
perspective and does so with the objective of answering the research question. In the
sixth and final phase, the research findings are written up and presented for critical
review and judgment by peers. In most cases, however, the researcher is constantly
writing up and self-reflecting on bits and pieces of the report as he or she moves
through the phases.
17
In this research, the NVivo qualitative data analysis software package was used
to organize and code the data (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013). Given the transdisciplinary
nature of the research topic and the fact that data was collected through multiple
methods and hence took multiple forms, data management software facilitated and
streamlined the coding process. In an effort to stay as close to the true meaning of the
words as possible, the in vivo coding technique was applied (Saldaña, 2013). After
coding all interview transcripts and field memos, themes were identified by the
popular recommendation by Ryan and Bernard (2003), namely to create themes based
on repetitive ideas and words, as well as indigenous concepts that are familiar to
interviewees and actors but foreign to outside listeners and observers.
1.5.1.2
Potential Pitfalls of Thematic Analysis
Like all methods of analysis, thematic analysis has potential pitfalls. Boyatzis
(1998) notes that the tendency for the researcher to project his or her own emotions
and values into the interpretation is a major obstacle to effective thematic analysis.
Indeed, this is perhaps the major criticism of interpretive research in general although
it need not be an insurmountable impediment to high quality social inquiry (Flyvbjerg,
2001). The complete absence of a researcher’s ideological stamp on qualitative
research is an unattainable ideal; the problem comes when projection dominates an
inquiry to the extent that it leads to uncritical and dubious truth claims, for example
self-confirmatory results. Still, there are key steps that any researcher can take to limit
projection. First, researchers must establish rigour by transparently defining the terms
and process of the research methods so that others may appropriately judge the quality
of the findings (Baxter & Eyles, 1997; Schwartz-Shea, 2014). Not only does
methodological transparency make projection easier to identify, it guides and
18
motivates the self-reflective researcher to avoid the pitfall. Second, researchers using
thematic analysis can minimize projection by “sticking close to the raw information in
the development of themes and code” (Boyatzis, 1998, p. 13). This means, among
other things, “getting close to reality” and “looking at practice before discourse” in
order to take a more comprehensive and critical view of the data (Flyvbjerg, 2001).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the best defense against projection is for the
patient and self-reflective research to momentarily take critical pauses during the
inquiry and evaluate their biases, assumptions, and how those ideologies might be
infiltrating into the research. If projection is identified, it is necessary to step back and
reread the data and interpretation with a self-critical eye.
1.5.2
Data Collection for Planning Sustainable Communities Response
The PSC response conceptualized in this research is not yet a concrete and
clearly identifiable discipline or practice. Rather, PSC exists at the confluence of
several related fields such as urban planning, landscape architecture, agriculture,
economic development, housing development, historic preservation, local governance
and administration, and environmental management and consulting – truly a
transdisciplinary mixture of professions and activities. Thus, in order to describe the
PSC response and its community development strategy (in addition to analyzing that
strategy and comparing it to the Transition Movement response) it was necessary to
collect data through multiple mediums using multiple methods. Three main data
collection techniques were used. The first is a purposeful literature review. The
second data collection technique, employed after the literature review, was semistructured interviews with advocates for the PSC response. In addition, data was
collected through field work by attending government meetings and hearings focusing
19
on the process of creating and implementing the PSC response. Each of these data
collection methods is described in greater detail below.
1.5.2.1
Defining the PSC Discourse and Practice
No definitive book or volume on Planning Sustainable Communities exists.
Instead, the impetus for creating PSCs, their essential features, and how they are
operationalized from theory into practice are contained in a diversity of texts.
Identifying which publications contained discussions of the various elements of the
PSC response was therefore an important first step in defining the discourse,
extracting key themes, and analyzing those themes. Through close consultation
between this dissertation’s author and a planning specialist at the University of
Delaware, seven books were identified as essential and highly relevant to the discourse
and practice of Planning Sustainable Communities. The seven books are Timothy
Beatley and Kristy Manning’s (1997) The Ecology of Place: Planning for
Environment, Economy and Community, Bill McKibben’s (2008) Deep Economy: The
Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, Patrick Condon’s (2010) Seven Rules
for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post Carbon World, Eric
Allison and Lauren Peters’s (2011) Historic Preservation and the Livable City, Mark
Roseland’s (2012) Toward Sustainable Communities: Resources for Citizens and their
Governments, Catherine Tumber’s (2012) Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of
America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-carbon World, and Stephen Wheeler’s
(2013) Planning for Sustainability: Creating Livable, Equitable, and Ecological
Communities.
In an effort to save time on coding hundreds of pages of text, each book was
read with the goal of directly identifying common themes for further analysis. After
20
the books were read, notes on each text were compared to distill the themes. The
themes were then arranged into groups of meta- and sub-themes and content
describing each theme was written. This thematic structure was returned to the
planning expert for peer review and verification that an acceptable representation of
the PSC response’s discourse and practice was achieved. After viewing the themes,
their relationships, and content, the expert suggested modifications and revision.
Those modifications were made, and the end result of this process was the PSC
response themes.
1.5.2.2
Interviews
In addition to collecting data through an immersion of the relevant literature on
the PSC response, it was essential to speak to advocates in the field to discover their
perspectives on the appropriate quantity and quality of planned community
development. Interviews to confirm the themes and deepen understanding of the
response were therefore an integral method of data collection for this qualitative
inquiry (King & Horrocks, 2010). A purposeful approach was taken when deciding
which individuals to interview. There were a number of factors and criteria that were
weighed and evaluated against each other in the interviewee selection process. First,
the obvious decisions was made to interview individuals who are trained planners –
urban/town planners, architects, developers, etc. Second, a combination of
interviewees in both the public (local government and citizens) and private
(commercial and corporate) sector was desired. Third, and perhaps most importantly,
because the Borough of Media, Pennsylvania was used as an example of the how the
PSC response is expressed through the re-writing of a comprehensive plan, it was
21
imperative to interview those individuals who played a significant role in the
development and writing of the Media Borough Comprehensive Plan.
Based on these criteria, six individuals were interviewed for the PSC response.
Because the key themes were already identified through immersion in the PSC
literature, six interviews was deemed sufficient to complement the existing data
(Guest, Bunce, & Johnson, 2006). Interviews were semi-structured and lasted
approximately two hours. Three planning consultants who worked on the Media
Borough Comprehensive Plan were interviewed. One is employed in the private
sector while the other two are public sector employees. In terms of institutional
policy- and decision-makers and in Media, one member of borough council was
interviewed as was a top-ranking borough administrator. A Media resident, who
happens to be an environmental planner in the public sector and who volunteers on the
Media Environmental Advisory Council was also interviewed. The final interviewee
for the PSC response was a Delaware-based architect who emphasizes the inclusion of
sustainability principles in diverse policy areas such as urban planning, architectural
design, public health, and transportation.
The initial survey of the PSC literature proved to be extremely helpful in
crafting interview questions that would elicit relevant and targeted responses.
Questions differed slightly for each interviewee based on their position in society
(public sector, private sector, government employee, etc.) but primarily revolved
around several key areas of the PSC response: the values underpinning the response,
the dimensions of a sustainable community and why they are important, how the
dimensions are operationalized, and the barriers or challenges to success. Audio from
each interview was recorded, fully transcribed, and returned to the interviewee who
22
then had the opportunity to clarify and amplify any points they believe needed
refinement.
1.5.2.3
Field Observations
Two Borough Planning Commission Meetings and two Environmental
Advisory Council meetings were attended in Media. A major public meeting and
comment period on the Comprehensive Plan was also attended. This meeting was
held before the entire borough council, code enforcement officer, borough solicitor,
borough manager, and several borough administrators.
1.5.3
Data Collection for the Transition Movement Response
Unlike the PSC response, the Transition Movement response is easily
identifiable. The wider movement is well branded since it has a figurehead and
spokesperson, a logo, organizing bodies, a clear message, and an unambiguous set of
community development guidelines (Hopkins, 2008, 2011a). Still, data for the
Transition Movement response was collected in a similar manner. It began with a
review of the documentation about the movement. A Transition group, called
Transition Town Media, is active in the Media community so interviews were
conducted with members of this group. Additional interviews were conducted with
Transition members in several other Transition initiatives besides Media. Participant
observation with the Transition Town Media group offered nuance and understanding.
Finally, the main body organizing Transition initiatives in the United States freely
shared nation-wide survey data they collected in the summer of 2014.
23
1.5.3.1
Defining the Transition Movement Discourse and Practice
First, a review of the official Transition-published literature was undertaken.
The review included formally published material, the movement’s most popular and
widely read blogs, and websites for individual initiatives. The most important
document for the Transition Movement discourse is The Transition Handbook: From
Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. Written by the movement’s founder and
figurehead Rob Hopkins (2008), this book catalysed the growth and spread of the
movement. It is, in short, a call to communities to take action and prepare for a world
that has passed the point of peak oil and significant climate change impacts. After the
success of The Transition Handbook, Hopkins (2011a) wrote a more detailed and
refined volume entitled The Transition Companion: Making your Community More
Resilient in Uncertain Times. Blogs include transitionnetwork.org, the official blog
for the global movement, as well as transitionus.org which is the blog covering the
movement in the United States. Also included is transitionvoice.com, a Transitionthemed website that is operated privately and independently of the formal movement.
Finally, most officially recognized initiatives maintain a website.
Unlike the literature review for the PSC response, the literature review for the
Transition Movement was not intended to quickly distil the response’s themes. The
contours of Transition’s preliminary themes were indeed sketched during the literature
review, but the expectation was that the themes would be further refined and identified
after collecting primary data through interviews and participant observation with
Transition Movement activists.
24
1.5.3.2
Interviews with Transition Movement Activists
Twelve Transition Movement activists from six different initiatives
participated in semi-structured interviews, each one lasting approximately two hours.
The chain referral sampling technique was used to identify interviewees with the first
three interviewees selected from the Transition Town Media group. At the end of
each interview, interviewees were asked to recommend other participants, specifically
someone they believed would express alternative points of view. By explicitly
requesting diverse political and economic perspectives, the study avoids a latent
sampling bias in the chain referral technique (King & Horrocks, 2010). After two
consecutive rounds of chain referrals, nine Transition activists in four separate
initiatives were interviewed. The three remaining interviewees were identified by
reviewing the websites for each US initiative. These three final interviewees were
selected because their initiatives’ projects are ambitious. Activists in one initiative, in
which two interviewees were interviewed simultaneously, are currently writing an
‘Energy Descent Action Plan’ for the community. In another initiative, the individual
who was interviewed successfully mobilized support and created a Transition
initiative in a deeply conservative part of the country.
Interviewees’ perspectives on the goals and actions for Transition’s community
development response were consistent with each other and the literature, and key
themes were identified after six interviews. Given these conditions, twelve interviews
were deemed sufficient to attain theoretical saturation (Guest et al., 2006). Each
interview targeted several key areas: the values underpinning the Transition
Movement response’s development philosophy, its broader goals, the types of projects
undertaken by the initiative including the methods of implementation and the barriers
or challenges to success. Audio from each interview was recorded, fully transcribed,
25
and returned to the interviewee who then had the opportunity to clarify and amplify
any points they believe needed refinement.
1.5.3.3
Participant Observation
The Transition Movement response prioritizes practice and social action above
the level of theory and discourse (Hopkins, 2013). Therefore, direct experience with
an active initiative is essential to understand and interpret the movement’s
development response. Participant observation with the Media, Pennsylvania
initiative afforded the opportunity to collect rich field data on the multiple ways in
which the community development response is implemented through social action.
Between June, 2012 and January 2015, a number of Transition-sponsored
events and activities were attended in Media. At each event, the researcher
participated and engaged with the group. The first introduction to the Transition
initiative in Media was a pot-luck dinner and film screening of the peak oil
documentary “A Crude Awakening.” Three annual strategic planning meetings,
where activists gather to chart their course for the coming year, were attended. Four
reskilling events were attended – one each on beekeeping, bicycle maintenance,
recycling, and home fermentation and food preservation. In addition, gift economy
events were attended, namely a sewing swap, two FreeMarket events, and the grand
opening of the Media FreeStore.
1.5.3.4
Transition US Survey
In the summer of 2014, Transition US (TUS), the national coordinating hub for
Transition initiatives in the United States designed a survey for the Transition
initiatives in the US. TUS was administering and managing the survey, and a
26
representative was contacted before distribution with a request to include several
questions specific for this inquiry. TUS agreed and seven open ended survey
questions were added.1
The survey was designed and distributed through SurveyMonkey online
software. TUS employed multiple methods to contact each initiative and ask that one
representative fill out the survey. TUS advertised the survey on their main website.
They also included an announcement in their monthly newsletter and sent periodic
reminders directly to representatives of each initiative. The survey opened on June
2nd, 2014 and closed on July 15th, 2014. Over that time period, thirty seven of the 151
officially recognized initiatives responded to the survey. There were ten responses
from non-official initiatives. These non-official initiatives carry out Transition-related
activities, although usually not at the same scale and level of organizational
sophistication as official initiatives. Thus the total number of unique responses
received was forty seven. Unfortunately, it is not possible to calculate a precise
response rate because it is unclear how many non-official initiatives there are and how
many were contacted by TUS’s mailing.
On September 21st, 2014, TUS decided to reopen the survey for another two
weeks until October 5th, 2014. They contacted initiatives that did not respond during
the initial June 2 – July 15 period and asked that they fill out the survey. During the
second period, fourteen responses were received; eleven more responses from
officially recognized initiatives and three from non-official initiatives. In total, over
1 https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HQF9GZN
27
the two survey periods, a total of forty eight responses were received from official
initiatives and thirteen from non-official initiatives.
1.5.4
Analyzing the Community Responses
After the data was collected and assembled into relevant themes for the PSC
and Transition Movement responses, the themes were analysed. In this analysis, the
individual themes were assessed for the theoretical and practical contributions to
successfully address the costly community-level impacts previewed in Section 1.2.2.
Specifically, the impacts of technological dependency, loss of self-governance, and
distributive inequities were inverted so that the themes for each response could be
analyzed for positive contributions and improved conditions of technological
independence, strengthening local self-governance, and enhancing distributive equity
at the community scale. The objective of the analysis was to determine which themes
have the potential to ameliorate each of these impacts and which themes have the
potential to exacerbate them.
The analysis also determined the responses’ ability to confront and mitigate
global complexity. This was achieved by investigating the response’s actions,
technologies, and patterns of consumption to determine if they foster simpler
arrangements. Simplification involves the intentional, calculated process of
disengaging from global complexity, reducing consumption of prodigious quantities of
energy and resources, and substituting locally-produced basic goods and services for
those delivered through globalized systems. Simplification also requires communities
to discover ways to solve problems without increasing global complexity.
Once the two responses were analyzed, and once their impact on global
complexity was determined, the inquiry investigated the institutional capacity of both
28
community development responses to effect change and deliver beneficial outcomes.
This was accomplished by exploring the implementation strategies of each response –
an interpretation that was based on the empirical observations from the field work and
an analysis of relevant combinations of each response’s themes. The two responses
were then compared and contrasted with each other to determine the various ways in
which they can cooperate and work together to achieve mutually-beneficial results.
1.6
Anticipating the Conclusions
The results of the analysis are as encouraging as they are humbling. There are
elements of the PSC and Transition Movement responses that are laudable while
others warrant criticism. On the one hand, both responses improve community
conditions when evaluated against the criteria of technological independence and selfgovernance. On the other hand, with respect to an equitable distribution of resource,
costs, and benefits, the responses leave open the possibility for nominal improvements
and perhaps even digression. In terms of the balance of strengths and weaknesses,
each response offers a marked improvement over the status quo.
With respect to their effectiveness in confronting and mitigating global
complexity directly, the Transition Movement response offers greater promise than the
PSC response. While the PSC response proposes development actions that could
positively impact global complexity, the response could actually exacerbate global
complexity depending on how the actions are interpreted and implemented. There are
dialectic, conflicting relationships within the PSC response that generate uncertainty
about its ultimate ability to confront and mitigate global complexity. The Transition
Movement response offers a much clearer and direct challenge to global complexity
by emphasizing community self-reliance. Unambiguous emphasis is placed on the
29
importance of creating simple, local systems of production and consumption so that
communities can begin to disentangle themselves from global complexity.
The capacity to effect change is high with the PSC response because it is often
initiated and implemented through local governments who hold tremendous authority
to shift public policy directions. For the Transition Movement response, the
theoretical capacity for change is low because it is exercised and implemented through
bottom-up committed action of community members who have limited time and
resources to spend on volunteer efforts. In reality, however, the level of political
activity exhibited by the Transition Movement response is much higher than expected
for a supposedly non-political movement. Evidence collected during this inquiry
shows that some Transition initiatives are pushing the boundaries of political
neutrality, to the point that certain groups are deeply involved in policy advocacy in
their communities, with some individual activists running for and winning seats in
local council elections. This suggests that the Transition Movement response’s
capacity to effect change and deliver positive outcomes – at least for politically active
initiatives – is greater than previously assumed.
In the final analysis, both responses are viable and effective community
development strategies and should be pursued simultaneously despite their respective
weaknesses. These weaknesses can be overcome or minimized, and recommendations
are given for how this can be accomplished. If the responses incorporate this
dissertation’s recommendations, cooperate, and are implemented together, local
communities will benefit from improved livelihoods, cleaner environments, and
greater autonomy to make choices on their development trajectories. At higher scales,
growth in global complexity and energy and resource utilization will decelerate.
30
1.7
Outline of the Dissertation
Chapter 2 focuses on the attributes of the emerging complexity-driven process
that is increasingly influencing the structural parameters for community development
and it addresses the factors contributing to the production and reproduction of the
process. The chapter begins by constructing a theoretical framework built from the
insights of the historian and anthropologist Joseph Tainter. Tainter sketches the
contours and impacts of complex societies. Tainter’s core theory is that societies
invariably solve the problems they face by increasing complexity. While increasing
complexity is often an effective problem solving strategy, Tainter also argues that
more complexity brings increased energy and resource costs. These costs, which are
not initially apparent but can be significant over long time frames, are a major source
of social and ecological destabilization. The chapter then builds upon Tainter’s theory
and introduces two technological contributions into complexity. The first contribution
deals with extractive technologies. As society develops and grows in complexity and
as it incurs greater energy and resource costs, advanced technologies are developed
and used to extract and consume ever-greater amounts of energy and resources from
the environment and from society itself. This extractive and consumptive
technological behavior causes severe social and environmental problems. To resolve
these problems, the second technological contribution is introduced. Technological
interventions are employed to address the problems caused by resource extraction and
consumption. While they are often effective in moderating the problem in the short
term, these techno-fixes do nothing to resolve the root cause of the problems and high
levels of complexity remains in place. Over the long term, problems are exacerbated
because these advanced techno-fix solutions enable society to increase complexity
further, thus leading to greater energy and resource utilization and reinforcing the
31
damaging cycle of social, technological, and environmental relations. Chapter 2
concludes by investigating the social and ecological conditions arising from attempts
to sustain an overly-complex global system.
Chapter 3 examines how the complexity-driven process identified in Chapter 2
exerts forces on local communities, and what outcomes are typically produced from
those impacts. The analysis opens with a conceptualization of community, and details
the multiple ways in which local communities experience modern, overlapping
development forces. Economic liberalization, particularly in the highly competitive
globalized world, is an immensely powerful source of pressure. Communities seeking
prosperity are encouraged to promote global economic development by releasing
political and economic controls, liberating resources, and specializing their remaining
industries. Commercialization, combined with the mass production and marketing of
consumer goods, is another pervasive force exerted on communities. Another force
that is recently emergent and rapidly expanding is the technicization of social
interaction. Intra- and extra-community communication occurs through a
technological medium, thus qualitatively transforming the human experience. A
fourth force is the specialization of knowledge systems, coupled with the elimination
of others, where formalized education becomes siloed and labor becomes deskilled.
When communities accommodate these forces, and when they make development
decisions to incorporate and embed themselves into the emerging global society, they
undoubtedly benefit in key ways. Specifically, communities are promised
comfortable, convenient, and secure livelihoods. Yet following the traditional
approach to community development does not come without costs. These include
dependency on fragile, advanced technologies and technological systems, a loss of
32
self-governance, and severe inequities in the distribution of resources, rights, and
responsibilities. In the current development context under the influence of global
complexity, these costs are growing and are more apparent while the benefits are
becoming harder to obtain and retain. Furthermore, communities are locked in a
feedback link wherein they are pressured to accommodate and therefore strengthen the
very forces that challenge their own autonomy and capacity to shape their own future.
Chapter 4 describes and explores the Planning Sustainable Communities
response that could potentially address the demands and impacts identified in Chapter
3. The chapter emphasizes the themes that were extracted from the data collection and
classification methods described earlier (document reviews, interviews, and field
observations). Through the explication of the themes, the chapter describes the nature
of the PSC responses as well as its operational and organizational characteristics. The
chapter begins by describing the theory, discourse, and practice of sustainability
planning, its historical development, and how it is applied at the community scale.
The PSC response is then broken down into five meta-themes related to its community
development agenda: smart growth land use, multi-modal transit-oriented
development, housing and economic opportunities, energy and natural resource
development, and public participation. The chapter provides a detailed description of
PSC responses and a thematic structure for further analysis on its potential to
successfully navigate the forces impacting local communities.
In Chapter 5, the PSC response’s themes are applied to the Media,
Pennsylvania community where the response is currently being implemented. In
Media, the PSC response finds a clear expression in the 2014 update to the borough’s
comprehensive development plan. The chapter therefore provides an insightful lens
33
through which to view a community as it addresses development forces using the PSC
response, and consequently, how the response’s themes are translated from the realm
of theory and discourse into practical action.
Chapter 6 focuses on the Transition Movement response and its community
development strategies. The chapter begins by describing the Transition Movement’s
theory, discourse, and practice and it traces its historical development and geographic
spread since it began in 2008. Chapter 6 emphasizes the themes that were extracted
from the data collection and classification methods (document reviews, interviews,
participant observations, and a survey) and the Transition Movement response is
broken down into those key themes: economic localization, community building,
resilience building, and politically neutral relationships to local governments.
Through the explication of these themes, the chapter describes the nature of the
Transition Movement response and it offers a thematic structure for further analysis.
In Chapter 7, the Transition Movement response’s themes are applied to the
Media, Pennsylvania community to permit a more nuanced, realistic understanding
and appreciation of the response. There is an active Transition initiative operating in
Media – Transition Town Media – founded in 2009. Transition Town Media has
designed and implemented a vast array of projects and programs that directly align
with the Transition Movement responses’ themes described in Chapter 6. The chapter
highlights the manner in which the Media community addresses development forces
using the Transition Movement response, and it demonstrates how the response’s
themes are manifested in a real community.
Chapter 8 evaluates whether or not the PSC and Transition Movement
responses pose viable and effective strategies for communities to meet the emerging
34
development challenges posed by global complexity. Both community responses are
analyzed in greater detail through the framework developed in Chapters 2 and 3. The
themes identified in Chapters 4 and 6 that are integral to the PSC and Transition
Movement responses respectively are evaluated through the theoretical lens of global
complexity and its impacts. In this analysis, the themes are individually assessed for
their theoretical and practical contributions to successfully navigating forces at the
community level. Specifically, the issues of technological independence, local selfgovernance, and distributive equity are examined for each response. The analysis
conducted in Chapter 8 demonstrates that the two responses are well constructed and
can offer positive outcomes for communities in the areas of technological
independence and self-governance. Positive impacts on distributive equity, on the
other hand, cannot be taken as self-evident or guaranteed. Indeed there is a possibility
that for both responses, equitable distributions of benefits and costs could become
skewed across demographic categories. The analysis then considers the ability of each
response to effectively confront and mitigate global complexity. The Transition
Movement response shows greater promise than the PSC response because the former
unambiguously proposes simpler, more localized development activities while the
latter offers community development strategies that are more dialectical in nature, thus
leading to greater uncertainty about the ultimate impact on global complexity.
Chapter 9 analyzes and elaborates on the capacity of both community
development responses to effect change and deliver positive outcomes. The PSC
response maintains a greater capacity to effect change because it is supported and
channeled through institutionalized local governing structures that retain authority to
assemble public resources for large, community development investment. The
35
Transition Movement response is limited in its capacity to effect change because the
catalyst for implementation is grassroots, community-led action independent of formal
governing structures. The response’s politically neutral approach to local
governments is a significant barrier to increasing its capacity, yet the research
highlights a politically active subset of the movement that is becoming directly
involved in advocacy and policy-making. Chapter 9 then identifies and analyzes areas
where the responses can work together to achieve progress toward shared goals.
The concluding chapter begins with a comprehensive summary of the research.
It goes on to discuss the policy implications of the research and highlights areas where
future research is needed. The chapter then discusses the new knowledge generated
through the inquiry, especially the theoretical and analytical contributions to
knowledge. The dissertation concludes with an optimistic vision of community
development and a reflection on the meaning of community in a complex, globalized
world.
36
Chapter 2
EXPLORING GLOBAL COMPLEXITY
2.1
Introduction
This chapter analyzes the dynamic process that is causing destabilization of
social and environmental systems, leading to resource exhaustion, while diffusing the
growing costs of development across the planet. It identifies the important attributes
of an emerging global dynamic process that is increasingly setting the structural
parameters for community development and it assesses the factors that reproduce and
maintain the process. The analysis illuminates the presence of a historically unique
relationship between social action, technological development and use, and
environmental ramifications. Central to the process is a dramatic increase in
complexity. In this chapter, the nature and consequences of complexity are explored
Complexity is integral to the emerging social, environmental, and
technological process that structures community development. The core theoretical
framework informing this analysis is Joseph Tainter’s elaboration of complexity and
its associated and unavoidable energy and resource costs: more complexity
necessitates more energy and resource production and consumption. The implications
of Tainter’s theory are discussed with a particular emphasis on the rapidly globalizing
and complexifying world. Globalization increases complexity and the costs and
consequences of energy and resource extraction, consumption, and methods of waste
disposal.
37
In an effort to understand and analyze how complexity is produced and the
factors contributing to its reproduction, this chapter delves into the philosophy of
technology. Technology is conceptualized as a dualistic object-subject construction
which is essential for reasserting humanity’s control over technology by putting
technological decision-making into perspective. Contemporary decisions regarding
technology are interventionist, meaning that technologies and technological systems
are innovated and employed to address the social and environmental problems caused
by human actions. These techno-fix decisions, which are cultural preferences in
highly-developed societies, do not resolve the underlying cause of the problem and
they frequently have the side effect of enabling society to expand its actions and
increase complexity further. Techno-fix decisions therefore exacerbate conditions
over the long term because growth in complexity is technologically enabled, adding to
an already-substantial energy and resource imperative. The chapter concludes by
highlighting the fact that there are always unintended and unanticipated social and
environmental consequences to all technological interventions, especially when
complexity is prominent.
2.2
An Energy and Resource Conscious Theory of Complexity
Simply stated, a complex society is one that contains a large number of
individuals, a high degree of connectivity between them, and a high degree of
differentiation and specialization in the division of labor and knowledge systems (La
Porte, 1975; Tainter, 1996). All societies are complex to varying degrees. Some
societies have tended to become more complex with time, for example Western
38
society, while others have remained at a relatively stable level of complexity through
time, for example many indigenous communities throughout the world.2
Like any complex physical, biological, or ecological system that contains a
number of interconnected parts, a social system requires some degree of complexity to
maintain organization. Organization within a thriving complex system like a society is
never static. There is always dynamic evolution, decay, emergent properties, and
reinvention, but on the aggregate the whole system is able to remain active and avoid
complete breakdown or collapse as long as there is a healthy level of complexity. Yet
complexity, and the organization it offers, comes at a cost. Joseph Tainter (1988,
1996) argues that the cost of complexity – like the costs of physical, biological, or
ecological complexity – is paid for by energy and resource flows through society. All
societies, from the most simple to the most complex, require energy and resources to
survive and are in a continuous quest to secure and consume energy and resources in
order to maintain their organization. When a society harnesses energy and resources
and brings them under control, those inputs are consumed by the society and go
toward supporting, and maintaining, its complexity. If a society cannot secure energy
and resources, it will not be able to support its own complexity and will be required to
simplify its organizational form. Tainter (1988) refers to this situation as societal
collapse, which he defines as a rapid decrease in complexity. He argues that societies
undergo rapid simplification because they experience shortages of the energy and
2 More complexity in a society does not necessarily imply a more sophisticated or
advanced stage of development. A small, simple indigenous community that
maintains a relatively equitable distribution of labor and knowledge is not intrinsically
less advanced than a large complex Western society with a high degree of
specialization.
39
resources upon which the maintenance of their complexity, and hence organization,
depends.
There is a positive yet non-linear relationship between complexity and energy
and resources. Tainter (1988, 1996) argues that because all societies must procure and
consume energy and resources to maintain social organization, the more complex a
society becomes the more energy and resources it requires to maintain its organization.
In other words, the cost of an increase in complexity must be paid for by additional
energy and resource procurement and consumption. This result is intuitive when one
considers the different dimensions of complexity – number of people, the interactions
between them, and the specialization of roles or functions. Increases in any of these
three dimensions will increase the complexity of the organized whole, translating into
increased energy and resource costs. For example, in a society where birth rates
exceed death rates, the population will increase and, all else being equal, the society
will become more complex. The additional complexity due to increases in population
will also require additional energy and resources because people need food, clothing,
shelter, governance, and other essential services. Additional specializations or
differentiations in social functions also increase complexity and incur increased
energy and resource costs, although the relationship is not as apparent as with
population increases. Just as the division of labor in production expands total output,
a social division of labor expands the horizon of social possibilities. All else being
equal, expanded output, or social possibilities, translates into increased energy and
resource utilization. This is supported by evidence that indicates that in Paleolithic
societies, the number of distinct social personas numbered no more than a few dozen
while in modern industrial societies, which require incredible amounts of energy and
40
resources to maintain organization, the number of distinct social roles numbers more
than one million (McGuire, 1983).
2.2.1
Theory of Growth in Complexity
Do societies first increase complexity, bringing additional energy and resource
costs? Or do societies first procure and consume energy and resources which affords
them space to increase their complexity? Tainter (1996, 2011a) writes that the former
is more likely the case, although he is careful to avoid making a universal declaration
of his claim. According to Tainter, increases in complexity precede increases in
energy and resources because, he argues, societies increase in complexity to solve the
problems they face without considering, or even being aware of, the long-term costs.
For Tainter, investing in complexity is therefore a problem-solving response rather
than a response to added opportunities to exploit energy and resources. Tainter (2000)
further argues that societies always face problems, and that investment in complexity
is the default problem-solving response.
There is a deterministic quality to Tainter’s theory. Societies solve the
problems they face by increasing complexity, as if investment in complexity was the
only way to resolve problems. This leads him to define a sustainable society as one
where energy and resource production and consumption continually grows to meet the
cost of inevitable increases in complexity. He claims that society must seek to
increase energy and resource production to solve social and environmental problems
today and in the future, and that voluntary simplification or a gradual reduction in
complexity would be a self-defeating response (Tainter, 2011a, 2011b). There is a
distorted double-bind logic in Tainter’s definition of sustainability; no society in
history has ever been sustained by continual growth in any indicator, let alone
41
complexity. Indeed a strong argument can be made that the most sustainable societies,
if that is defined as the ones that have lasted the longest, are the simplest ones (Davis,
2007). Additional criticism of Tainter’s deterministic logic can be leveled against his
understanding of what constitutes a problem (Alexander, 2014). Depending on how
problems are conceptualized and gain acceptance among the public, multiple
outcomes become possible. For example, if society were to identify and construct too
much complexity as the most important and pressing problem, Tainter’s suggestion to
increase complexity further becomes untenable.
2.2.2
The Problem of too much Complexity
Tainter extends his theory of complexity to argue that societies increase in
complexity to solve problems they face and that initial investments provide substantial
returns as the ‘lowest hanging fruit’ of solutions is plucked (Strumsky, Lobo, &
Tainter, 2010; Tainter, 2000, 2011b). For each additional increase in complexity, the
returns and benefits remain positive yet are less impactful because the easy low-cost
solutions have already been captured. Over time, as a society continues to increase
complexity and as the incremental benefits get smaller and smaller, society reaches a
point where additional increases in complexity will actually bring decreased benefits.
At this point, the energy and resource costs of solving a problem outweigh the
benefits, and the society then becomes susceptible to rapid simplification. Tainter
(1988) frames the process in economic terms and calls this phenomenon diminishing
marginal returns to complexity.
Tainter’s theory of diminishing marginal returns is presented graphically
below. Initial investments in complexity return benefits because energy and resources
costs are reasonable and affordable. Further increases in complexity provide
42
additional benefit, but at a reduced rate. When point (C1, B1) is reached, the costs are
so high that additional increases in complexity bring with them decreased benefits.
Figure 2.1: Diminishing marginal returns to complexity
Any increase in complexity beyond point (C1, B1) is undesirable because the
“benefits actually decline to those previously available at some lower level of
investment” (Tainter, 1988, p. 121). But because problem solving follows Tainter’s
determined logic, he argues that all societies should prioritize the securitization of ever
more energy and resources to consume when problems are encountered and
complexity invariably increases. In Tainter’s version of a sustainable society, new
43
energy and resources will always be available so that the complexity-benefit curve is
elongated and point (C1, B1) is shifted to the right on the graph (Tainter, 2011a,
2011b). However, it is evident from his own theory that beyond point (C1, B1),
complexity itself becomes a problem. A society at point (C2, B2) on the graph would
not want to solve the problems it faces by increasing complexity simply because
complexity itself is a serious problem.
2.3
Globalization: A New Era of Complexity
Globalization is perhaps the defining characteristic of the 21st century, and can
be described as a process of rapid acceleration and convergence in economic, political,
technological, ecological, and cultural integration among societies. The exact timings
and origins of a global social system are disputed, but it is widely accepted that the
globalization process quickly accelerated following the Bretton Woods Conference at
the conclusion of World War II, and the subsequent institutionalization of free trade
and economic agreements in GATT were catalyzed by rapid technological
advancements in transportation, shipping, and communication technologies (Clapp &
Dauvergne, 2011).
2.3.1
Theory of Globalization
Advocates of globalization offer an extended version of liberal, market-based
economic theory when they argue in support of the process. Globalization’s
proponents claim that efficiencies in production – whether through technological
innovations, enhanced worker productivity, or both – lead to dramatic economies of
scale. This, in turn, increases supply of goods and lowers the overall cost. However,
globalization’s proponents note that such economies of scale are not evenly distributed
44
geographically and that some locations, by virtue of their proximity to certain natural
resources, labor markets, or policy structures, are able to produce goods at lower costs
than others. This comparative advantage naturally compels nations, regions, and
communities to specialize in the production and distribution of certain goods.
Physical and geographic barriers to production and distribution, which were once
limiting factors to economic activity, are becoming easier to transcend as
communication and transportation technologies advance and accelerate the pace of
economic activity – space-time becomes compressed (Harvey, 1989).
Globalization’s advocates argue that because modern technology allows spatial
barriers to be transcended, the major limiting factor preventing optimally efficient
distribution of resources are policy barriers to international trade. These should be
eliminated, as they necessarily create friction points that prevent the global economic
marketplace from functioning freely. When international trade is liberalized, globally
scarce resources will be put to their highest and best use, which will stimulate
economic growth, raise income levels, and bestow economic prosperity for all
involved (Clapp & Dauvergne, 2011; Sachs, 2005).
Proponents of globalization acknowledge that during the initial stages of
liberalized international trade and the efficient allocation of scarce resources, some
environmental damage is likely to occur, particularly in the less economically
developed nations. This is due to the high utilization of resources and pollution levels
that accompany growth spurts following trade liberalization – for instance when dirty
manufacturing industries and extractive processes relocate to economically
disadvantaged, low-wage locales where environmental protections are lax. However,
globalization theory predicts that as economic growth occurs and income levels rise,
45
residents, workers, and citizens in these areas will use their newly acquired wealth to
demand stronger environmental protections and cleaner conditions (Munasinghe,
1999). Thus over long enough timeframes, environmental health, economic growth,
technological advancement, economic integration, and globalization are compatible.
Globally scarce resources will be put to their most efficient use, and the environment
will be no worse off. This is the appeal of the theory of globalization and part of what
gives it salience with advocates.
2.3.2
Delivering the Goods
The energy and resources that flow through globalization are channeled and
put to use in a process that produces incredible material abundance. Never before
have more people enjoyed more choices about what to consume, when to consume,
and how to consume. Now more than ever, the world is awash in consumer goods
(Hamilton & Denniss, 2005).
The life of all consumer goods begins with the extraction of physical
commodities, which are then assembled, manufactured, packaged, shipped, marketed,
sold, and consumed. In this economic environment, it is quite conceivable that natural
resources from Chile are transported to Indonesia via ships burning Saudi Arabian oil.
These resources are then turned into consumables in Indonesian factories powered by
Australian coal before they are shipped to the United States marketplace for purchase
by American consumers. Globalization is, quite literally, delivering the goods. Not
only that, it is remarkably prolific at doing so. Regardless of one’s personal
philosophical views on contemporary consumer culture, anyone looking at the sheer
quantity and range of goods available for consumption must truly appreciate the
magnitude of items available for purchase, the logistical performance in producing
46
goods from raw materials and bringing them to market, and the remarkable fact that all
of this has been achieved at an accelerating rate. For the world’s consumer societies,
the number and range of products available today is unrivaled in the history of human
civilization. For some, the current age is undoubtedly an age of abundance.
2.3.3
Costs of Globalization
It is now evident that globalization has, for the first time in history, created a
truly complex global society. The scale of political, economic, environmental, and
cultural convergence and integration brought on by globalizing forces is unparalleled.
There are more than seven billion people on the planet (Figure 2.2). The interconnectivity, communication, and interactions between individuals has never been
more intense or numerous, particularly given the explosion of the internet and smart
phones (Figure 2.3 and Figure 2.4). And, as noted earlier, the number of discrete
social roles and responsibilities has never been greater (McGuire, 1983). The quantity
and quality of each of these dimensions of complexity is unprecedented, thus signaling
a truly unique set of circumstances that combine to create an undeniably complex
global society.
47
8
World Population
World Population (Billions)
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1700
1750
1800
1850
1900
1950
2000
Figure 2.2: World population (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency,
2010; US Census Bureau, 2013)
Internet Hosts
Millions of Internet Hosts
1000
800
600
400
200
0
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
Figure 2.3: Worldwide Internet site hosting (Internet Systems Consortium, 2014)
48
7
Mobile Phone Subscriptions (Billions)
World Mobile Phone Subscriptions
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
Figure 2.4: Worldwide mobile phone subscriptions (International
Telecommunications Union, 2014)
Considering Tainter’s (1988, 1996) theory of the relationship between
complexity and energy and costs, one would suspect a historical correlation between
global complexity and global energy and resource production and consumption. More
specifically, his theory would predict that when globalization and the expansion of
complexity accelerated in the 1950s and 1960s, worldwide trends in energy and
resource production and consumption would likewise accelerate. Indeed, there is
evidence to support this assertion. Figure 2.5 shows the historical global trend in
energy consumption since 1900. There is a dramatic acceleration in worldwide energy
consumption from about 1950 onwards, roughly corresponding to the initial stages of
globalization.
49
70.0
Total World Energy Consumption
(Left Axis)
500
Quads (Quadrillioin BTUs)
80.0
World Energy Consumption
60.0
Per Capital Energy Consumption
(Right Axis)
400
50.0
40.0
300
30.0
200
20.0
100
Million BTUs Per Capita
600
10.0
0.0
2010
2000
1990
1980
1970
1960
1950
1940
1930
1920
1910
1900
0
Figure 2.5: Global primary energy consumption (British Petroleum, 2014; PBL
Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2010; Smil, 2010; US
Census Bureau, 2013)
Some increase in total global energy consumption is attributable to steady
world population increase over the intervening years. There will be an aggregate
increase in energy consumption when population figures rise simply because there are
a greater number of consumers. Yet when energy consumption is plotted on a per
capita basis (the dashed line), the historic trend still shows an upward trajectory. The
increase in energy consumption cannot be attributed solely to the increase in
population; there are other factors in play. Many explanations are given for the
growth in aggregate and per capita energy consumption, from rising worldwide
economic prosperity and affluence to transformations in cultural attitudes away from
asceticism and toward materialism (Barry, 2012; H. Daly, 1996; Hamilton & Denniss,
50
2005). While these explanations have merit, the rise in worldwide and per capita
energy consumption over the globalizing period is consistent with Tainter’s theory of
the relationship between complexity and energy and resource costs.
Given Tainter’s theory, one would also expect to see similar rapid increases in
the production and consumption of natural resources throughout the globalizing
period. The graphs in Figures 2.6 through 2.10 plot aggregate and per capita
production data for a number of key resources – copper, iron ore, rare earth metals3,
fish, and water. Similar to energy consumption, each of these resources is being
exploited in higher aggregate and per capita quantities over time. Again, the data is
consistent with Tainter’s assertion that growth in complexity is more costly in energy
and resource terms.
The correlation between complexity and energy and resources demonstrated by
the data does not necessarily imply causation. There are many plausible explanations
for the increasing trend in energy and resource production and consumption (material
affluence, changing cultural attitudes and norms, level of economic activity etc.). Yet
these explanations can be interpreted as proximate causes with the ultimate cause
being the emergence and expansion of a truly complex global society. In other words,
the level of complexity in today’s global society is maintained by high material
affluence (at least in well-developed countries), changing cultural attitudes, and higher
levels of economic activity. These proximate causes are identified because they are
3 Rare earth metals are: cerium, dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium,
holmium, lanthanum, lutetium, neodymium, praseodymium, samarium, terbium,
thulium, ytterbium, yttrium, ferrocerium, monazite, bastnasite, and mischmetal. These
resources are used a number of high-tech applications such as renewable energy
technologies and telecommunication devices.
51
the outcomes of a complex global society and because they are the manifestations of
complexity that prevent a rapid global simplification – but they are still incorrectly
identified as ultimate causes.
2.5
18
Million Metric Tons
14
12
World Production (Left Axis)
Per Capita (Right Axis)
2.0
1.5
10
8
1.0
Kilograms
16
World Copper Production
6
4
0.5
2
0.0
1900
1905
1910
1915
1920
1925
1930
1935
1940
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
0
Figure 2.6: Copper production (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment
Agency, 2010; US Census Bureau, 2013; US Geological Survey, 2014a)
52
3.5
3
450
World Iron Ore Production
400
World Production (Left Axis)
Per Capita (Right Axis)
300
2
250
1.5
200
Kilograms
Billion Metric Tons
350
2.5
150
1
100
0.5
50
0
1900
1905
1910
1915
1920
1925
1930
1935
1940
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
0
Figure 2.7: Iron ore production (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment
Agency, 2010; US Census Bureau, 2013; US Geological Survey, 2014b)
160
World Rare Earth Metal Production
25
120
100
20
World Production (Left Axis)
Per Capita (Right Axis)
15
80
10
60
40
5
20
0
1900
1905
1910
1915
1920
1925
1930
1935
1940
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
0
Figure 2.8: Rare earth metal production (PBL Netherlands Environmental
Assessment Agency, 2010; US Census Bureau, 2013; US Geological
Survey, 2014c)
53
Grams
Thousand Metric Tons
140
200
30
World Fish Production
180
140
20
120
100
15
80
Kilograms
Million Metric Tons
25
World Production (Left Axis)
Per Capita (Right Axis)
160
10
60
40
5
20
2010
2005
2000
1995
1990
1985
1980
1975
1970
1965
1960
1955
0
1950
0
Figure 2.9: World fish production (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2014, p. 4)
450
70
Domestic Water Withdrawl
400
60
350
km3/year
250
40
200
30
150
World Domestic Water Withdrawals (Left Axis)
100
Per Capita (Right Axis)
50
0
1950
1960
1970
1980
20
10
1990
2000
0
2010
Figure 2.10: Domestic water withdrawals (Flörke et al., 2013; US Census Bureau,
2013)
54
m3/year
50
300
There is now growing concern about the social and environmental
consequences of accelerating energy and resource exploitation and consumption
(Barry, 2012; Dietz & O’Neill, 2013). Complex global society is undermining itself,
eating away at its own foundation so that it can grow faster and further. Consumer
goods are still being produced and delivered as complexity continues to increase, but
each marginal increase in complexity becomes costlier and costlier (Strumsky et al.,
2010). In Tainter’s language, the marginal returns are diminishing.
2.4
Environmental and Social Impact
All forms of life impact their environment and humans being are no different.
As many environmental historians such as George Perkins Marsh (1898), William
Cronon (1983, 1991), and Alfred Crosby (1986) articulated, human activity – whether
it is economic, developmental, industrial, agricultural, or some combination of these –
impacts natural environments in significant ways. One current and pressing example
of the relationship between societal actions and environmental impact is illustrated in
the problem of anthropogenic climate change. Burning fossil fuels to power industrial
civilization releases greenhouse gases which is fundamentally altering the chemistry
of the atmosphere to such an extent that the presence of humanity’s impact on the
global environment is unequivocal (IPCC, 2014). Because the global climate is
altered, and because the climate system affects every part of the planet, the whole of
the planet’s environment is now impacted by human activity. Even the most remote
and isolated parts of earth are being altered through a changed climate, leading some
commentators to suggest that the Rubicon of a ‘natural’ environment, i.e. one that is
total free of human influence, is crossed (McKibben, 1989). Other commentators are
identifying a transition from the Holocene epoch, which began roughly 12,000 years
55
ago, to new human-impacted geological epoch called the Anthropocene (Crutzen &
Stoermer, 2000).
Yet the collective and cumulative impact of human activity is not reserved
strictly to the environmental realm. There are many ideologically inspired viewpoints
on the social impacts of political and economic organization and the actions in which
people engage. These various ideologies carry real world social impacts. An example
of the social impact of human activity is witnessed in the formal system of education.
Formal education is often cited as an example of a ‘positive externality’, the economic
concept which states that the group of people not engaging in an activity will still
benefit, albeit indirectly, from the engagement of others. With formal education,
proponents of the positive externality argument contend that a highly educated public
will raise overall economic productivity, social mobility, and political participation
which will benefit society at large including those who are not formally educated
(Behrman & Stacey, 1997; McMahon, 2009). The consequences of human activity
thus extend beyond the environmental realm into the social.
It was argued in the previous section that complexity comes at a cost, namely
the society must procure and consume energy and resources in order to maintain its
level of complexity. To effectively procure and consume the energy and resources
required to pay the costs of complexity, humans must find, exploit, and productively
use that energy and resource. Consequently, because human activity is required, the
actions undertaken to satisfy the costs of complexity carry real world environmental
and social impacts at global and community scales. It is therefore important to
describe the origins of the energy and resources used to pay the costs of global
56
complexity. The two sources of energy and resources, each of which is addressed in
turn, are the environment and humans themselves.
2.4.1
Environmental Sources of Energy and Resources
Throughout history, humans have developed increasingly sophisticated
methods for capturing various forms of energy present in the environment, from fire to
nuclear energy. Additional energy sources available in the environment include
options such as wind, flowing water, buried carbon and fossil fuels, sunlight,
photosynthesizing organisms such as plants and trees that produce edible material, and
domesticated animals. Domestication of energy – the harnessing, manipulation, and
productive use of energy by humans – is a process with a long history.
The earliest suspected control of fire by humans is dated to approximately 1.5
million years ago (Alperson-Afil & Goren-Inbar, 2006). Domestication of fire
conveyed numerous advantages such as warmth, protection, and the externalization of
digestion. Up until about 10,000 years ago, the food that was cooked had to be hunted
and gathered but with the Neolithic Revolution and the husbandry of plants and
animals, humans domesticated another source of available energy, namely the sunlight
stored as calories in plant and animal matter. In early agricultural societies, as is still
the case today, domesticated animals were used as beasts of burden, performing work
that was formerly the sole purview of humans. Several thousand years ago, humans
began to effectively domesticate wind power, using it to mill grain, pump water and
more recently generate electricity. Waterwheels and systems for converting the
energy potential in flowing water also emerged around the same time (Smil, 1994).
Several hundred years ago, humans began exploiting fossil fuels. Coal, oil, natural
gas, and unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and shale oil are all non-
57
renewable carbon-based energy sources found in the environment that are harnessed
by humans. More recently, the domestication of the atom means that nuclear energy is
a component of the environment’s energy supply. Looking forward, some
commentators predict that the fossil fuel methane hydrate, a solid ice crystalline form
of methane buried in deep oceans, might be the energy source of the future (Mann,
2013).
2.4.1.1
Impact of Extracting Environmental Sources of Energy and Resources
To use the forms of energy listed above, humans must begin the process of
domestication by physically capturing the energy that is available, a process which can
impact the environment in significant ways. Industrial civilization is currently
powered in large part by domesticated fossil fuels. In 2011, just over 80% of US
primary energy was fossil fuel based (Energy Information Administration, 2012).
With the various fossil subtypes – coal, oil, gas, and unconventional forms such as tar
sands and shale oil – the actual material must be physically extracted from the earth
and this activity can place a heavy burden on natural systems. Some methods of
extraction, such as mountaintop removal coal mining, fundamentally transform natural
environments. The earth is ripped open with explosives, sending pollutants and
discharge into rivers. The coal deposits are then industrially excavated using heavy
machinery leaving behind a scarred landscape. Heavy machinery is also used to
excavate and surface mine the 54,000 square mile Athabasca region tar sands found
under the boreal forests in northern Alberta (Figure 2.11 and Figure 2.12).
58
Figure 2.11: Extraction of tar sands (image credit: Shell Oil under Creative Commons
license
Figure 2.12: Extraction of tar sands (image credit: Dru Oja Jay under Creative
Commons license)
59
Mining deep petroleum deposits is another extraction method for fossil fuels.
The process may appear less violent on the surface, but it is no less environmentally
impactful. Enormous risks are taken to extract oil found in challenging and
inhospitable places such as the North Sea. Here and elsewhere, offshore oil rigs drill
for petroleum deposits in thousands of feet of ocean water, threatening entire marine
ecosystems should an accident occur. On April 20th, 2010, an explosion on the
Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico and the subsequent 87 day, 4.9 million
barrel oil spill into the Gulf highlighted the extent to which humans are now reaching
to pay the energy costs of a complex global society (National Commission, 2011a).
Images and media coverage of the spill focused the public’s attention on the
environmental impact of large-scale and risky fossil fuel exploitation (Figure 2.13).
Figure 2.13: The Deepwater Horizon gusher (image credit: US Geological Survey)
60
The dominant method of domesticating food energy currently follows the path
as the domestication of fossil fuels. To grow food today, intensive industrial
agriculture practices are employed to procure and harvest the solar energy that plants
store. As with coal or petroleum exploitation, industrial agriculture techniques carry
serious and dramatic environmental impacts. Vast swathes of land are fundamentally
transformed – sometimes after clear-cutting forests – to make them suitable for
intensive agriculture. Water aquifers are tapped and used to feed automated irrigation
systems that can turn arid deserts into temporary breadbaskets (Figure 2.14). Satellite
images of earth depict a compelling tale of the scope and scale of alterations imposed
on landscapes by the logic of industrial agriculture (Figure 2.15) yet the full picture is
not realized until one begins to examine the on-the-ground consequences. To grow
such huge quantities of food with such regularity and consistent quality, the industrial
agriculture system has to make extensive use of external inputs such as fossil fuel
based pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, which eventually run off to pollute the
land and waters. Poor water qualities in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico
and the massive aquatic kills and “dead zones” are testaments to the consequences of
industrial agriculture, the heavy use of artificial inputs, and agricultural runoff
(Kimbrell, 2002; Rabalais, Turner, & Wiseman Jr., 2002).
61
Figure 2.14: Desert farming in the Wadi as-Sirhan Basin, Saudi Arabia (image credit:
Google, TerraMetrics)
Figure 2.15: Industrial agriculture west of Dodge City, Kansas (image credit: Google,
TerraMetrics)
62
Natural resources are extracted from the environment in a manner similar to
that of energy. As with the process of energy domestication and exploitation, the
mining of resources exacts a damaging toll on the environment. In open pit mining,
heavy explosives and earth-moving machinery are commonly used throughout the
world. Like mountaintop removal coal mining, open pit mining devastates the
immediate environment and sends discharges and pollutants into ground and surface
water systems. Additionally, the material that is removed to expose the desired
resource is stockpiled, creating man-made mountains. One such overburden stockpile
at the Empire and Tilden iron ore mines in Ishpeming, Michigan recently became the
highest point in the state, surpassing the former holder of that distinction, Mount
Arvon (personal email communication).
63
Figure 2.16: An open pit iron ore mine in Ishpeming, Michigan (image credit: author’s
photograph)
The impacts of energy and resource extraction do not fall solely on the
environment; there are myriad ways in which society is directly affected by the
process. Returning to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the people who live and work
in the Gulf Coast, and who depend of a healthy and thriving marine ecosystem for
their livelihood, whether for tourism or for fishing, have so far experienced tens of
billions of dollars in economic losses. British Petroleum was forced to pay $43 billion
in damages as of 2014, and that figure will likely increase significantly when civil
penalties are levied (Banerjee, 2014). Public health can also suffer from energy and
64
resource extraction, especially for those people living near the areas where resources
are mined and excavated. For example, public health is poor near sites where
mountaintop removal coal mining takes place. People are forced to breathe polluted
air, are exposed to elevated toxic pollutant levels, and experience higher than average
rates of cancer, respiratory complications, and pulmonary problems (Hendryx, 2013).
2.4.1.2
Impact of Consuming Environmental Sources of Energy and Resources
While complexity requires humans to seek out and domesticate energy and
resources to pay the costs of complexity, and while the extraction of energy and
resources causes significant environmental and social impacts, the impacts of
complexity are not limited to the front end of the process. In order to maintain
complexity, the energy and resources produced through extraction must be consumed.
As with production, the consumptive process on the back end of energy and resource
exploitation is incredibly impactful on both the environment and society. This is
particularly true because the consumption of energy and resources produces
byproducts that are reintroduced into the environment as pollutants.
Climate change is a clear and present example of the type of impact that
human consumption of fossil fuel energy can generate. By burning fossil fuel to
power a complex global society, humans reintroduce greenhouse gases into the
environment and significantly alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere,
particularly with respect to concentrations of CO2 and CH4. Because of these elevated
atmospheric concentrations, the planet’s oceans are absorbing some of the excess
greenhouse gases and are acidifying as a result. Ocean temperatures are also
increasing as the ambient air temperature rises around the globe. These changes in
ocean acidity and temperature are negatively impacting marine life as evidenced by
65
the deterioration of global coral reef quantity and quality (Hughes et al., 2003).
Climate change is likewise transforming arctic regions by reducing the amount of ice
cover. Ice cover is now so low that in 2008, the first commercial ship to navigate the
famed and long sought after Northwest Passage delivered supplies to communities in
far western Nunavut, Canada (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2008). Climate
change also negatively impacts worldwide public health, with increased incidence of
heat and extreme weather events, food shortages leading to malnutrition, and the
spread of infectious diseases (McMichael, Woodruff, & Hales, 2006). In short, the
aggregate adverse social and environmental impact of consuming fossil fuels is
substantial.
When society extracts resources from the environment, energy is used to
combine and reorganize those resources and convert them into consumable goods
through manufacturing processes. Industrial civilization is incredibly adept at
manufacturing and production. It was already argued that global society in general,
and consumer society in particular, currently experiences an unprecedented level of
material affluence (Hamilton & Denniss, 2005). After the raw resources are extracted,
turned into consumer goods, and used, they are disposed of and reintroduced into the
environment as waste. Societies that enjoy high levels of material affluence are
becoming increasingly wasteful, disposing of consumer goods despite the fact many
are still operable, usable, or easily repairable. In addition to the rejection of consumer
goods by “throwaway societies,” some producers of material goods are driven by a
growth imperative and follow the principle of planned obsolescence where a good is
intentionally designed to stop functioning or rendered unusable so that new goods
must be continually purchased and consumed. Consequently, after goods are
66
consumed and disposed of, they are returned to the environment in the form of waste
and pollution (Figure 2.17). Nowadays, the process of production, consumption,
disposal, and the international transfer of pollution is truly global in its extent.
Electronics and consumer goods originally manufactured in Asian countries are
transported to Western nations where they are consumed, but following disposal they
are returned to and dumped in Asian countries like China and the Philippines where
the impacts on public health and environmental quality can be damaging and severe
(Iles, 2004; Power, 2006).
Figure 2.17: Dumpsite in the Philippines (image credit: Global Environment Facility
under Creative Commons license)
Not only does humanity extract resources from the environment and
manufacture them into goods, natural capital is also extracted and consumed by human
activity. The concept of natural capital – defined as the valuable services that the
67
environment provides now and in the future such as the regeneration and maintenance
of clean air and water – was introduced by the ecological economics sub-discipline in
order to monetize and account for the full costs of human activity on the environment.
(Costanza et al., 1997). A report produced for the UNEP indicates that in 2009, the
global economy extracted and consumed $7.3 trillion in unpriced natural capital and
ecosystem services, or 13% of global GDP (Trucost PLC, 2013). These ecosystem
services and the natural capital they represent are being consumed at the expense of
future generations since the environment is not able to assimilate human waste or fully
regenerate at a fast enough rate.
In summary, the energy and resources consumed by a complex society must be
procured and the primary location where energy and resources are found is the
environment. Energy and resources are extracted from the environment using
aggressive techniques, whether it is open pit mining or clear-cutting forests to make
way for industrial agriculture. Once the energy and resources are extracted, they are
either consumed directly (like fossil fuels) or converted into consumables which are
then reintroduced into the environment as waste and pollution. The impact of human
driven extraction, production, consumption, and waste activity on the environment is
significant, and many formerly healthy areas of the planet are transformed into
polluted and degraded zones.
2.4.2
Social Sources of Energy and Resources
The environment is not the only arena where energy and resources are
extracted and used to maintain complexity. Humans themselves, and the collective of
individuals forming a society, are continually and increasingly called upon to develop
specialized capacities and to expend their time, energy, and resources so that global
68
complexity avoids rapid simplification. Humans expend their energy, and a complex
society extracts it, when they engage in labor. In pre-fossil fuel societies (and in those
rare instances today where complexity is maintained in the absence of fossil fuels),
energy extraction through human labor constituted a much larger percentage of total
energy extraction than it does today. In pre-fossil fuel societies, energy for growth in
complexity was mostly limited to human and animal labor, with wind and water power
as well. (Smil, 2008).
Today, the domestication and exploitation of socially exogenous energy
sources such as wind and fossil fuels has not eliminated the human energy imperative;
it has merely transformed the qualitative and geographic character of labor. There is
less physical labor, particularly in the well-developed world which enjoys an
overabundance of fossil fuel energy, but what is reduced in physical terms is increased
and compensated for in mental terms. Intimately tied with globalizing forces, the
steady transition from an industrial to a post-industrial socioeconomic reality in the
well-developed world has augured in a service-oriented economy that extracts highly
specialized intellectual energy from society (Drucker, 1993).
Yet the often-heard argument that the transition to a service-oriented economy
coupled with advanced, automated, manufacturing technologies powered by fossil
fuels reduces the demand for physical human labor fails to incorporate the global
geographic shift in human energy extraction. Least-developed nations, with their
billions of citizens, poor worker protections, lax environmental and social regulatory
policies, and corrupt governments are opening up their populations as a worldwide
pool of labor and are consequently helping to pay the costs of global complexity
(Jensen & Pedersen, 2011). Many laborers now working in the burgeoning Asian
69
cities migrated (or were forced to migrate) from rural locales, so whereas they
previously expended their energies on food production, they now labor in consumer
goods manufacturing (Johnson, 2013). Much of what they produce is exported to the
well-developed world for consumption. The flight of manufacturing and labor
opportunities from the current post-industrial nations has not disappeared; in other
words the element of physical human energy extraction has not abated. Rather, the
base of physical human energy, particularly with respect to the production of
consumer goods, has shifted geographically from well-developed nations to leastdeveloped nations in Asia and Central and Latin America.
Relatedly, in a complex global society, resources are extracted from society in
the form of time spent laboring. Time is a limited resource and while the average
number of hours worked has fallen steadily for as long as the statistic has been
measured, the time that a worker spends in wage labor is still significant (Lee,
McCann, & Messenger, 2007). Despite the aggregate decline in the number of hours
spent working in gainful employment, there is a rise in the percentage of individuals
working more than 50 hours per week (Figure 2.18) With innovations in smart phone
technologies and ubiquitous internet access, the traditional workplace local is now
extended into the home and even follows workers on vacation, as many laborers feel
an expectation to be in constant contact (Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2007;
Mazmanian, Orlikowski, & Yates, 2013).
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40
37.9
Share of Employed Persons Working
50 Hours or More Per Week
35
34
30
1977-1979
2006-2008
Percentage
25
20
22.9
21.2
14.4
15
5
8.7
8.3
10
16.1
6.1
3.7 3.9
3.4
0
Low Income
Middle
Income
Professional Low Income
Women
Middle
Income
Professional
Men
Figure 2.18: Percentage of Americans working 50 hours or more per week (Williams
& Boushey, 2010).
As global society becomes more complex, the pace of life accelerates as well
(Wajcman, 2014). In order to satisfy the energy and resource imperative, continual
increases in the productivity of labor must keep up with growth in complexity. Daily
life, from the workplace to the household, is under constant pressure to meet the
demands of more output, more quickly. Even seemingly simple actions, like walking
on the street, speed up as the complexity of a social environment grows (Bettencourt,
Lobo, Helbing, Kühnert, & West, 2007).
Besides time, there are additional resources, particularly in the form of
knowledge and skills, that are extracted from society and that are used to pay the cost
of complexity. Knowledge and skills are valued highly if they are specialized as
evidenced by the emergence and proliferation of disciplinary education, specifically at
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the post-secondary level (Vanderburg, 2006). Common knowledge and skills which
are widely shared and reproduced within society are slowly being eroded as more and
more individuals pursue purely technical and service-driven career paths. For
example, widespread knowledge and skill required to grow food, to mend clothes, to
repair a broken piece of machinery – activities which many could accomplish in the
past – are becoming atrophied as people engage in specialized wage labor in fields
such as engineering and the service industries (Bell, 1976; Friedman, 2005; Reich,
1991). Common knowledge and skills are not valued in a complex global economy
that requires differentiation and specialization in order to function properly; as a result
they become less prevalent when the systemic shift toward disciplinary training and
education takes place (Crawford, 2009; Dalton, Lauff, Henke, Alt, & Li, 2013;
Levesque et al., 2008; Tuma & Burns, 1996).
The way in which common knowledge and skills are extracted is analogous to
the way in which a forest is cleared to make space for agriculture. The demands
placed on the capacity and activity of the human brain are limited like the demands on
the capacity and activity of a tract of land are limited. Just as ecologists speak of land
use change (the conversion of one land use type to another, for example a woodlot cut
down and changed to agricultural production), an analogous metaphor is knowledge
change. Human intelligence is shifting from common knowledge to specialized
knowledge in order to meet the current demands of a complex global society. The
under-valued social resources of common knowledge and skills are not useful for a
complex global society, and they are strategically replaced with alternative specialized
knowledge and skills which are highly valued.
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Extraction and consumption of social sources of energy and resources
significantly impacts the development and maintenance of social capital. Social
capital is a socio-political concept that is defined, perhaps most famously, by Robert
Putnam (1993, p. 169) as “features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and
networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated
actions.” Putnam (2000) analyses what he perceives to be a decline in American
social capital and claims that the erosion of a cohesive public fabric is underway
thanks to widespread gravitation toward individualistic and user-driven technologies
such as television and computers. Putnam’s argument is fundamentally an opportunity
cost argument; the more time people spend watching television or browsing online, the
less time is spent participating in a democratic civil society and building or
maintaining relationships.
2.5
Technological Interventions
Perhaps the most unique characteristic of humans, that which distinguishes
them from other species, is the ability to intervene technologically into the external
world. There are some non-human animals that use tools, for example chimpanzees
are commonly observed using a twig or a long stiff blade of grass to fish for termites
in the termite nest. But technological innovation, evolution, and use by humans is
remarkably advanced and prolific (Basalla, 1988). Hannah Arendt (1958) argued that
a defining characteristic of the human condition is to develop tools and technologies
that manipulate the environment and society in such a way that needs are satisfied,
what is referred to here as technological intervention. Arendt referred to humans as
homo faber, or Man the Creator, in reference to the capacity for technological
intervention.
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2.5.1
Conceptualizing Technology
When attempting to conceptualize technology, one encounters a patchwork
quilt of perspectives, theories, and philosophies on the definition itself but also on how
one should make use of the concept in socially conscious research. David Nye (2006,
p. 15) writes that “technology is an unusually slippery term” while Langdon Winner
(1977, p. 10) says that because technology “has come to mean everything and
anything; it therefore threatens to mean nothing.” Some historians of technology even
note that “it seems unfruitful and indeed unnecessary to devote much effort to work
out precise definitions” (Bijker, Hughes, & Pinch, 1987, p. 3).
A common understanding of the term technology is that of a unit; an object
existing in material reality, something external, something tangible that can be seen,
touched, or manipulated. Yet it is equally valid to conceive of a technological system
such as aviation which consists of airplanes, airports, radar, transnational corporations,
the petrochemical industry, the Federal Aviation Administration, specialized forms of
knowledge related to structural and fluid dynamics, aeronautical engineering research
institutions, flight schools, passengers, time zones, etc. To complicate matters further,
both a unit and a system of technology may serve multiple functions, some of which
are intended while other may be unintended. A piece of fabric can serve innumerable
functions: a beach towel, a shower towel, a kitchen towel for cleaning spills, a blanket
for sleeping under, a sheet for sleeping on, a sponge for bailing a leaky canoe, a
window curtain, a pillow, decoration for a bare wall a sling to carry a broken arm, a
skirt, or a head wrap. The multi-function theory holds true for a system of technology
such as the aviation system which is capable of transporting passengers, offering
enjoyment to thrill-seeking pilots and air show audiences, dropping atomic weapons,
or spreading infectious diseases.
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2.5.1.1
Technology as Object-Subject
Etymologically, the word technology is a fusion of the ancient Greek words
techne, meaning art, skill or craft, and logos, meaning a reasoned statement, speech, or
appeal intended to persuade. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle lists techne as one
of the five conditions of mind by which truth is affirmed or denied. In Book Six,
Chapter Four, Aristotle (1973, 1140a 11-22) further refines an ontological position for
techne, stating that:
All techne is concerned with coming into existence, and with
contrivance, and with the consideration of how something may come
into existence which is capable of existing or not existing, and the
cause of whose existence is in the maker and not in the thing made.
For techne is not concerned with things that exist of necessity or come
into existence of necessity nor yet with things that come into existence
by nature: for these latter contain the cause of their existence in
themselves … Techne, then, as has been said, is a truth-attaining
intellectual quality concerned with making.
Techne, as an “intellectual quality concerned with making” is an art, craft, or
skill, the practice of which affirms truth and meaning in the mind of the maker. Also,
as Aristotle notes, techne is a condition of the mind that is concerned with making or
bringing something into existence, or poiesis, through a process of contrivance.
Importantly, Aristotle philosophizes that the cause of bringing something into
existence lies in the maker. Logos, on the other hand, is a discussion or
communication that conveys meaning. So techno-logy literally means a discussion or
treatise related to the art of bringing things into existence; clearly a far cry from the
definition typically applied to the term today.
The word technology is a relative newcomer to the English language. During
the Industrial Revolution, public intellectuals attempting to understand the new system
of production and its relationship to the mode of social organization found themselves
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in a “semantic void” (Marx, 1997). In this early industrial age, the machine was a
clear and easily recognizable embodiment of, as Aristotle said, “coming into
existence” and so, at the expense of experience and contrivance, the mechanical arts
came to be associated with the technical arts. Still, when public intellectuals discussed
political and economic modes of production, they simply employed words such as
“machine,” “invention,” “innovation,” or “industrial and mechanical arts.” If the word
technology was used at the time, for example when the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology was established in 1861, it meant a subject of study. Calling an object a
technology in 1860 would be as nonsensical as calling sociology an object today.
Further transformation of the concept and meaning of technology occurred
when the American political economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen appropriated
the German word Technik to develop and refine his theory of social evolution and the
inherent conflict between business and industry (Schatzberg, 2006). The concept of
Technik evolved from the German social theories of Weber, Schmoller, and Simmel to
describe two related streams of though: one related to the material aspects of industry
and the other circumscribing rules, procedures, and skills for reaching specific ends.
Veblen saw the value of applying the concept of Technik to his own theories and chose
to translate the term into English by incorporating its meaning into the word
technology. In doing so, the existing idea of technology as a subject of study was
immediately transformed into a more material understanding. Despite this
transformation however, Veblen maintained that the concept of technology was a
combination of both a field of collective knowledge in the industrial arts and a set of
material practices, a combination that was lost on later users of the word. During the
late Progressive Era of 1920s and 1930s, the American historian Charles Beard wrote
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about the concept of technology in a strict material sense, finally severing the idea of
technology as subject constituting the knowledge, skills, and processes of the arts
(Schatzberg, 2006). The expression “state of the art” is in fact a remnant of this
period.
In order to revive technology as a meaningful and useful concept, it is helpful
to revisit techne, one of Aristotle’s five conditions of the mind. Because techne is
concerned with the art of bringing things into existence by the knowledge, skill, or
craft of the maker, technology must therefore be inseparable from both objective (the
thing) and subjective (the maker) realities. Maintaining a contextually significant and
dualistic object-subject conceptualization of technology is necessary to avoiding the
determinist trap. Reifying technology as an element of only the external world, for
example in Charles Beard’s conceptualization, ignores this ontological balance and is
not so much incorrect as it is incomplete. By fragmenting and eliminating the
subjective qualities of technology, humans engender the concept with mystery,
passivity, causality, and fatality in the development of the human condition (Marx,
1997; Winner, 1977). From a critical standpoint, conceiving technology as completely
external to and removed from humans’ “internal landscape of the psyche” has a
chilling effect (Marx, 1964, p. 28). Technology becomes neutralized, it is neither
political nor historical, and is excused from critical analysis and evaluation. A
conceptualization of technology in which its meaning is inextricably linked to, and
embedded within norms, politics, contexts, and values reigns in autonomous
technology and eliminates the deterministic qualities afforded to it by more objective
philosophical arguments such as those of Jacques Ellul (1964). A contextual and
dualistic objective-subjective conceptualization of technology permits an
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understanding of how the piece of cloth mentioned above can be used as both a beach
towel and a sling for a broken arm.
2.5.1.2
Technology as Enabler
Technology affords society the possibility of attaining the previously
unattainable. In that respect, it is helpful to think of and conceive of technology as an
enabler. As an enabler, technology precipitates social action and in many cases can
dramatically increase demand for energy and resources. Some technologies,
particularly some advanced technologies, enable the achievement of superhuman feats,
for example earth-moving equipment enables humans to pile mine overburden and
create the highest elevation point in the state of Michigan (Section 2.4.1.1). They
enable society to shape and manipulate itself and the environment in ways that would
be impossible in the absence of the technology. Each of these actions requires energy
and resources
The elevator is a seemingly benign technology but it is an instructive example
of an enabler with a monumental impact on energy and resource utilization. In the
absence of the elevator, or a reasonable substitute technology, society could not
urbanize sections of the planet with the scope and scale experienced today.
Individuals would be limited physically, mentally, and temporally by their ability to
move up and down buildings and would remain close to ground level. Yet the
elevator moves people and goods up and down with such ease and rapidity that it
enabled society to expand vertically, ultimately precipitating the energy and resource
intensive process of urbanization.
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Figure 2.19: Urbanization enabled by elevator technology (image credit: Samuel
Louise under Creative Commons license)
Modern elevators, like those implicated in the image above, are advanced
technologies. They are designed and engineered to tight tolerances by highly
specialized engineers. They involve intricate hydraulics and traction systems that are
poorly understood by the average user. Modern elevators are an assembly of various
smaller components – wires, hydraulics, automated electronic controls, cables, panels,
etc. – that are produced and routed through a global supply chain. Crucially, the
modern elevator is an advanced technology because it enables tremendous growth in
complexity. Advanced technologies are increasingly commonplace and more deeply
embedded in social action.
Contrasted with advanced technologies are appropriate technologies
(Schumacher, 1973). These technologies are less specialized and are more easily
designed, modified, and used by the average person. Appropriate technologies are
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made from common materials and they permit a limited range of social action.
Consequently, appropriate technologies enable modest growth in complexity.
2.5.2
When Technological Intervention Occurs
It was noted earlier that part of what it means to be human is to intervene
technologically into the social and environmental worlds. This chapter has already
highlighted numerous examples where such interventions occurred, but it bears
repeating that technological intervention is not a predetermined or autonomous
process. Social forces such as norms, values, discourses, politics, and power relations
are influential factors that influence the decision-making process regarding
technological intervention. As these internal social forces frame, shape, and influence
decisions regarding technology, they must be kept in mind during the following
discussion of the external forces that push society toward intervention. The external
forces pushing society to intervene technologically are likewise socially constructed
because they are subject to the same forces of norms, values, discourses, politics, and
power relations, yet they frequently appear, at least on the surface, to be free floating
and independent of social influence. There are two primary external forces that induce
humans to intervene technologically: when social or environmental problems are
encountered, or when there is a felt need that requires satisfaction. It is argued that in
both instances, the contemporary form of technological interventions is an advanced
and enabling techno-fix solution. In today’s current cultural context, the internal
forces mentioned above align to mobilize support for techno-fixes.
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2.5.2.1
Intervening to Resolve Social and Environmental Problems
Human behavior has significant consequences and can lead to social and
environmental problems. Technological intervention to resolve social and
environmental problems is not a new phenomenon, but the application of advanced
technology to deal with problems is one of the defining cultural characteristics of the
globalized world (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1991). Technological interventions to resolve
these human-caused problems are ‘end-of-pipe’ or ‘band-aid’ solutions. They are
called a techno-fixes because the intervention only addresses the problem without
resolving the root cause, namely society’s inappropriate or damaging actions and
behaviors (Huesemann & Huesemann, 2011).
The creation and implementation of techno-fix interventions proceeds
according to a consistent sequence of social actions. First, society engages in some
sort of behavior that directly creates undesirable consequences for itself or the
environment. The manifestation of the problem is socially experienced, constructed,
analyzed, and traced back to the immediate proximate cause. The social action
responsible for the undesirable consequences is evaluated and the decision is made to
mitigate or suppress the impact by applying a technology instead of mitigating or
suppressing the action. In logical terms, if A is perceived to cause B, the techno-fix
approach seeks to diminish the impact at the point of perception B rather than the
point of action A. The action A remains in place and there is now a technological
intervention between A and B. The techno-fix could be equally conceived as a buffer,
filter, sponge, cushion, or shield.
There is no shortage of advanced techno-fix solutions which can be used as
examples to illustrate this point. Ranging from catalytic converters to genetically
modified drought resistant seeds, advanced techno-fix interventions to solve perceived
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social and environmental problems are rapidly multiplying and dispersing throughout
society. Returning to the example of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the
leakage of millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the cleanup effort was
highlighted with the application of 1.84 million gallons of Corexit, a chemical
dispersant designed to break up and dissolve oil (National Commission, 2011b). US
Air Force planes spread Corexit over vast areas of the gulf in an effort to remediate the
consequences of the oil spill on the gulf coast economy and ecosystem (Figure 2.20).
The use of Corexit is therefore an example of an advanced techno-fix intervention
intended to resolve the impact of a social and environmental problem without
addressing the actual damaging social action, in this case the extraction of fossil fuel
deposits in a challenging and risky location. The US Secretary of the Interior Ken
Salazar issued a temporary six-month moratorium on offshore drilling at the request of
President Obama but this order was granted an injunction (Savage, 2010). Oil drilling
in the Gulf quickly resumed and continues unabated.
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Figure 2.20: A US Air Force plane applying Corexit over the Gulf of Mexico (image
credit: US Air Force)
The technological interventions that are being proposed to mitigate climate
change impacts are further examples of techno-fix solutions. There is a whole host of
potential climate change mitigation interventions, from installing smokestack
scrubbers that collect greenhouse gases emitted from fossil fuel burning power plants
to fertilizing algae blooms in the oceans by sprinkling iron dust. Some scientists are
developing genetically modified trees that photosynthesize faster than normal trees
while other scientists propose installing a giant space shield between the sun and the
earth to deflect incoming solar radiation (Jansson, Wullschlerger, Kalluri, & Tuskan,
2010; Keith, 2000). Again, these geoengineering technological interventions do
nothing to halt the actual cause of climate change on the front end, namely society’s
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activities involving the consumption of carbon-based fuels. Instead, geoengineering
solutions seek to lessen the climate change impact on the back end. Even a switch
from fossil fuels to a more renewable and carbon benign energy system that
emphasizes solar, wind, and geothermal sources can be viewed as an advanced technofix because the recommendation is simply to exchange one form of advanced
technology for another. The idea of fundamentally changing social action is
infrequently proposed as a solution to climate change.
2.5.2.2
Intervening to Satisfy a Felt Need
Technological interventions are frequently deployed by society when there are
social needs that are not being satisfied. In a way, depending on how needs are
defined, the use of technology to satisfy needs could be considered a subgroup of the
process of using technology to resolve social and environmental problems. For
example, if there is a drought that reduces agricultural output, society’s food needs
may go unsatisfied in which case it may utilize genetically modified drought resistant
crop strains. The drought, which is likely to be conceptualized as an environmental
problem, leads to unsatisfied needs. The distinction between social and environmental
problems and an unsatisfied social need is therefore blurred and creates some
ambiguity over the societal motivation to intervene technologically. Here, the idea of
needs is separated from problems because the social constructions of the two
conditions are fundamentally different. The social construction of needs entails an
understanding of a non-negotiable requirement to sustain life whereas a social or
environmental problem entails a set of conditions that must be navigated to greater or
lesser effect.
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When social needs are established, contemporary culture is motivated to
intervene technologically to satisfy the needs with ever-increasing speed and
efficiency. For example, one basic social need is physical mobility, and a succession
of technological interventions now enables society to move about more quickly and
more effortlessly (Illich, 1974). Horses, bicycles, trains, ships, automobiles and
airplanes; each of these technologies satisfies the social need for physical
transportation with increased speed and efficiency. The satisfaction of communication
needs follows the same trend as mobility needs. From carrier pigeons and Telex
machines to iPhones and Skype, global society now enjoys nearly instantaneous and
unlimited access to interpersonal communication and information.
It was already noted that technological interventions in the agricultural domain
are commonly utilized to satisfy food needs. In egg production, for example, a wild
hen lays as few as thirty eggs per year and only lays in the spring, the fall and winter
months reserved for molting and resting. By moving hens into cages indoors and
bathing them in artificial light, the average industry hen now produces 275 eggs
annually, a marked improvement in egg-laying speed and efficiency (Unferth, 2014).
A similar pattern holds in the field of aquaculture. The controlled “farming” and
“planting” of fish and other aquatic species such as shrimp and oysters emulates the
industrial agriculture model (Roe, 2012).
2.5.3
Unintended and Unanticipated Consequences of Technological
Interventions
In contemporary culture, the social perception of technological intervention is
that interventions are necessary and return positive outcomes (Huesemann &
Huesemann, 2011). When society encounters a problem or when there is a felt need
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that requires satisfaction, the generally techno-optimistic social attitude favors a
technological interventionist approach. Widespread techno-optimism is framed by a
cultural discourse around technology which emphasizes only the benefits of
interventions while downplaying, ignoring, or misrepresenting the costs. Public
perception of technology is therefore unbalanced, and the damaging consequences of
intervention are poorly communicated and understood. It is therefore no small irony
that interventions which are intended to improve social and environmental conditions
end up causing a good deal of harm. Ivan Illich (1975) referred to this effect as
iatrogenesis, or harm done by the healer.
Technological interventions are conducted purposefully and with a desired
outcome in mind but actual results can differ, sometimes by a wide margin, from those
initially sought. Unintended side effects frequently occur. What is more, the
scientific approach to determining, identifying, and predicting unintended side effects
is unable to incorporate and control for all possible outcomes and uncertainties (Taleb,
2007). The negative consequences of technological interventions are therefore both
unintended and unanticipated (Huesemann & Huesemann, 2011). Sociologist
Zygmunt Bauman (2001, p. 19) captures the cultural imperative of technological
interventions and their deleterious effects when he writes that:
Humans are mortified and annoyed by what they find painful and
unpalatable in their condition, [and] because they do not wish these
conditions to persist...they seek the way to mollify or redress their
suffering. Getting rid of what, momentarily, pains us most brings relief
– but that respite is as a rule short-lived since the “new and improved”
condition quickly reveals its own, previously invisible and
unanticipated, unpleasant aspects and brings new reasons to worry.
To understand why there are always unintended and unanticipated
consequences, it is helpful to revisit Barry Commoner’s (1971) first law of ecology:
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everything is connected to everything else. This law states is that inside the global
ecosystem there are an unfathomable number of links and connections between the
various ecosystem elements such that nature operates as a complex system. Complex
systems resist reductionist scientific study where individual elements are isolated and
cause and effect relationships are established. In complex systems, there is such an
abundance of relationships between elements, what Commoner calls connections,
wherein small or seemingly inconsequential disturbances in one part of the system can
initiate a cascade effect leading to significant changes in another part. Therefore, if
everything is connected to everything else and if science is unable to fully identify and
understand those connections, any technological intervention must necessarily disturb
the system and create consequences that are both unintended (because of the
connections) and unanticipated (because of epistemological limitations).
Climate change is an easily identifiable example of an unintended and
unanticipated consequence of technological interventions designed to satisfy society’s
perceived energy needs. At the time when coal was first exploited in large quantities
at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, nobody could possibly predict that the
consequences of fossil fuel exploitation would transform the global climate. Now that
climate change is a reality and advanced techno-fix solutions are implemented to
mitigate the impact of climate change, without question there will be further
unintended and unanticipated consequences. Indeed, evidence is emerging which
indicates that the climate change mitigation strategy of fertilizing oceans with iron
filings to promote algae growth is lowering ecosystem productivity and the capacity of
oceans to sequester carbon (Ingall et al., 2013). To give one other example,
genetically modified seed varieties were first introduced as a techno-fix solution to
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what was perceived to be a problem of the world’s population outstripping its food
supply. Now concerns are increasing over the unintended and unanticipated
consequences of genetically modified plants cross-pollinating with wild seed varieties
(Conner, Glare, & Nap, 2003).
2.5.4
Dependency on Technological Interventions
A major consequence of technological interventions is that they become deeply
embedded into society to such an extent that a state of dependency is reached. When
society intervenes to solve a perceived problem or satisfy felt need, and once the
problem is solved through a techno-fix or once the need is satisfied, the technological
intervention integrates into the fabric of social and ecological relations, particularly
when the intervention enables an expanded range of social possibilities and
complexities. Each time society intervenes technologically and is enabled to become
more complex, for example in the case of smart phone technology, it becomes
dependent on the new technology.
The concept of technological dependency closely parallels Stuart Boyden’s
(1987) principle of technoaddiction. Boyden articulates an inextricable relationship
between the satisfaction of human biophysical needs and the technological means for
satisfying those needs. He writes (1987, p. 89) that the principle of technoaddiction is
derived from the observation that:
In human history it has frequently been the case that when new
techniques have been introduced into a society … societies reorganize
themselves around the new techniques and their populations gradually
become more and more dependent on them for the satisfaction of basic
[biophysical] needs. Eventually a state of complete dependency is
reached.
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There is a difference in Boyden’s technoaddiction principle and the concept of
technological dependency given here. For Boyden, technoaddiction refers to the
satisfaction of society’s biophysical needs in terms of sustenance and health. On the
other hand, technological dependency is reached when society relies on the proper
functioning of a particular technology or technological system in order to maintain
complexity. To put it another way, if the technology or technological system
malfunctions, the society depending upon that technology or technological system will
similarly malfunction because they will experience a rapid decline in complexity. The
globally complex society of today is dependent upon a slew of advanced enabling
technologies such as industrial agriculture, personal automobiles, electricity
generation and distribution networks, telecommunication technologies, earth-orbiting
satellites, credit cards, and modern medicine.
A major consequence of technological dependency is one of fragility, both in
terms of the technology itself and the society that is dependent upon the advanced
technology (Taleb, 2012). Technological fragility is characterized by the vulnerability
of the technology to sudden shocks or disturbances. A nuclear power plant provides a
good example of an advanced and fragile technology. The plant may operate in a
steady and stable state for many years without incident as long as the reactor core is
constantly cooled to a safe operating temperature. However, when a reactor is
shocked – like the Japanese Fukushima plant which experienced an earthquake and
subsequent tsunami in March of 2011 – meltdown can occur in a sudden and
catastrophic manner.
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2.6
Conclusion
In this chapter, a detailed analysis of technology, environment, and society
relations was undertaken. Built around Joseph Tainter’s core theory of complexity, it
was argued that complex societies require energy and resources to sustain themselves.
The relationship between complexity and energy and resources is positive; the more
complex the system becomes, the more energy and resources it utilizes for its
maintenance. The globalized world is remarkably productive, delivering material
abundance in unparalleled ways. It is also phenomenally complex, which illuminates
the historically unprecedented intensity of energy and resource utilization. Energy and
resources are extracted from the environment and from society in the form of labor,
time, and skills to support complexity; yet this complexity-driven imperative is
ultimately self-destructive because it leads to diminishing marginal returns. The result
of the process is an increasingly degraded environment. Society also becomes
fragmented as specialized knowledge and skills – which are valued highly in today’s
complex global economy – supplant commonly held knowledge and skills.
Technology plays a major role in the generation of higher and higher levels of
complexity. Technology is an enabler because it affords humans tremendous capacity
for social action. In accordance with Tainter’s theory, technology enables growth in
complexity which brings with it added energy and resource costs. Contemporary
cultural values, particularly in highly-development nations, support the use of
technological interventions to satisfy social needs, including the energy and resource
costs of complexity. Interventions are also offered to resolve perceived problems, like
climate change, that arise from energy and resource exploitation and consumption.
These types of interventions are techno-fix solutions that only serve to limit the impact
of the problem rather than addressing the root cause. Yet with any technological
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intervention into complex social and environmental systems, there are unintended and
unanticipated consequences. As advanced technological interventions embed
themselves into social relations and organization, the globally complex system
becomes dependent upon their proper functioning which creates vulnerability because
all technologies are susceptible to malfunction.
Figure 2.21: The global complexity dynamic
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The global complexity-driven dynamic process that impacts community
development is represented graphically in 2.21. Society, technology, and the
environment are bound up in a cyclical interplay with no beginning and end state, and
the pace at which these spheres of activity interact and influence each other is
accelerating. Complexity begets complexity. The consequences of global complexity
are therefore leading to worsening social and environmental conditions, as well as
higher costs for resource utilization.4 Yet for the purposes of this inquiry, Figure 2.21
is incomplete because the consequence it poses for communities is missing. The next
chapter analyzes the community-level impacts of global complexity.
4 The expression “global complexity” is used throughout this dissertation as a
shorthand substitute for the full complexity-driven process described and analyzed in
this chapter. Global complexity therefore encapsulates the dynamic relationship
between technology, environment, and society represented in Figure 2.21, as well as
the globalized economic systems of production and consumption not explicitly
included in Figure 2.21 but which are intrinsic to the process’s maintenance and
growth.
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Chapter 3
THE COMMUNITY IMPACTS OF GLOBAL COMPLEXITY
3.1
Introduction
The rapidly emerging relationship between social, environmental, and
technological systems is leading to resource exhaustion, environmental degradation,
and social disruption. The driver of this relationship is complexity, which accelerates
through globalization. The unprecedented level of complexity in global society today
impacts communities who come under pressure to accommodate and offer support for
its processes and outcomes. Communities that successfully accommodate, those that
out-compete and out-innovate others as agents of globalization, are rewarded with
particular benefits. Yet even the most competitive and innovative of communities are
not immune from the consequences of their actions. At the community level just as at
the global level, it becomes more difficult to achieve the benefits of success while
costs continue to mount.
This chapter examines the community-level impacts of global complexity.
Communities increasingly experience the forces of economic liberalization,
commercialization, the technicization of social interaction, and knowledge
specialization and skill elimination. The ability of communities to maintain cohesion
and identity is eroded by these forces, leaving them in a weaker position to exercise
agency even though they are bestowed the benefits of security, material comfort, and
convenience. Consequently, there are adverse impacts that weakened communities
experience, namely dependency on advanced technologies, a loss of self-governance,
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and inequitable distributions of resources and development costs. These undesirable
outcomes are becoming more prominent, in all communities, while the benefits are
harder and harder to deliver.
Before continuing, it is necessary to clearly articulate what is meant by the
term community. In the dissertation’s introductory chapter, the definition of a
community was limited by population and rural/urban characteristics, and it was
argued that community is conceptualized to lie at the socially constructed boundary
between town and city. In the following section, the concept of community is
developed further.
3.2
Conceptualizing Community
Zygmunt Bauman (2001) argues that the word community is all too often used
inappropriately without a full understanding of what it means or entails. He claims
that community is a feel-good buzz-word because people tend to associate it with the
image of a utopian ideal, where humans live in a state of peace and stability with each
other. It is essential not to romanticize or idealize the concept of community.
Communities can be composed of peaceful and generous people just as they can be
composed of violent and greedy people, and many communities live in a constant state
of oppressive and violent conditions. Bauman’s main concern – that the idea of
community is widely employed without fully articulating its contours – is valid.
Because community is used as a unit of research in this dissertation, it must be given
shape and clearly conceptualized.
When conceptualizing community for this research, there are three defining
characteristics of the term to consider. The first characteristic of a community is a
shared sense of belonging and of understanding the world, of bonding with the other
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members and maintaining those bonds to retain a unique identity (Delanty, 2010). The
second characteristic is spatial fixity. It is true that transient or nomadic communities
move about freely and online communities such as Facebook are composed of
individuals from all over the world that share a sense of belonging to the same group.
What is of particular interest for this inquiry, however, is where a community
physically resides and in that respect communities must have a definite geographical
identity. The third characteristic of community is a requirement for some level of
political agency and self-governance. This third characteristic is closely aligned with
the classic Greek conceptualization of a polis (Arendt, 1958; Bookchin, 1989). All
communities have some level of autonomy to define and traverse the development
path to best meet their needs. This is not to suggest that communities do not feel
pressure from forces to move in particular directions. But the ability to exercise
political and economic agency is essential because it demonstrates that a community
can adapt to changing conditions while maintaining those shared bonds and
understandings (which are likely to evolve as well) that keep it together. In keeping
with Bauman’s warning to avoid romanticizing or idealizing community, it must be
reiterated that there is an a spectrum of arrangements and modes of self-governance
that communities can practice, some democratic and some authoritarian.
3.3
The Forces Experienced by Communities
The concept of global complexity explored and analyzed in Chapter 2 is
immensely powerful. Communities are influenced by its pressures, and it is
increasingly setting the terms for how communities can develop and the political and
economic options before them. Complexity exerts forces on communities and they are
asked to accommodate those forces by integrating and embedding themselves into its
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dynamic relationship. What this looks like in practice is community development
where even the most basic of essentials – food, energy, housing, transportation,
communication, etc. – are delivered straight to communities for purchase.
Remembering that globalization quite literally delivers the goods, communities that
accommodate development forces are part and parcel of the accelerating energy and
resource production and consumption cycle being driven by growth in complexity.
They are also weakened when they accommodate these forces. The foundation of
community cohesion is chipped away, leaving the community in a less stable, more
vulnerable state.
This community development strategy to accommodate development forces is
not self-evident. It is possible to resist, as the Amish do, but it is increasingly difficult.
The forces nudge and encourage communities to accommodate global complexity, and
they are remarkably effective and pervasive. To fully understand and address the
development challenges that communities now confront with increasing frequency, it
is imperative to shed light on these forces. In the section that follows, these forces are
defined and examined: economic liberalization, commercialization, technicization of
social interaction, and knowledge specialization and skill elimination. The forces
discussed here do not comprise an exhaustive list by any means. There are other
forces experienced by communities, nationalization for example (Bookchin, 1982).
Yet the four described here are amplified as global complexity grows and becomes
more intense.
3.3.1
Economic Liberalization
Economic liberalization is a powerful force in community development. It is
fundamental to the market-based belief that rational actors, armed with full and perfect
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information, and competing in their own self-interest for scarce resources will interact
with each other in a manner that allocates resources optimally. It is also fundamental
to the idea of a limited government, where government institutions create and enforce
certain basic rights such as private property rights, but stop short of intervening too
dramatically in market mechanics. Economic liberalization acknowledges the
existence of market failures – monopolies, information asymmetries, public goods
underinvestment, and externalities – but beyond correcting these unavoidable flaws
and performing basic public services, the role of governments are limited to ensuring
that market operate efficiently and effectively.
The classic economic liberalization force is morphing into a new, more hardlined and laissez-faire vector termed economic neoliberalization (Harvey, 2005).
Under the force of economic neoliberalization, governments still create and enforce
basic rights such as private property laws, but certain services that were formerly
funded and delivered through public resources are now entrusted to private enterprise.
Examples of economic neoliberalization are seen in the proliferation of for-profit
charter schools and waste collection companies. Furthermore, under the force of
economic neoliberalization, the deregulation of private industry becomes an
unambiguous goal and is achieved by limiting government controls and management.
Free trade, even though it is a supra-community level project, is a massively
consequential outcome of the economic liberalization force on local communities.
Communities all over the world are exposed to the economic impacts of globalization
which is made possible by free trade agreements and the mobility of energy and
resources they are designed to enable (Williamson, Imbroscio, & Alperovitz, 2002).
Within the political and economic contours of free trade agreements, formerly static
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community resources are rendered dynamic and are thus capable of shifting
geographically to competing communities. Similar to the economic liberalization
assumption of self-interested individuals competing in a marketplace for scarce
resources, inter-community competition for energy and resources is embedded in the
logic of free trade. These inputs – be they physical, financial, managerial, etc. – will
uproot from one community and relocate to another if a pecuniary incentive exists.
Allegiance to or solidarity with people, place, and product does not factor into
economic decision making under this logic (H. E. Daly & Cobb Jr., 1994). As a
result, communities can be casualties, as well as victors, in the global scramble to
capture the development windfalls of free trade. Furthermore, the combination of
economic liberalization and free trade gives large and powerful retailers the ability to
leverage their massive political and purchasing powers to drive down prices. Smaller
scale local economic interests cannot compete. As a result, local and unique economic
interests are replaced with geographically distant and standardized ones (Bauman,
1998).
The emergence and integration of the global economy is often cited as the most
influential force facilitating the decline in American production and the communities
built around manufacturing (Forrant, 2009; Longwood, 2008). Economic
liberalization, free trade, and the establishment of Special Economic Zones enable
energy and resources to flow freely between nations, thus incentivizing industries to
locate production and manufacturing facilities in countries where financial returns are
maximized (Levy, 2005). When obstacles to Ricardian comparative advantage are
removed, the global redistribution of production and manufacturing becomes a
unidirectional vector moving from countries where labor is costly and regulatory
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frameworks are restrictive toward countries where labor is cheaper and regulations are
lax (Jensen & Pedersen, 2011).
Economic liberalism has consequences for communities that extend beyond the
material world and penetrate into the mental disposition of community members.
When energy and resources become mobile, and when the global economic system
becomes so complex that a sense or feeling of control is lost, there is constant
uncertainty and restlessness about the future. Individuals become fearful that they
may lose their economic livelihoods without warning. In this anxiety-ridden
environment – which has its own special type of techno-fix solution in anti-depressant
medication – wedges are driven between communities as they strive to compete and
out manoeuver each other. In this inherently antagonistic context, political, economic,
and social division – not union – is a pervasive consequence of the force of economic
liberalization (Bauman, 2001).
3.3.2
Commercialization
The mass production of goods and services delivered through globally
complex relations is a remarkable achievement, yet the economic arc that begins with
production must end in consumption. Consumption is indispensable for the continued
maintenance of complexity and the basic method to ensure that goods are consumed is
to commercialize those goods. Commercialization, therefore, is another major force
that communities experience.
After a good is physically manufactured, advertising, marketing, and branding
techniques are employed to psychologically manufacture a desire or create a need for
the good where none previously existed (Klein, 2000). Commercialization, by its very
nature, is thus designed to stimulate demand and increase consumption of mass
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produced goods. It is becoming particularly effective in the Internet age –
commercialization is increasingly personalized based on an individual’s browsing
history, past online purchases, Google searches – because of how it isolates the
individual from the community and presents a seemingly endless assortment of
products, experiences, and extra-community goods for personal consumption. Once
isolated, and once the desire to consume a good is manufactured, the individual’s
attention, energy, and resources are diverted from the community.
The commercialization force also invades a community’s physical space in the
form of visible advertisements. Billboards, buses, and the sides of buildings can
become tableaus for advertising consumer goods. Even entire communities can
become canvases for the commercialization of mass produced products. Over the
course of a full weekend in September 2014, the community of Crested Butte,
Colorado was branded “Whatever, USA” (Turkewitz, 2014). The town was taken
over by Bud Light, whose advertising slogan is “Up for Whatever,” and covered in
blue. Lampposts were painted blue, Elk Avenue (the community’s main thoroughfare)
was painted blue, blue mannequins were positioned around town, and local shops and
hotels were forced to strip their markings and put up blue Bud Light-branded signs
instead. The beer manufacturer then flew in 1,000 young adults for a weekend of allyou-can-drink Bud Light partying.5 The publicity stunt was filmed to create an
advertisement to be aired during the 2015 Super Bowl. To compensate the town for
allowing Bud Light to commercialize their community, Crested Butte received
$500,000 from the beer manufacturer.
5 See http://www.budlight.com/whatever-usa.html
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3.3.3
Technicization of Social Interaction
In the traditional community context that existed before the emergence of the
global complexity, direct face-to-face interactions between community members was
the manner in which social experience is mediated. Yet there is an emergent force in
communities where advanced technology is increasingly used to mediate social
interactions such that physical presence and face-to-face communication is no longer
required. What conceivably began with the telephone continues today with smart
phones, Google Chat, Apple FaceTime, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, telecommuting and
teleconferencing software, and other digital communication platforms. As any one of
these communication technologies become prominent and when their use becomes
widespread, there is latent peer pressure on non-users to adopt and accept the
technology out of a concern for being excluded from social interactions. This is what
is meant by the technicization of social interaction.
Yet while technologically-mediated communication platforms certainly offer a
tremendous level of capability, and have the immense potential to strengthen
community cohesion when used appropriately, they also divert attention and resources
away from the local community. New lines of communication and social interaction
are opened up to a world beyond the local community. The boundaries of what is and
what is not community become obscured. Bauman (2001, p. 13) describes the
situation as one where:
the balance between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ communication, once
skewed sharply towards the interior, gets more even, thereby blurring
the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The sameness evaporates once
the communication between its insiders and the world outside becomes
more intense and carries more weight than the mutual exchanges of the
insiders.
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Moreover, when an individual’s social interaction is mediated through
technology as opposed to real-life experience, that person loses some ability to
empathize with others (Fredrickson, 2013; Kok et al., 2013). Empathy is an emotional
prerequisite for the formation and maintenance of community, yet this finding
indicates that an individual’s capacity for community engagement would decrease
when it is mediated through advanced communication technologies. Moreover, in
what can be described as a double bind, when individuals in a community elect to
forgo real life social interaction and opt for the technology-mediated variation, they
are increasingly exposed to the commercialization of mass produced goods.
Personalized advertisements are unavoidable features on any individual’s Facebook
page or Google search results.
3.3.4
Knowledge Specialization and Skill Elimination
Growth in complexity parallels growth in specialized knowledge, all else being
equal. In terms of maintaining complexity, specialized knowledge is valued more
highly when compared to common knowledge. Communities, and the individuals
comprising them, therefore experience forces to specialize. They also experience
pressure to abandon skills that may be useful but are easily performed elsewhere in
cheaper labor markets.
The formalized system of education, combined with Western cultural values,
prepares individuals for a life of labor in a complex, specialized social environment.
From an early age, individuals are advised that if they wish to succeed in their
professional lives, they need to learn and master a specialized field of knowledge. The
post-secondary system of education, in particular, compels students to absorb a narrow
knowledge base (Vanderburg, 2006). Disciplinary curriculums are structured in a
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well-defined, linear fashion and students are frequently limited to the confines of core
courses and minimal electives. This education system achieves the desired result; the
highly specialized workforce sought by the labor market. Employers in this market,
who are increasingly offering niche products and services themselves, require laborers
who possess the knowledge to perform a specific role, within a specific domain. This
makes intuitive, rational sense in many cases. Hospitals should employ specialized,
highly educated and knowledgeable heart surgeons and structural design firms should
employ specialized, highly educated and knowledgeable bridge engineers.
Coupled with an increase in the specialization of knowledge is the elimination
of certain skills, either through technological means or through geographic shifts in the
global economy. Eliminating certain skills, or at least reducing their presence, is
frequently called deskilling, and this phenomenon has been well-documented in a
number of professional fields as diverse as auto repair (Borg, 2007), reindeer herding
(Pelto, 1987), and healthcare (Hoff, 2011). In each of these instances, technological
and social changes in the professional work environment fundamentally altered labor
practices to the extent that skills which were once necessary for the successful
completion of work became redundant. For example, in the field of auto repair, the
rise of electrical components in automobiles rendered some diagnostic knowledge and
skills superfluous. Prior to the electrification of vehicles, seasoned mechanics could
identify many faults and malfunctions quickly, simply by using their primary senses.
After electrification, these diagnostic skills became obsolete. An auto mechanic does
not experience, and hence cannot diagnose, an electrified vehicle in the same way that
she or he smells, feels, hears, sees, or even tastes a purely mechanical one (Borg,
2007).
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Any geographic shift in production and manufacturing directly impacts skills
present in labor markets. For example, between December 2000 and June 2012, it is
estimated that the apparel and leather industry in the United States off-shored a half
million jobs to China (Dolega, 2012). In time, if those displaced American workers do
not exercise their talents, the presence of skills associated with clothes-making –
weaving, dyeing, drafting, cutting, sewing, knitting – will decrease in the United
States. The trend in offshoring American clothing manufacturing to countries like
China, Bangladesh, and Turkey elucidates the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (2013)
prediction that between 2012 and 2022, the sewing machine operator workforce in the
United States will see a 25.8% decline in total employment. All else being equal,
communities in the United States are becoming deskilled in sewing.
3.4
Benefits of Accommodating Global Complexity
While communities are adversely impacted by global forces and experience
negative consequences, which are discussed shortly, they are also able to experience
attractive outcomes such as high levels of security, material comfort, and convenience.
The overwhelming majority of communities accommodate the global forces because
they are drawn to these benefits. In order to fully appreciate why communities
accommodate despite the undesirable outcomes – and before examining those adverse
consequences – it is necessary to investigate the attractive outcomes delivered.
The discussion that follows pertains specifically to communities in welldeveloped parts of the world where the positive outcomes of globalization are highly
valued cultural preferences. In these communities, depoliticized and hence
unchallenged concepts such as “progress” and “efficiency” lay a cultural framework
for making decisions on community development (Norgaard, 1994; Princen, 2005).
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Culturally and normatively, the complexity and its forces are widely viewed as
natural, unassailable, and in many respects good and necessary. This ethnographic
perspective is highlighted because it helps to clarify why communities, when they
consider how they ought to develop, express few objections to accommodating global
complexity – which again entails competing and innovating in markets for scarce
resources – as essential and integral parts of their livelihoods.
The attractive outcomes discussed here – security, material comfort, and
convenience – are not equally distributed. Some communities in well-developed
nations experience high levels of security, comfort, and convenience while other
communities, often located in low-income or impoverished areas, do not receive these
benefits (Agyeman, 2005).
3.4.1
Security
Perhaps the most fundamental and valuable outcome delivered when
communities accommodate global complexity is an unprecedented level of security.
In the broadest sense, security is understood to mean an acceptable level of protection
against personal harm and injury and the certainty of knowing that basic rights will be
enforced. The nation-state is granted the right, by consent of its people, to monopolize
violence by possessing exclusive control of standing armies as well as policing and
incarceration powers (Elias, 1982). This environment dramatically disincentivizes any
individual or collective will to radical resistance. At another level, interpersonal
violence is minimized and controlled due to the threat of penalties imposed on guilty
parties; incarceration, sanctions, and in some cases capital punishment. As noted in
the section on economic liberalization, governing structures consistently create and
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enforce certain rights, like private property rights, which creates certainty and a sense
of security.
More abstractly, however, is the idea that communities that are intertwined and
embedded with other communities, both economically and politically, do not resort to
violence against each other because such behavior would be contrary to their own selfinterests. Market-based competition is encouraged, while outright physical violence is
seen as counterproductive because it threatens those essential economic relationships.
Coming down a level to the individual community, those communities that outcompete and are successful in innovating and attracting resources are able to afford
peace and security. They have the financial means to pay for safe neighborhoods or,
in the extreme case, gated communities. Furthermore, when resources are
accumulated and when energy and material scarcity is seemingly eliminated (see next
section), individuals have little incentive to antagonize one another or become
belligerent. Economically affluent, energy flush, consumer class communities exist in
a secure and certain social environment.
This results in a social environment that is, in theory, more secure and stable
than would otherwise be the case. Communities that experience a secure and stable
social environment without the threat of violence, and with the protections of certain
rights, then have freedoms of expression and opportunity that would otherwise be
unavailable. Security is a prerequisite to achieving a happy, meaningful livelihood
and it is therefore an extremely attractive community development outcome.
3.4.2
Material Comfort
Following on from the provision of security and the assurances that come with
it, communities are afforded space to build materially comfortable lifestyles. The
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forces of economic liberalization, commercialization, and specialization combine to
produce an astonishing amount of material wealth. A complex global society, fed by
continual supplies of energy and resources, is able to physically deliver affordable
consumer goods in such massive quantities that the fear of neo-Malthusian resource
scarcity is virtually eliminated, or at least concealed (Dietz & O’Neill, 2013; Hamilton
& Denniss, 2005). Indeed, rather than experiencing persistent resource scarcity,
communities that develop successfully are presented with an overabundance or surplus
of many consumer goods as a visit to the mall or to an online retailer will demonstrate.
Communities in well-developed nations have so much material affluence that
despite the fact that the average size of single-family homes built in the US increased
significantly from 1,660 square feet in 1973 to nearly 2,400 square feet in 2010, there
was a parallel rapid growth in the self-storage industry (US Census Bureau, 2011). In
other words, the growth in material goods that create physically comfortable lifestyles
is increasing at a higher rate than the size of homes needed to store the same material
goods. For the last four decades, the self-storage industry is one of the fastest growing
commercial real estate sectors and there is currently 2.3 billion square feet of selfstorage space worldwide, an area three and a half times the size of Manhattan Island
(Self Storage Association, 2013).
Over time, the level of material comfort in communities has increased, while
the price of consumer goods has decreased. So not only are more and more goods
produced today, and delivered to communities for purchase, in many instances the cost
of purchasing goods – like advanced technologies – is declining. Over the course of
the past several decades, the inflation-adjusted sale price of items such as computers,
photovoltaic solar panels, and apparel have all declined significantly. With advances
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in agriculture, food prices parallel this trend. In the 1930s, Americans were spending
nearly a quarter of their disposable income on food. Today, that figure has dropped to
below ten percent (USDA, 2014). Households are able to spend less on basic
necessities, such as food, and can use the remainder to purchase consumer goods.
This means that communities have more money to buy more and cheaper goods. The
result is an unprecedented level of material comfort for communities that develop
successfully.
3.4.3
Convenience
The material comfort experienced by successfully developed communities is
matched with a parallel level of convenience, both in terms of physical convenience
and time-saving convenience (Tierney, 1992). Physically demanding labor, what
some might consider drudgery, and which is still present in many communities in the
least-developed world, is all but eliminated in well-developed communities. This is
due in large part because the energy and resources required to power the technologies
and technological systems that perform services for the community – is not channeled
through physical human or animal labor but is instead delivered directly to the
technology by specialized infrastructure such as electricity grids and water pipelines.
There is, therefore, a combination of technological and energy delivery systems that
combine to eliminate drudgery. To clean clothes, communities use washing machines
rather than hand-scrubbing with washboards. To drink, communities turn on faucets
rather than pumping water. To cook food, communities use an electric or gas stovetop
rather than having to search for, collect, and chop firewood.
Advances in food production practices and innovations in mechanized farming,
along with the widespread exploitation of fossil fuels, has dramatically reduced the
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percentage of communities performing agriculture-related labor. In 1900, when most
farming was done with back-breaking manual labor and draft animals, over forty
percent of the US population was employed in the agriculture workforce (Dimitri,
Efflan, & Conklin, 2005). In 2012, less than two percent of the American population
worked in the agriculture sector (Henderson, 2014). In terms of food consumption,
the rise of the fast food and restaurant industry in the United States is a clear example
of time-saving convenience. In 2012, forty three percent of American family food
expenditures were away from the home, compared to only twenty six percent in 1970
(Lin, 2014). In the domestic sphere, prepackaged heat-and-serve and ready-to-eat
meals are a rapidly growing segment of the global food industry. Scientifically
engineered and designed with high proportions of added chemical preservatives, salt,
fat, and sugar to be optimally flavorful, the convenience food sector is a global
phenomenon (Moss, 2013). Cleaning up after eating is also made more convenient
because many prepared meals do not require the consumer to dirty dishes, the
packaging itself is the cooking and serving dish which is simply thrown away after
eating. The amount of time that Americans spend in food preparation and cleanup has
dropped significantly, from an average of sixty five minutes in 1965 to only thirty
three minutes in 2008 (Cutler, Glaeser, & Shapiro, 2003; Harmick, Andrews, Guthrie,
Hopkins, & McClelland, 2011).
Life in communities that develop successfully is remarkably convenient.
Physically demanding labor is very much reduced. The day-to-day routine tasks such
as cooking and cleaning can be performed quickly and easily, at least compared to the
past. Having a face-to-face conversation – thanks to the technicization of social
interaction force – can be conveniently mediated through advanced technologies. All
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of these time saving conveniences increase a community’s productivity and output
because more people are able to spend a greater amount of time engaged in paid wage
labor, rather than performing unpaid domestic labor.
3.5
The Costs of Accommodating Global Complexity
Communities accommodating development forces, successfully attracting
resources, and out-innovating competitors are rewarded with a series of highly
desirable outcomes. Yet these outcomes, on the aggregate, contribute to growth in
complexity, and hence further magnify its forces and the consequences of those forces.
For example, the level of material comfort enjoyed by communities is energy and
resource intensive, which creates social and environmental problems wherever the
energy and resources are harvested and wherever the cheap consumer goods are
manufactured (Cline, 2012; Yardley, 2013). Time and labor saving conveniences and
technologies enable communities to produce more and consume more, which in turn
perpetuates higher levels of complexity. The security provided partly insulates
communities from the consequences of their actions, but comes at a price; the more
problems there are, the more costly the security. Even the supposed time-saving
conveniences, at a certain level of saturation, become hindrances to high quality
lifestyles. The automobile was originally touted as a comfortable, convenient mode of
personal transportation, but the time spent stuck in traffic by the average American
commuter more than doubled from sixteen hours per year in 1982 to thirty eight hours
per year in 2011 (Schrank, Eisele, & Lomax, 2012).
When communities accommodate global complexity, they experience three
major undesirable impacts – technological dependency, loss of self-governance, and
distributive inequities. When complexity grows, each of these negative outcomes at
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the community level is more prevalent, and more intense, in both quantitative and
qualitative terms. There are, to be sure, other undesirable consequences such as
localized environmental despoliation, and there are certainly global impacts like
climate change. But the three undesirable outcomes are highlighted because they are
becoming more prominent and more consequential at the local community level.
Complexity is not the only factor driving these outcomes, but complexity does amplify
them.
3.5.1
Technological Dependency
As complexity increases, communities undergo a socio-economic
transformation and become more dependent upon advanced technologies and
technological systems. This is due, to a large extent, to the knowledge specialization
and skill elimination force. Technological dependency frequently occurs when
common knowledge and skills useful for producing essential goods and services
within the community, via simple and appropriate technological means, is replaced
with the highly specialized knowledge and skills. Communities that lack the
knowledge and skills to manipulate and use appropriate technologies –simple tools
and techniques for producing basic goods – must rely on external sources to provide
these same essentials. Knowledge and skills to produce essentials through personally
scaled technologies are eliminated in situations where technological dependency is
reached. Ivan Illich (1973, p. 52) defined this outcome as a “radical monopoly” where
a complex and technicized industrial system exercises “exclusive control over the
satisfaction of a pressing need, and excludes nonindustrial activities from
competition.” Cottage industrialists, backyard and small-scale hobby farmers,
weekend warrior auto mechanics – these nonindustrial activities and the knowledge
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and skills necessary to exercise them are steadily eliminated as mass produced goods,
industrial agriculture, and electronically advanced vehicles solidify their radical
monopoly positions (Borg, 2007).
Technological interventions are implicated in conditions of community
dependency. The development and diffusion of technological interventions precedes
and catalyzes parallel transformations in the set of skills possessed by communities.
Technological interventions alter both the nature and quality of labor such that skills
once deemed necessary to produce a good or service are replaced by the intervention.
The manufacturing sector has a long history of developing and adopting machines and
robotics to replace the physical skills of craftspeople (Braverman, 1974).
Increasingly, with the rapid innovations in artificial intelligence, the personal service
sector now regularly uses advanced technologies such as computers and IT software to
replace the mental skills and talents of a human workforce (Brynjolfsson & McAfee,
2011).
Specialized knowledge and skill no longer guarantees success for
communities, and when technological dependency increases, communities find
themselves subject to radical monopolies, some of which are fragile and susceptible to
failure. The major risk in these situations is that advanced technologies malfunction,
in which case the essentials for daily life, which the community has no capacity to
produce locally, would soon be in short supply. The August 14, 2003 electrical grid
power outage is an illustrative example (US-Canada Power System Outage Task
Force, 2004). The combination of a software bug and a tree branch were blamed for
knocking out power to an estimated fifty five million people in the northeastern United
States and Canada. While power was quickly restored for many, the spectacular
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failure of the electric grid and the impact it had on the area’s communities was
notable. As communities accommodate global complexity, advanced yet fragile
technologies and technological systems integrate into socio-economic relations,
ultimately leaving the communities in situations of technological dependency.
3.5.2
Loss of Self-Governance
When communities accommodate global complexity, they generally
experience a loss of self-governance of their affairs and resources (Bookchin, 1982;
Plumwood, 2002; Tainter, 2007). The loss of self-governing power is manifested in
two distinct but related ways. First, communities lose decision-making powers and
controls over their locally available energy and resources. These assets can be
physical resources but also cultural and historical endowments. Second, the physical
spaces where community members are free to express their values, goals, and
strategies for development are closed off or made exclusive.
With respect to the loss of self-governance over local assets, valuable energy
and resources in communities are withdrawn and channeled into support for global
complexity. Community choices on whether or not to relinquish its energy and
resources is increasingly closed off as the demands of complexity far outweigh those
of the local community. When communities accommodate global complexity, they
become integrated into and reliant on its political, economic, and technological
systems. Any rapid simplification or malfunction would be devastating for all
communities, so maintaining the energy and resource intensive systems becomes
paramount (Tainter, 2007). Significant pressure is placed on embedded communities
to deliver flows of energy and resources beyond the community to underpin global
complexity. The choice for embedded local communities appears binary: self-govern
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energy and resources and face disconnection from the life-sustaining political,
economic, and technological order, or relinquish control of energy and resources and
maintain a state of extreme dependency. Electing to disconnect and retain selfgoverning power is perceived to be risky and the benefits are less certain.
Communities are therefore compelled, essentially by default, to yield control of and
authority over their energy and resources.
The loss of local community self-governance can become manifest in multiple
ways. In certain instances, direct dispossession of community energy and resources
occurs despite local opposition. Some communities located on natural gas deposits
have passed local anti-fracking ordinances in an effort to prohibit the practice and
preserve the quality of their environment. But powerful state agencies, energy
companies, and industry groups are taking these communities to court, forcing local
governments to mount expensive legal defenses to their right to pass and enforce such
bans (Healy, 2015). State governments are also passing pre-emption laws which
prohibit local authorities from passing ordinances such as fracking bans (Dewan,
2015). In other instances, decision-makers in the community can push – and can be
pressured by extra-local interests – to cede authority and control over the objections of
local residents and the majority of the public. In either case, the choice of selecting a
development direction is removed from the community.
Physical space, held in the public interest for community use, can be closed off
and made to generate resources for global complexity. This also has implications for
local self-governance. Public space is essential for self-governance because it offers a
place where people are able to freely express their values, objectives, and objections to
the trajectory of community development. Self-governance therefore involves a
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public sphere that is active and engaged – and that requires a platform to assemble.
When the right to access public space and express community values is limited –
whether through intentional design, formal restrictions on access and behaviors, or full
privatization – a community’s ability and capacity to self-govern is diminished. In
what may be termed a round of “enclosures,” restricted access to public space is
increasingly prevalent in many communities (Hodkinson, 2012).
3.5.3
Distributive Inequity
One factor that contributes to the level of complexity in a system is the degree
of differentiation between its component parts (Section 2.2). Differentiation,
therefore, is inherent to complexity. The more complex a global society and economy
becomes, the more differentiated it becomes. Extreme differentiation – for example
differentiation in social roles, skills, and knowledge systems – translates into and is
manifested in extreme inequalities in access to resources (Hodgson, 2003; Tainter,
2007). Inequality is a systemic condition of complexity, with greater complexity
leading to more unequal outcomes for communities. While some level of inequality is
tolerable and generally expected, socially liberal values interpret gross inequalities as
qualitative inequities, meaning the access to resources is so unbalanced that it does not
represent a reasonable or just distribution. Distributional outcomes become
increasingly intolerable as complexity grows and threaten the stability and long-term
success of communities (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2011).
A third negative outcome that arises when communities accommodate global
complexity and its forces is increasing violations of the spirit and principles of
distributive equity. The inequities occur through the misallocation of and access to
social, environmental, and technological resources. Distributive inequities can also
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occur when the costs of development activity are borne by certain segments of the
community, while the benefits accrue to others (Agyeman, 2005). The inequities can
occur between whole communities – where the distribution of resources, costs, and
benefits are skewed between them – and they can also occur within the same
community.
In the former case, a community that successfully develops is able to
accumulate the resources associated with high quality lifestyles while other, less
successful communities struggle with endemic conditions of scarcity, poor
environmental quality, and dismal living conditions. This is a typical, indeed
rationalized outcome of accommodating global complexity and is a well-documented
phenomenon, especially with respect to comparisons between communities in the socalled developed and developing countries (de Rivero, 2001; O’Connor, 1989). There
are also apparent inequitable distributions and access to resources between
communities in the United States as well, as a comparison between blighted and
industrial Chester, Pennsylvania and nearby Greenville, Delaware demonstrates.
Moreover, the inequities are systemic and self-replicating. They are reproduced from
one generation to the next as healthy, clean, affluent communities are at a structural
advantage for future benefits than unhealthy, dirty, and poor communities (Agyeman,
2005).
When global complexity and knowledge specialization increase, innercommunity inequity can also increase. Specialized knowledge is privileged and
granted disproportionate access to epistemological space that informs decisionmaking. For example, when communities accommodate development forces and
engage with global complexity, those community members with highly-specialized
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knowledge to govern and administer community affairs are in a privileged position,
while those without specialize knowledge are disenfranchised because they are unable
to engage in decision-making. For most community members, decision-making
remains opaque and, consequently, inequitable (Bertram, 1997). Those with
privileged, specialized knowledge have greater access and influence over the direction
of community development; the choices of few have consequences for many (Waste,
1986). Moreover, if those with privileged access to epistemological space unduly
influence or slant decisions in their own self-interest and without regard to the needs
and desires of the wider community, the distribution of the costs and benefits to
development could become skewed.
3.6
The Context for Community Response
Global complexity is placing pressures on communities to accommodate,
accept, and take advantage of a series of development forces. These forces are
becoming normalized and integrated into political and economic value systems, with
the expectation that the most efficient and effective strategy for local community
development is to accommodate these forces, participate in markets, compete for
resources, and innovate and adapt to changing technological conditions. Indeed, the
level of security, material comfort, and convenience experienced by some
communities is unprecedented in the history of human civilization. The security,
comfort, and convenience in communities creates the conditions to engage in social
action, behaviors, and patterns of consumption that catalyze growth in complexity and
accelerate the exhaustion of planet-wide energy and resources. Eventually problems
arise from the exploitation and consumption of these limited inputs. Advanced
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techno-fixes solutions are proposed, yet the benefits of increasing complexity and
developing technologies to address – or conceal – problems diminishes over time.
The feedback loop connecting community development and global complexity
is continuous. Global complexity is maintained by community development actions,
just as communities are shaped and reshaped by complexity. At both scales, however,
there is a divergent trend in the costs and benefits of maintaining this relationship. At
the global level, continuing to pursue more complex social, political, economic, and
technological arrangements is leading to resource exhaustion, environmental
deterioration, social destabilization, and technological vulnerability. At the
community level, the path of community accommodation is exacerbating
technological dependency, loss of governing powers, and distributive inequities of
resources, costs, and benefits. This is not to suggest that communities in the past were
immune from these costly outcomes, only that they are becoming more prevalent in
both quantitative and qualitative terms. What is clear from this analysis is that new
development alternatives are needed.
3.7
Criteria for Evaluating Alternative Community Responses
What criteria should be used to judge alternative community responses to the
current predicament?6 To answer that question, one must make basic assumptions
6 The idea of a community “response” is meant to denote an alternative community
development strategy. An implicit understanding of “response” is a conscious and
voluntary reaction to perceived external stimulus. Here, the stimulus is the current
predicament facing both humankind and communities, but this is not to suggest that
the only valid responses are those that define the problem in identical terms. A
legitimate community response may be motivated by a different but related set of
external stimuli and may characterize and define the problem differently.
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about how it might be resolved. First, even a community response enacted with full
clarity and consciousness of global complexity and its forces and outcomes cannot
change these structural conditions on its own. If a single community is removed from
the sum total of worldwide development activity, it will have no perceptible impact on
the larger system. Just as the current challenges are built up and constructed over
many decades the sum total of many micro-level decisions and activities requires
sustained, strategic deconstruction from many communities. Even so, some
communities must begin the process and quickly create, experiment, and refine
alternatives while others can adopt them.
To be effective, alternative community responses must approach the challenge
at both the local and the global level: on the one hand addressing the undesirable
community-scale impacts, and on the other addressing runaway complexity. To be
effective in the current context of development, communities must find ways to
minimize the localized consequences of a complex global order while simultaneously
dialing back their contributions to its maintenance.
These assumptions naturally lend themselves to a framework for analyzing
community development responses. A response must be able to confront and reverse
the trends toward technological dependence, loss of self-governance, and distributive
inequality. This means fundamentally redefining how successful community
development is recognized. Success can no longer be based primarily on the level of
security, comfort, and convenience offered. Instead, given the conditions generated by
complexity, successful communities will be the ones moving toward increasing
technological independence, strengthening their capacity to self-govern, and acting to
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achieve greater distributive equity. These are the community-scale criteria by which
development responses must be analyzed and judged.
In terms of technological independence, communities should be judged
favorably if they can liberate themselves from the global complex web of fragile,
centralized technological relations and gain control over facets of their technological
milieu. On the other hand, communities that further integrate their livelihoods into
advanced, uncontrollable technologies and technological systems will be assessed
unfavorably. For enhancing self-governance, communities that create a process and
platform for community members to make decisions about the most appropriate
direction for development of local resources are preferable to those that close off local,
autonomous decision making. Distributive equity is fostered in communities that
ensure that all community members have access to basic goods and services and that
fundamental resources such as healthy housing and nutritious food are accessible to
all. Responses that unreasonably skew or polarize the distribution of resources, costs,
and benefits of development throughout a community will measure poorly against this
criterion.
The analysis of community responses should also determine what impact they
will have on global complexity. One way to conduct this analysis is to investigate
their actions, technologies, and patterns of consumption to determine if they foster less
complex arrangements. This can be achieved if communities begin the methodical
and calculated process of disengaging from global complexity, reducing consumption
of prodigious quantities of energy and resources, and substituting locally-produced
basic goods and services for those delivered through globalized systems. Importantly,
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it also means communities discover ways to solve problems without increasing
complexity, thus falsifying Joseph Tainter’s deterministic logic.
Finally, from a completely practical standpoint, the viable community
development alternatives must have the capacity to successfully implement their
programs and effect change. In the United States, the nexus of power for charting
alternative development paths lies in political and policy-making institutions, and at
the community level, that power resides in local governments. Absent the support,
implicit or otherwise, of local governments, alternative community development
responses will almost certainly fail to be effective at catalyzing the needed change.
Effective community responses must have the capacity to engage with and gain the
support of local governments.
3.8
Conclusion
The global complexity dynamic, and the impact it has on communities that
accommodate it, can be presented graphically.
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Figure 3.1: The global complexity dynamic and its impact on communities
Communities appear trapped by global complexity and its forces. By their
own actions, communities that accommodate, and most do, reinforce global
complexity even while they benefit from increased security, comfort, and convenience
in the short-term. The costs of accommodation at both the global and local scales,
however, are increasing and will continue to do so until corrective action is taken.
What that corrective action will require is a new, alternative response to global
complexity.
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The effectiveness of responses should be judged by a consistent set of criteria:
technological independence, strengthening self-governance, and distributive equity. In
addition, the responses’ impact on mitigating complexity should also be evaluated
since this is a primary factor contributing to the current development challenge.
Finally, the institutional capacity of community responses to effect change and
implement their proposals must also be considered.
In the chapters that follow, two community development responses – the
Planning Sustainable Communities response and the Transition Movement response –
are described and analyzed for their viability in addressing the challenge. First, the
two responses are described by documenting their history, highlighting their
motivations and recommendations for responding to current conditions, and
identifying their dimensional themes. Chapter 4 explicates the nature of the Planning
Sustainable Communities response and Chapter 5 investigate the manner in which the
response is translated from theory and discourse into practice in the empirical case
study of Media, Pennsylvania. Chapter 6 focuses on the Transition Movement
response and Chapter 7 investigates its parallel expression in Media. Chapters 8 and 9
provide analysis of the effectiveness and implications of the community responses and
whether or not they constitute viable alternatives for meeting the global complexity
challenge.
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Chapter 4
THE PLANNING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES RESPONSE
4.1
Introduction
In this chapter, the Planning Sustainable Communities (PSC) response is
identified and a clear understanding of the history, scope, scale, and key themes of the
development strategy are presented. Before the more detailed representation of the
PSC response is offered, a brief discussion of the fundamental theory and practice of
planning is given. Background into the theory of sustainable development is offered
before elaborating on the ways in which sustainability, as a development theory, is
incorporated into the practice of planning. The chapter continues with descriptions of
the key themes contained within the PSC response and it concludes with a discussion
on the nature of the PSC response as a reform effort within the planning profession.
4.2
Planning
In many ways, communities are shaped, limited, and liberated by the physical
form and function of their environment, both natural and built. As such, the
appropriate use of physical space – and the social and ecological activities that occur
within it – is a precondition for community development. Equally, inappropriate use
or abuse of space and the imposition of a rigid development ideology can lead to both
localized and widespread social and ecological suffering (Scott, 1998). The idea that
spatial form and function can and should be intentionally and rationally managed so as
to permit certain types of activities that minimize negative consequences while
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maximizing opportunities for human and non-human development is what gives the
discipline and practice of planning its theoretical authority and mandate (Wheeler,
2013).
4.2.1
Institutionalized Planning
Planning is widely recognized as an obligatory practice and is a standard
institutionalized procedure for how communities make decisions on the appropriate
and acceptable character of their long-term development. Municipalities, townships,
towns, cities, and counties all have some formal structure in place to guide decision
making on the use of space, resources, and socio-economic activities in contextually
appropriate directions. For example, at the community-scale level, planning
commissions are responsible for evaluating development proposals and determining
how they align with the community’s zoning ordinance, building codes, and other
development/construction norms, all of which are designed to regulate the form and
function of a community’s character.
Equally, local governing bodies can initiate – and in some cases are required to
initiate through state-level statutes – the drafting, adoption, and implementation of
community comprehensive plans. Comprehensive plans are local policy documents
that formally outline the goals and objectives of community development with respect
to the character of the natural and built environments, physical infrastructure such as
housing, transportation, and energy systems, and the preservation and use of natural
resources. Comprehensive plans, indeed all community-scale plans that pass through
institutionalized channels, are legitimated and powerful vehicles for orienting future
development of an area and are therefore uniquely positioned within the community-
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scale policy domain to influence the relationship between a community and global
complexity.
The planning process is a predominantly top-down model. In the case of a
state law that empowers municipalities to develop a comprehensive plan, as with the
Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, Act 278, the top-down nature of planning
is plainly visible (State of Pennsylvania, 1968). Professional planners, developers, and
government officials play active and important roles in achieving and implementing
community development plans. Thus the execution and implementation of the
community-scale planning process typically begins and ends with individuals active in
local governments, although community members are invited to participate and
influence development goals, objectives, and implementation processes.
Opportunities to engage the community are fostered through techniques such as
visioning sessions, design charrettes (intense and collaborative problem-solving),
focus groups, and survey responses (Innes & Booher, 2004). Finally, as is typical with
professionalized vocations, in the United States there is a certification exam for
planners that is administered and controlled by the American Planning Association,
the profession’s central governing body.
4.2.2
Comprehensive Plans
Comprehensive plans are important statements of community values that serve
as advisory documents to developers, planners, and policy makers. By surveying the
pulse of community members to determine what those individuals want their
community to look like in the future, comprehensive plans channel development to
achieve the community’s vision. They set forth recommendations and strategies to
achieve that vision and a timeline for implementation. Many diverse components of a
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community’s organization and operation are highlighted in comprehensive plans; from
land use, transportation, economic development, housing, and historic preservation. In
other words, comprehensive plans typically make a sincere effort at being inclusive in
scope.
Throughout decades of comprehensive planning (perhaps even a century or
more depending on when one considers the birth of the comprehensive planning
movement), the scope has changed for two key reasons. First, comprehensive plans
are statements of community values and aspirations and those values are not static.
Second, and equally as important, the wider context (social, environmental, political,
epistemological, etc.) in which planning takes place also changes as new conditions
emerge. In addition to being a statement of community values, comprehensive plans
are policy documents because they aim to resolve current problems in the community,
prevent new problems from arising, and avoid problems that might emerge in the
future. Because problems change as conditions change and as new knowledge is
generated, the scope of comprehensive plans likewise changes over time.
4.3
Planning Sustainable Communities Response
The Planning Sustainable Communities (PSC) response is an evolution of the
discipline and practice of urban and town planning and is influenced by the design
considerations advanced through the framework of sustainable development (Wheeler,
2013, Chapter 2) . The response is motivated by the desire to find a more appropriate
and “sustainable” balance of economic, environmental, and equitable development
outcomes at the community level. Local community governing councils are initiators
and implementers of the PSC response, but the response’s primary agents and
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advocates are practicing planners, planning theorists, and private developers and their
consultants such as architects.
The PSC response is employed when a municipal government initiates a
strategic and intentional development plan and solicits expertise and recommendations
from professional planners, planning theorists, and developers. In return, the
response’s advocates seek to improve the social and environmental aspects of life
within the community by proposing development directions that align with the
principles of sustainability. Many villages, towns, and cities across the United States
have solicited and implemented sustainability-oriented plans as a general purpose
method for creating a more livable built environment. Plans for creating sustainable
communities may be larger comprehensive or master plans but also ad hoc plans that
still fall under the banner of sustainability, such as the creation of a community-wide
bicycle network.
4.3.1
The General Sustainability Framework
The sustainable development framework emerged from the World Commission
on Environment and Development’s Brundtland report and it challenged policymakers, planners, private entities, and those directly implicated in the development
process to seriously consider the intergenerational consequences of the decisions made
in the present (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). The
report argues that traditional development theory and practice is flawed because it
routinely creates conditions that surpass the resource limits and carrying capacity of
social and natural systems. On the front end, society’s extraction and consumption of
energy and resources exceeds the ability of natural environments to produce – and
reproduce – these economic inputs. On the back end of the economic cycle, society
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discharges waste into the environment at a rate that exceeds the absorptive capacity of
the environment, leading to serious pollution and ecological degradation. Humans and
non-human species are thus damaged in the long run if traditional development goes
unchecked. The Brundtland report argues strongly that future generations will
ultimately pay the costs of the currently unsustainable quantity and quality of social
action.
The Brundtland Report goes into further detail and argues that traditional
development cannot be maintained because the global equilibrium of what was later
termed the “Three E’s” – economy, environment, and equity – is tenuously
unbalanced in favor of the economy.7 A new expression of priorities and evaluative
criteria are needed when making policy decisions, especially development decisions.
The report argues that global environmental quality is deteriorating while income and
livelihood opportunities are growing more inequitable, particularly when developed
and developing nations are compared. Sustainable development can be achieved if the
Three E’s are brought into restorative balance – policies and plans can no longer
prioritize economic considerations at the expense of the environment and transnational
and intergenerational equity. The Brundtland Report thus defined a three-part set of
criteria for creating and evaluating development projects and policies.
7 The Brundtland Report did not coin the expression “Three E’s.” These three
elements of sustainability offered in the Brundtland Report, and again in the Rio
Declaration, later came to be known as the Three E’s. The shorthand notation for
economy, environment, and equity has become commonplace in planning and policy
discourse (Wheeler, 2013, Chapter 3).
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4.3.2
The PSC Response Framework
Following the publication of the Brundtland Report, and with added
reinforcement from the Agenda 21 Action Plan that emerged from the United Nations
Conference on Economic Development in 1992, popularly known as the Rio Summit,
professional planners, theorists, and developers recognized the impact the
sustainability framework would have on their profession. For example, in 1996, the
planning theorist Scott Campbell (1996) wrote an influential article in which he
explicitly argued that planners must begin to manage an appropriate balance between
the Three E’s.
Planners at all scales sought to reorient development objectives and plans to
more closely align with the sustainability framework. At the smaller end of the scale,
planners at the local community level mobilized behind the Three E’s of the
sustainability framework to achieve a vibrant and more equitable socio-economic
community atmosphere while simultaneously reducing the short- and long-term
impact on the natural world (Wheeler, 2013). The three components of the PSC
response framework are described in greater detail below and are defined relative to
pre-Brundtland planning efforts.
4.3.2.1
Environment
Two key elements absent from pre-Brundtland planning related to natural
resource limits and environmental consequences are petroleum and land. The 1973
OPEC oil embargo and the 1979 Iranian Revolution demonstrated the fragile nature of
suburban development and how the process required a continuous flow of petroleum.
Because suburbanization patterns depend on the personal automobile, suburbanization
plans are effectively locked into a petro-fueled energy system. When oil supplies
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became limited, as they did in 1973 and 1979, the prevailing planning approach
showed its vulnerability. In the postwar era, petroleum was abundant and little
attention was given to the possibility that it may be a limiting factor in development.
Had planners considered energy scarcity and taken into account the degree of
automobile dependence when they created and consulted on plans, development
patterns would look remarkably different than they do today (Duany, Plater-Zyberk, &
Speck, 2010).
In terms of land and ecosystems – which are also finite resources – postwar
planning efforts extended out from urban cores and consumed enormous quantities of
greenfield areas that were undeveloped or used for agricultural activities. It is
estimated that over 42.5 million acres of rural land was developed between 1982 and
2010 alone, an area larger than the entire state of Wisconsin and more than ten times
the size of Delaware (Farmland Information Center, 2014). Without question, the
postwar planning approach is one factor among many contributing to the long decline
in the number of farms in the United States. Along with the loss of productive land,
poorly planned developments degrade the quality of the environment and wildlife
habitats. Natural landscapes become unnatural as wetlands are drained, riparian
buffers eliminated, and waterways are diverted to accommodate population dispersal.
The valuable ecological services that these environments provide are lost in the
process. In addition, new parking lots, roads, and buildings all create additional
stormwater management and runoff challenges which often lead to pollution (Benedict
& McMahon, 2006).
In the PSC response, ecosystems, natural areas, and environmental services are
protected from overuse and abuse by humans. Clean air, water, and land are preserved
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to establish the foundation for a healthy and thriving community. Furthermore,
resources such as energy and land are considered finite and are deemed worthy of
conservation and efficiency efforts. The spatial organization and arrangement of
sustainable communities is rationally and intentionally designed in such a way as to
minimize – or at least moderate – the consumption of limited resources.
Commensurate with the long-term multigenerational outlook exercised through the
sustainable development framework, one objective of the PSC response is to tread
lightly during the present so that valuable resources and ecosystem services are
maintained well into the future.
4.3.2.2
Economy
In addition to the energy and environmental consequences posed by
unsustainable planning, economic ills are visible as well. Strip-style development and
consolidated commercial enterprises representative of malls and “Big Box” stores
hollow out local economies. Small commercial ventures find it difficult to compete on
price with the massive scale and financial purchasing power of corporate giants.
Local businesses, which serve a valuable social function because they help maintain a
sense of grounded community, are frequently forced to close down. Often located on
the population fringes, large scale commercial centers are equally dependent upon, and
cater to, the automobile. The result is a vehicle-Big Box fusion where the livelihood
benefits of economic activity are extracted from community, while the costs in terms
of sprawl, traffic congestion, and a loss of identity and place are borne by the residents
and the surrounding area (Mitchell, 2006).
Loss of economic livelihood can become a serious issue in poorly planned
communities that rely on one-dimensional economic activities or industries. Detroit is
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a classic example of a community that pursued an economic agenda based on a single
activity – automobile manufacturing – and suffered enormous consequences when the
automakers came under increased competition from foreign manufacturers. The
American companies sought to lower their costs and increase output by outsourcing
production to other locations (primarily in southern states) and by introducing
automated production techniques. Hundreds of thousands of auto workers in the
metro Detroit area lost their jobs which precipitated a downward fiscal spiral of
reduced taxation and social services spending, thus catalyzing a secondary round of
job losses (Cohen, 2013).
The PSC response offers strategies for appropriate economic development and
anticipates how a community can maintain their livelihood long into the future. A
sustainable community is one that has a plethora of small locally-owned businesses
that recirculate energy, resources, and value within the community. Sustainable
communities have a clear sense of place and identity in part because economic
functions are not divorced from social implications. In addition, a locally diverse
economic base that is not overly-reliant on a single industry or practice helps
communities weather volatile macroeconomic conditions, thus increasing the chances
of long-term success.
4.3.2.3
Equity
Traditional pre-Brundtland planning is criticized for not paying enough
attention to the social equity consequences of development and planning decisions.
For example, the suburbanization process facilitated “white flight” from urban and
metropolitan areas toward the suburbs, effectively leaving behind a poor, mostly
African American and ethnic minority core (Massey & Denton, 1988). The tax base
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of these urban areas decreased dramatically, leading to a decline in public goods such
as police and fire protection and an increase in public ills such as blight and crumbling
infrastructure. The ultimate result of these suburban planning efforts was geographic
segregation in which many communities split along demographic lines and where the
spatially separated groups had grossly unequal access to resources and services.
Beyond the social equity consequences of suburbanization, there is ample
evidence that demonstrates that specific social groups and demographics are
marginalized because of inappropriate or incomplete planning efforts. For instance,
women generally have fewer public restroom options than men (Anthony & Dufrense,
2007). Younger members of society are in many ways prevented from exercising
citizenship because they are excluded from certain public spaces (Fitzpatrick,
Hastings, & Kintrea, 2000; Lees, 2003). Disabled people experience a built
environment that impedes mobility and erects a barrier to their ability to engage with
society on an equal level (Barton, 1993). African Americans are systematically
targeted as suspicious individuals when they enter predominately white suburban
spaces (Bates & Fasenfest, 2005). Planners have largely ignored the transient needs of
the Traveler (Gypsy) community (Shubin, 2011). Langdon Winner (1986) famously
argued that Robert Moses erected low clearance overpasses in New York City
boroughs to prevent the African American community – a community that depended
on high clearance busses for transportation – from accessing the white and affluent
areas of Long Island such as Jones Beach. In each of these cases, the equity principle
of sustainability planning is violated.
The PSC response seeks to cut through and eliminate the barriers to equity
described above. Sustainable communities are demographically diverse and provide
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equal opportunities to all people to exercise citizenship and democratic participation.
Thus distributive equity considerations are included in PSC response framework.
Inclusion in public life, civil society, and the ability to access public services and
quality infrastructure are cornerstones of the equity component of planning sustainable
communities. In the PSC response, special attention is paid to the social consequences
and possible outcomes of planning practice so that plans, designs, and planning
decisions enhance equity, rather than diminish it.
4.3.3
Advocates of the PSC Response
The agents of the PSC response can be characterized as a nebulous collection
of advocates that all share a commitment to the sustainability framework. The
response is emerging in professional bodies related to the discipline and practice of
planning. Each professional body that advocates for the PSC response acknowledges
the problem of unsustainable development, especially with regards to the overconsumption of the limited energy and resources contained on the planet and the social
and environmental consequences that stem from such prodigious consumption. They
view the traditional development path as one that leads toward decay for communities
and their environments and propose a sustainability-minded development strategy.
While municipal governing councils are the initiators and implementers of the PSC
response, they are not advocates.
At the core of the PSC response are advocates in the planning profession. The
design and form of a community, how it is laid out in space, the physical materials that
are used to build it, the degree of interaction it promotes between community members
and between individuals and their environment – each of these crucial dimensions of
what constitutes a sustainable community flow directly through and are heavily
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influenced by professional planners. Professional planners may be employed in the
private, public, and non-profit sectors, but what they all espouse are design
considerations and, at times public policy proposals, that make space more hospitable
to sustainable social and environmental activity. When their services are called upon
by local officials and policy-makers, these planners bring their expertise and authority
to the intentional design or redesign of a community. Professional planners are, in a
sense, the primary and most important advocates and practitioners for the PSC
response because they have the power to shape – in both physical and conceptual
terms – the future direction of a community through their designs and policy
recommendations. Planners employed in the public sector and that advocate the PSC
response can be employed at one of many spatial scales, from local planners to county,
regional, state, and even federal scales. For example, state governments have
community development and urban planning divisions that offer guidance and advice
when communities within the state seek to plan for the future. In Pennsylvania, the
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and the Delaware County Planning
Department frequently assist local communities in their area of jurisdiction write
comprehensive plans.
Beyond practicing planners, there are planning theorists and researchers who
are instrumental in defining the contours of, and discourse surrounding the PSC
response. These advocates often operate through academic channels, for example at
universities and research-oriented bodies such as the Brookings Institute. They
construct the epistemological core of the PSC response that flows into and informs
practicing planners, and are therefore powerful voices that work on defining the nature
of the sustainability challenge as well as offering potential solutions through planning
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practice. The books that were reviewed for this dissertation were written by such
theorists and researchers. While many of these advocates work at the global scale –
disseminating their knowledge through books, journal articles, and reports – there are
also localized theorists and researchers. The Institute for Public Administration at the
University of Delaware has written guidelines for communities in the state that wish to
develop along a more sustainable direction.
Private developers, and to a large extent their consultants such as architects,
are a significant advocate for the PSC response when they offer development
proposals that align with the sustainability framework. A developer may demand
strict energy efficiency and low environmental impact construction standards when
they build a new property or refurbish and upgrade an existing one. They can also
ensure that their developments promote equitable outcomes that are functional and
easily maintained with minimal energy and resource inputs. Private developers and
their consultants who espouse the sustainability framework and ensure that they are
integrated into their development proposals are PSC response advocates.
4.4
The Key Themes of the Planning Sustainable Communities Response
Both the discourse of PSC, and the practical action-oriented tools and
techniques it recommends, constitute the PSC response themes. The discourse is
defined as the way in which the response’s advocates describe and define the problem
of unsustainable development and planning and also their vision for desirable
solutions and outcomes. The PSC response themes also include action which is
manifest in the various techniques and tools advocates recommend to create
sustainable conditions and livelihoods in local communities. Discourse and practice
combine into problem-solving themes.
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This section describes the key themes contained within the PSC response.
Each of these themes attempts to reform traditional community development and
planning practice that operated prior to the Three E’s sustainability framework. The
themes discussed in this section are the main adaptations where sustainability thinking
integrates with and changes the character of community development. These themes
are practical design and planning process transformations deemed essential by the PSC
advocates who aim to align the practice and consequences of planning with
sustainability goals and outcomes.
For example, a practicing planner who advocates for the PSC response will
look upon suburban sprawl as shortsighted and inappropriate because it hollowed out
ecosystems and local economies. They seek to integrate environmental, economic,
and equity criteria into future plans and decisions so that a community is given a solid
long term foundation for success. This logic requires a recalibration of what is
important (even essential) for a community to achieve desired, effective sustainable
outcomes. Commonly, this entails a shift in policy directions or the use of a planning
tool. The themes are a combination of the PSC discourse which identifies the problem
and envisions a more appropriate outcome, as well as the proposed planning tools to
achieve those sustainable outcomes at the community level.
Planners are problem-solvers and so there is a logical problem-solving process
that the PSC response follows that directly leads to the emergence of these themes.
The unsustainability of previous community development efforts is a major problem,
as is the challenge of orienting new community developments along sustainable
pathways. Future development is then reimagined, and a long-term vision of a
sustainable community – one that is environmentally healthy, economically sound,
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and equitable – becomes the desired outcome of planning efforts. The logic of the
PSC response then shifts from problem definition into practical action. Armed with
knowledge of the limitations to pre-sustainable development and with a clearer
understanding of the desirable outcomes, PSC response advocates reorient future
development by incorporating environmental, economic, and equity criteria into their
planning decisions. Practically, this means using their advisory and consulting
authority to recommend the tools at their disposal – and in some cases creating new
tools – to influence the physical form and function of a community so that it embodies
the values of the sustainability framework. The themes are therefore elements of the
PSC response that flow completely through this logic, from the definition of the
problem to recommendation of a corrective (from the sustainability perspective)
planning technique or tool to resolve the problem.
The themes identified through the methodology described in Chapter 1 are
listed below in Table 4.1 as meta- and sub-themes. All quotations printed in this
chapter are from PSC response advocates and are taken from literature written by
planning theorists and from interviews conducted with professional planners and
consultants. The organization and hierarchy of the themes into meta- and sub-themes
is an interpretive endeavor. First, there are overlaps between themes – they are not
mutually exclusive and independent of each other. For example, the smart growth and
transit-oriented development (TOD) meta-themes are virtually inseparable, as TOD
becomes a more serious and feasible option when commercial and residential areas are
concentrated together. An interviewee noted that:
Generally you want higher density in some areas, especially close to
transit stops and businesses. You’re going to have apartments, you’re
going to have mixed-use buildings.
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Second, the ordering of the themes is not a ranking of importance. The PSC response
is holistic and the various themes all relate to each other. Each theme acts as a
keystone, where its removal or absence compromises the integrity of the others.
Therefore, determining the relative importance of one theme over another is a fruitless
exercise. All are important and remain integrated together without prioritization.
Table 4.1:
Themes of the Planning Sustainable Communities response
Meta-Theme
Smart Growth Land Use
Multi-Modal Transport
Choice
Economic and Housing
Opportunity
Public Participation and
Place-Making
Energy and Natural
Resources
4.4.1
Sub-Theme
Mixed Use Development
Concentration of Populations
Open Space/Ecological Preservation
Hydrology-Oriented Land Use and Development
Local Agriculture
Transit-Oriented Development
Transport System Connectivity
Bicycle and Pedestrian-Friendly Infrastructure
Green Collar Jobs
Promoting Local Business and Limiting the Big
Box
Diverse, Affordable Housing Options
Community Influence on Development Directions
Space-and Place-Making Opportunity
Historic Preservation
Energy Efficient Buildings
Green Building Materials and Construction
Renewable Energy Development
Smart Growth Land Use
Many communities are experiencing a population increase, so it is important to
plan for this growth in a rational and sustainable manner. An objective of smart
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growth, particularly with respect to land use, is to design for and plan a community
that can accommodate more people while at the same time reducing the consumption
of energy and resources. Another objective is to minimize the amount of resources –
both financial and natural – spent on offering public services and infrastructure to the
growing population. Planned suburbanization does not square with either of these
objectives because population sprawl is an expensive, not to mention energy and
resource intensive way to develop (Beatley & Manning, 1997; Condon, 2010;
Wheeler, 2013). From the PSC response, there are five main sub-themes that fall
under the banner of land use incorporating smart growth principles: mixed-use
development, dense populations, open space preservation, hydrology-oriented
development, and local food production. Each sub-theme is described below.
4.4.1.1
Mixed Use Development
Mixed-use development is a community-level planning strategy that aims to
blend the traditional single-use zoning classifications of residential, commercial, and
industrial land uses. These single-use zones, which define the types of activities that
can be carried out on particular parcels of land, are intentionally created to be
exclusive of the others, and for good reason in some cases. For example, within a
community, it makes sense to spatially separate heavy industrial sites from residential
areas because of pollution concerns and an increased risk of adverse public health
outcomes for those people living near industrial centers.
From a sustainability perspective, there are adverse consequences with singleuse development zones. Because people live in residential areas but typically work in
commercial and industrial zones, which are often located a significant distance from
home, the automobile becomes a social and economic necessity simply to get people
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to and from their place of employment. The same criticism applies to single-use
development in the context of the separation of the home from commercial and retail
areas. By planning for the separation of residential and commercial areas, people are
often forced to drive to the store for basic necessities. Consequently, industrial and
commercial zones need to offer expansive parking lots to accommodate laborers and
shoppers.
According to the PSC response, the exclusionary single-use development
strategy meant to separate land uses can be inappropriate depending on the types of
activities occurring in certain contexts. As Condon (2010, p. 87) argues, planners
need to “recognize that most new jobs don’t smell bad” because some industrial
activities are far less environmentally damaging today than in the past. Wheeler
(2013, p. 308) is even more direct:
In an age in which most forms of economic activity take place in office
buildings or other nonpolluting forms of workplace, there is no reason
for businesses to be widely separated from homes... The result [of
mixed-use development] will be greatly reduced pressures for longdistance commuting and improved quality of life for residents who can
walk or bike to work.
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Figure 4.1: City Creek Center, a mixed-use development in Salt Lake City, Utah
(image credit: Photo Dean under Creative Commons License).
Thus instead of planned separation and segregation, the PSC response
promotes intentional integration of land use types with the objective of lowering a
community’s consumption of energy and resources. The dominant tool available to
the PSC response to achieve this outcome is a community’s zoning ordinance. By
amending their zoning ordinance to permit mixed-use, a community opens the door to
a Main Street/downtown mixed-use development which may take the physical form of
a multistory building containing retail and commercial space on the street level –
where storefronts and pedestrian access are essential and where residential space is
considered undesirable due to privacy concerns – and then several floors of office
space or apartments and lofts above (Figure 4.1). This mixing of commercial and
residential zones allows residents to be located close to employment and commercial
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opportunities. If there is a grocer in the building, a resident is not forced to get in their
car every time they run out of milk, eggs, bread, or other common items. Similarly, if
a resident lives and works in the same building, or in the same neighborhood, the
automobile is eliminated from the commuting equation. Thus by promoting the
mixing and blending of zoning classifications, the PSC response aims to create a lowenergy live-work-play built environment.
4.4.1.2
Concentration of Populations
A vital component of the PSC response in general, and smart growth principles
in particular, is the clustering of human populations. Compact development patterns,
as opposed to diffuse and low-density development, are believed to be more energy
and resource efficient and therefore compatible with the PSC framework.
Concentrating people within a compact area also minimizes the need to consume
surrounding land through low-density sprawling development. Beatley & Manning
(1997, p. 42, emphasis added) write that:
The creation of more sustainable places require a concerted effort at
promoting compact communities - human settlement patterns that
consume significantly less natural and open land and that achieve
higher average densities than current development patterns.
In addition to avoiding greenfield development and the consumption of natural
open spaces, when concentrating populations is coupled with mixed-use development,
it begins to significantly relieve the need for automobile use. With dense population
patterns, there will be an increased demand for nearby commercial and retail areas
simply because there are more people within a given area. If mixed-use development
is permitted, then commerce can coexist with high-density residential space which
affords people the opportunity to walk or bike to the store rather than drive. The
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result, according to the PSC response, is a reduction in the amount of energy
consumed per capita on transportation.
From the economic point of view, the PSC response sees an additional benefit
to concentrating populations, specifically with respect to the overall impact on a
community’s financial resources. When human settlement patterns are compact,
infrastructure spending is greatly decreased. Low-density development is expensive
because roads need to be built, water and energy infrastructure need to be extended,
and public services such as trash collection and police and fire protection need to be
stretched. By living and working close together, concentrated communities achieve
economies of scale that reduce the amount spent on creating, maintaining, and
administering extended public services. A planner who was interviewed highlighted
the two major advantages of concentrating populations: efficient land use and avoiding
undue expansion of public infrastructure.
Higher density leads to less consumption of land. So in that sense it
could be a sustainability metric... And there is less cost with utilities
and infrastructure. You’re not extending sewer lines as far, you’re not
building roads as far.
There are several common methods to cluster and concentrate people. One
method is called “intensification” which is the creation of new residential units within
existing buildings or on land that was previously developed (Roseland, 2012, p. 175).
This might take the form of housing conversions where non-residential structures are
rezoned and redeveloped into apartments or lofts. It may also mean infilling in the
suburbs by locating residential development into low coverage areas (Condon, 2010,
pp. 11–13). Another method to concentrate populations is “densification” where new
developments – either residential or commercial facilities – increase the number of
units within the footprint of the building (Roseland, 2012, p. 162). Typically, density
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of this sort is achieved in two ways: by increasing the number of units per floor area or
by building more floors, both of which can be incentivized with density bonuses
which give developers the right to increase density beyond what is normally permitted
in the zoning ordinance (Roseland, 2012, p. 164). Another population concentrating
tool that planners have at their disposal is an “urban growth boundary” that sets a welldefined geographic limit to development around a community (Wheeler, 2013, p.
151). The cities of Portland, Oregon and Boulder, Colorado are known for
successfully creating and maintaining urban growth boundaries that dramatically
reduced the amount of sprawling development (Beatley & Manning, 1997, pp. 61–63).
An urban growth boundary works to concentrate population because with a clear limit
to spatial growth, a community is effectively forced to intensify and densify.
4.4.1.3
Open Space/Ecological Preservation
Concentrating populations in mixed-use areas so they can move about
efficiently without an automobile is one part of meeting the overall land use challenge.
Another part relates to the preservation of open spaces and sensitive ecological areas.
A sprawling land use pattern consumes and degrades open space such as productive
farmlands and overruns precious resources such as riparian habitats and wildlife
corridors (see next section). Sustainable communities are able to protect these areas,
and the important environmental functions they offer, from encroaching development
(McKibben, 2008, pp. 158–162).
In addition to the negative environmental impacts of the overdevelopment of
farmland and ecologically sensitive zones, there is an equity-based argument for
protecting these areas. Mindful of the private property rights of owners, when all
farmland and ecologically important areas are seen as developable, the intrinsic
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qualities of the land, such as the benefits of scenic views, are often forgotten or
ignored in the planning process. These qualities accrue to all users and are therefore
worth preserving on commons pool resource grounds and for the recreational needs of
the community. For these reasons, Beatley and Manning (1997, p. 47) argue that:
Farmland and open lands should not be viewed or treated as transitional
areas, but as areas valued for their nonurban functions, to be cherished
and guarded for those important values. Achieving compact
communities will therefore require strategies both to contain or limit
growth and to protect those areas outside growth boundaries where
development is inappropriate.
The PSC response offers a number of strategies for protecting open spaces and
preserving the ecological integrity of environmentally sensitive areas. One course of
action that planners have available is the transfer of development rights, or TDR,
where open space land owners receive financial compensation from developers for
selling their development rights to areas where density is desired, such as within an
urban growth boundary. Developers then have the right to create higher density than
would otherwise be permitted. TDR’s achieve the dual objective of preserving open
space in perpetuity while simultaneously concentrating populations in appropriate
areas (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 49).
Another option for planners and communities is outright acquisition of open
space through land purchases (not eminent domain takings), the purchase of
development rights, or the creation of open space easements (Wheeler, 2013, pp. 150–
151). These open spaces can be turned into parks and nature preserves, thus serving
the needs of humans and non-humans alike. They can also be utilized as greenways
complete with trails for cyclists and pedestrians. Condon (2010, p. 125) argues
strongly that the PSC response should advocate for publically funded open space
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preservation with a view toward a system of linked greenways, thus permitting the
flow of people through an area “regardless of skyrocketing fuel costs or future limits
on car use.”
Yet another planning tool is the modification of subdivision and land
development ordinance (SALDO) where open space requirements are mandated of the
developer (Wheeler, 2013, p. 149). In some ways, a SALDO is more specific than a
zoning ordinance which simply regulates where development occurs because the
SALDO specifies how development proceeds within a particular area. For example,
planners could recommend that all subdivision land developments within a
municipality’s jurisdiction dedicate 10% of the total area to open space, thus reserving
the other 90% for development activity.
Regardless of the tool used, the PSC response has a strong desire to preserve
open spaces from unsustainable development. By limiting where and how land can be
used, planners have the opportunity to maintain the long-term ecological viability of
an area. In addition, the preservation of open space and environmentally sensitive
areas enhances the publics’ ability to access and benefit from the intrinsic qualities of
natural spaces, thus promoting a culture of equity.
4.4.1.4
Hydrology-Oriented Land Use and Development
Development has many environmental consequences, but one of the largest is
the impact on water. A community’s water resources can be severely degraded by
new development. Conversely, with hydrology-oriented planning, development
projects are designed to respect natural water features and flows rather than trying to
control and manage them. Adverse water-related impacts can be minimized if not
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nearly eliminated. Thus the PSC response offers land use development and design
recommendations to achieve a more benign effect on a community’s water resources.
A straightforward way for a community to develop hydrologically is to restrict
development away from areas near streams, rivers, wetlands, and ponds. These areas
are not only extremely sensitive to the removal of trees, erosion, and stormwater
runoff, they also serve a valuable ecological function because they provide rich
wildlife habitat above and below the water surface (Condon, 2010, p. 133). The
creation of a setback riparian corridor or buffer zone running the length of streams and
rivers would help preserve the ecological quality and integrity of a community’s
hydrological features (Wheeler, 2013, p. 330). These riparian buffers can also serve a
popular recreational function for community residents.
When communities develop, pervious land surfaces are covered, either paved
over or built up, which creates issues during storm events. Whereas rainwater would
normally infiltrate directly into the ground, impervious surfaces such as roads, parking
lots, and buildings generate runoff which must managed so it does not pick up
pollutants on the surface and deposit them in the environment. Effective high-quality
stormwater management is therefore a major consideration for the PSC response.
Traditionally, the method of managing stormwater is to collect runoff with gutters and
sewers – commonly referred to as “grey infrastructure” – and then discharge it directly
into a nearby water body or treatment facility (Wheeler, 2013, p. 131). There are high
pollution risks and financial costs with this approach, and the PSC response proposes a
host of alternative stormwater management techniques that use alternative
infrastructure to handle runoff on site. For example, green roofs on buildings
minimize runoff because some of the water is absorbed by the roofing substrate
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(Condon, 2010, p. 146; Roseland, 2012, p. 57). Pervious asphalt and concrete are
technologies that permit stormwater to percolate through a paved road surface directly
into the ground (Condon, 2010, pp. 151–155). Rainwater gardens and vegetated
swales are depressions in low areas that are designed to collect stormwater and use
grasses and plants to naturally filter out pollutants (Roseland, 2012, p. 86). Rainwater
barrels and cisterns can be installed at the level of the individual site to collect and
store stormwater that falls on a building, and the saved water can be applied to lawns
and gardens during dry periods (Condon, 2010, p. 149). These stormwater
management techniques more sustainable from an environmental point of view and
they can lessen the financial burden on a community because major grey infrastructure
costs are reduced. Zoning codes and ordinances can also be amended to regulate and
disincentivizes impervious surfaces. One planner who was interviewed stated that:
[In many zoning codes] there’s also maximum impervious coverage
details for development... You’re limited on how you can develop an
area because you’re only limited so much by the code. So if you have a
10 acre lot and if you can only have a maximum impervious coverage
of let’s say 50%, then you can only build half...Things like that will be
in zoning.
Another planner stated in an interview:
One of the trends in Pennsylvania is a stormwater impact fee ordinance.
So they’re charging homeowners for how much stormwater they
generate based on their impervious surface.... So it’s sort of an
equitable way to do it because if I have a big site and I have 90 or 80%
impervious surface, shouldn’t I pay a little more than somebody who
has a little site with 10% impervious surface? Probably. It’s like a user
tax.
The PSC response is keenly aware of the impact planning has on a
community’s water resources. By respecting and avoiding development in
hydrologically sensitive areas and allowing them to remain undisturbed, degradation
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of water quality is largely avoided. In addition, by managing stormwater on site rather
than through gutter and sewer infrastructure, the PSC response seeks to resolve a
significant (and expensive) pollution-related impact of community development.
4.4.1.5
Local Agriculture
Prime agricultural land is a valuable resource for potentially meeting a
community’s food needs, but there are serious concerns about the actual methods by
which the food is grown and raised (Tumber, 2012). Modern industrial agriculture is
undesirable from a community sustainability perspective for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, modern agricultural production is an extremely energy intensive
process. The ammonia-based fertilizers that are routinely used to add nitrogen to
intensely cultivated soils are produced by burning enormous quantities of natural gas
(McKibben, 2008, p. 63). In addition, planters, combines, and food processing
facilities are powered with fossil fuels. Finally, because of the global reach of the
food supply network, there are also significant energy costs to transport a
community’s food to store shelves because of the large geographic distance between
the sites of food production and consumption. A planning consultant commented
during an interview:
One of the things that could happen if there’s some type of economic or
climatic crisis is that food distribution becomes limited and local food
production becomes very important... It’s certainly better to have a food
system that is partially based on local food than one that’s built on
international food distribution.
Beyond the energy consequences of modern agriculture, there is a social equity
dimension to ensuring that everyone in a community – regardless of their socioeconomic status – gets to eat high quality and nutritious food. Many low-income
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communities are classified as food deserts where access to healthy food options such
as fresh fruits and vegetables is non-existent. People living in food deserts are forced
to eat processed food containing cheap calories such as refined sugars and this leads to
adverse public health consequences. The PSC response therefore critiques traditional
agriculture and food consumption on both environmental and equity grounds.
To rectify the unsustainable nature of how communities produce and consume
their food supply, the PSC response offers a number of proposals, all of which are
designed to foster a more local agricultural system. First, planners can propose to set
aside some of a community’s land for community gardens where members rent and
tend a patch of earth such as a raised bed or allotment (Tumber, 2012; Wheeler, 2013,
p. 180). Empty lots or publicly owned land parcels are particularly popular locations
for community gardens (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 92). If managed with organic
methods, these gardens afford community members the opportunity to grow some of
their own food without the massive energy inputs used in modern agricultural
practices. Furthermore, if they are located in low-income areas, community gardens
also help strengthen the equity pillar of the PSC framework since these gardens can
allow low-income residents to access fresh and healthy food options. Indeed,
community gardens are increasingly popular in economically depressed communities
with food deserts such as Flint, Michigan (Tumber, 2012, pp. 70–71).
Another option planners have is to advocate for the removal of any barriers
that impede a community from growing or raising their own food. For example, many
zoning ordinances prohibit front yard gardens, the erection of greenhouses, the raising
of backyard chickens, the keeping of bees, or the planting of edible landscapes like
fruit and nut trees on publicly owned land (Roseland, 2012, p. 74; Tumber, 2012, p.
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62). Significant movement toward a more local food supply could be realized if
zoning ordinances were amended to permit these various activities.
Farmers Markets are a popular option for distributing locally grown food and
getting fresh, healthy food options into community members’ kitchens. In addition to
the environmental and health benefits of consuming fresh food from Farmers Markets,
there is an additional economic stimulus to the local economy as money continues to
circulate within the community rather than into corporate agri-businesses (McKibben,
2008). Public and civic spaces such as parks or squares are frequently used as
locations for weekly Farmers Markets and the PSC response aims to design and
provide an acceptable and designated area of land to hold these events.
4.4.2
Multi-Modal Transport Choice
The PSC response is concerned with the personal automobile and vehicles
influenced pre-sustainability planning theory and practice. Beatley and Manning
(Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 65) write that planners must “deemphasize the auto.”
Automobiles consume petroleum – a finite resource – and they are significant sources
of air, carbon, and noise pollution. Automobiles also enable sprawling land use
patterns that consume enormous quantities of greenfields. Importantly, however,
automobiles are seen by advocates of the PSC response as an embedded and nonnegotiable necessity for people who live a significant distance from employment and
commercial opportunities. Alternative and more sustainable modes of transportation
such as trains, buses, streetcars or personal options such as bicycles and walking are
all but eliminated from consideration because they are practically unfeasible for many
people. In effect, the unsustainable automobile has a monopoly on the transportation
market and this comes at the expense of more sustainable transport methods. One of
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the main goals of the PSC response is to break through this monopoly and plan
communities that have alternative transportation options and choices (Beatley &
Manning, 1997, p. 64; Roseland, 2012; Wheeler, 2013).
The smart growth land use themes described in the preceding section are seen
as essential components to the incorporation of public transit choice. By default,
compact, high density, and mixed-use communities will have greater opportunities and
incentives to walk rather than drive. But density is also important because it creates
the efficiencies that make public transportation systems such as buses, trains, and
streetcars legitimate transit options. McKibben (2008, p. 152) writes that, “when your
city or town has sprawled wildly, public transportation becomes increasingly difficult;
even the finest technology is overwhelmed.” Thus if populations are spread thin over
a wide area, public transportation options are only able to serve a small percentage of
residents because people are forced to follow predetermined routes (Condon, 2010, p.
73). Anyone who does not live, work, or shop along a public transport corridor is
obligated to use their automobile. Condon (2010, p. 14) is very specific about the
relationship between density and transportation when he writes that planners should:
locate commercial services, frequent transit, and schools within a five
minute walk. People will walk if there is something to walk to. The
most important walking destinations are the corner store and a transit
stop.
To deemphasize the automobile, the PSC response aims to reemphasize a
multi-modal transportation system that offers community members a choice in how
they move around their environs. When asked to comment on what the ideal
transportation system for a sustainable community looks like, a planner who was
interviewed quickly responded:
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Choice. Multi-modal choice... It involves walking. You can walk
down the street, take your child to soccer practice or to school...
Biking, you can take your bike there... It’s one where you’re not
exerting undue pr essure to do the things in life that need to be done.
Shopping for groceries. Going to community events. Just anything.
Going to get a cup of coffee. You don’t have to wait in traffic for 20
minutes.
Planners propose a number of recommendations to give community members the
opportunity to choose their method of transport.
4.4.2.1
Transit-Oriented Development
Transit Oriented Development (TOD) – which was initially spurred in the
1990’s by New Urbanist planner Peter Calthorpe (1993) – calls for an integrated and
coordinated effort on the part of transportation planners, urban planners, and
developers to locate high density residential, commercial, and even light industrial
activities along specially designed public transportation corridors. The idea is that the
energy efficient public transport options such as streetcars, trains, light rail, and buses
must follow predetermined routes so it is logical to use those corridors as centerlines
for development density. The further away one gets from the corridor, the less density
one experiences. TOD can even go a step further by emphasizing development around
public transit stops, effectively turning a line of development into a series of high
density nodes. In either case, whether it is a TOD corridor or a succession of nodes,
the PSC response prioritizes public transit rather than the automobile for community
mobility (Wheeler, 2013, p. 171).
Condon (2010) enthusiastically endorses the streetcar as the centerpiece, or
arterial, of sustainable communities and argues that residential, commercial, and nonpolluting industry should be located within a five minute walk of a public transit stop.
He notes that early 19th century urbanization and subsequent suburbanization occurred
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along newly constructed streetcar arterials which were later dismantled in the postwar
automobile craze. This fact “needs rediscovering” because it would give planners,
economic developers, and local officials a platform for introducing the streetcar and
the TOD option into their communities (Condon, 2010, p. 14). He also argues that
TOD is not just about environmental sustainability and a reduction in energy use, but
it can also serve as a catalyst to local economies by facilitating consumer spending at
businesses located along the arterial (Condon, 2010, p. 72).
It is expensive to install a new public transportation system, or revive an old
one in the case of Condon’s streetcar arterials, but communities that already have
functioning transit options can take steps to promote TOD. Where the transit corridors
exist, planners can use the arterials and increase density around them, for example by
rezoning for high density mixed-use (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 70). Land use
plans and comprehensive plans can also map TOD areas which will give direction for
where to locate future development and growth.
4.4.2.2
Transport System Connectivity
It is not enough to simply provide transit options and assume they will be used
to directly transport people from point A to point B. People may live along one
arterial but work on another so it becomes necessary for the PSC response to
accommodate the common situation where individuals are forced to utilize multiple
non-automobile transportation modes in combination, say bicycles and light rail. This
is commonly referred to as connectivity (Condon, 2010; Wheeler, 2013, p. 142).
Connectivity is manifested through a diversity of transportation options that assemble
together in a network fashion. For example, bicycle lanes (along with bicycle parking
infrastructure) and bus routes are connected to transit hubs so that a commuter can ride
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their bike or take a bus from their house to the transit arterial where their job is
located. Without multi-modal transit connectivity, the various components of the
transportation network operate in isolation from each other and are less effective.
Thus in order to realistically deemphasize the automobile, the PSC response advocates
for giving people transit choices and also making sure those options coalesce into an
efficient and effective network.
There is another, somewhat related theme of connectivity in the PSC response
that emphasizes design features to make automobile travel more efficient (Roseland,
2012, pp. 158–160; Wheeler, 2013, pp. 139–142). A major unsustainable outcome of
auto-centric suburbanization is the enclosed nature of residential developments where
a large, densely populated area is accessed through a small number of entry points
(Condon, 2010, pp. 42–45). Dendritic street systems, which are characterized by
primary roads fed by a network of dead-end or cul-de-sac offshoots, are prone to
traffic congestion because the access points create severe automobile bottlenecks
(Figure 4.2). The result of poor street layout and design is an inefficient system where
motorists must queue, wait, idle, and waste energy at stop signs and red lights. The
PSC response, when it must plan for automobile infrastructure such as roads, therefore
calls for a connected system that eliminates dead-ends, cul-de-sacs, and limited access
points. Connected systems can take the form of gridded streets (such as in
Manhattan), radial streets (such as in Washington, D.C.), informal webs (such as in
Boston), and curvilinear or warped streets (Condon, 2010, pp. 46–48). Each of these
energy efficient design options allows automobile users to find a path of least
resistance as opposed to an enclosed road system where drivers are forced into traffic
bottlenecks.
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Figure 4.2: A residential development in Pembroke Pines, Florida (image credit:
Google, Digital Globe, U.S. Geological Survey)
4.4.2.3
Bicycle and Pedestrian-Friendly Infrastructure
The PSC response is extremely critical of the way in which communities are
built around the automobile, with the resultant auto infrastructure crowding out
human-powered transportation. Because the built environment caters to the auto, there
is a potential for conflicts with cyclists and pedestrians, particularly when it comes to
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personal safety. The high incidence of accidents involving motorists colliding with
cyclists or pedestrians is a strong disincentive to the utilization of these low-carbon
methods of transport and the PSC response argues that a multi-modal transit approach
to development must protect the public health and safety of motorists and nonmotorists alike.
There are a number of practical recommendations made by the PSC response
for introducing greater opportunities to cycle and walk while simultaneously ensuring
public safety. First, communities can create safer and hence more desirable conditions
for cyclists by marking off designated bicycle lanes (Allison & Peters, 2011, p. 14;
Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 68; Condon, 2010, p. 125; McKibben, 2008, pp. 151–
152; Roseland, 2012, p. 140; Tumber, 2012, p. 61; Wheeler, 2013, p. 166), installing
traffic calming measures for pedestrians such as speed bumps and curb bulb outs
(Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 65; Roseland, 2012, p. 147; Wheeler, 2013, pp. 314–
315) or designing queuing streets which are narrow enough to force cars travelling in
opposite directions to take turns when passing each other (Condon, 2010, pp. 57–58).
Each of these design features are intended to make people more comfortable and safe
when biking or walking, affording them greater flexibility when deciding how to move
around the community as opposed to automatically resorting to the automobile.
4.4.3
Economic and Housing Opportunity
The PSC response themes discussed so far have primarily addressed the
environmental pillar of sustainability’s Three E’s. By using smart growth land use
principles and providing non-automobile transportation options, a community can
reduce its energy and resource consumption and improve its environmental
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performance. But there are also economic and equity components to the PSC
framework that extend well beyond smart growth and transit choice.
While economic development is a major objective for all communities, not just
those wishing to become more sustainable, the planning discipline is limited in the
tools it has at its disposal to make a direct economic impact. This is because planners
are often advisory and they lack the formal institutional authority to craft, legislate,
and implement economic policy alternatives to move a community in a more
sustainable direction (this limitation is analyzed the concluding chapter). For
example, fiscal policies – which have significant consequences for economic
sustainability – are outside the purview of the PSC response. Nevertheless, planners
with a sustainability bent are able to influence the economics and equity of a
community by designing and recommending specific forms and functions of space. In
terms of economics, the emphasis shifts from large-scale, heavily industrial, and
global business ventures toward more community-centric, green, and labor-intensive
business opportunities. As for equity, the primary manner in which planners seek to
strengthen this pillar of the PSC framework is through housing, specifically diverse
and affordable housing opportunities for all socio-economic income groups.
4.4.3.1
Green Collar Jobs
A criticism of the pre-sustainability development project concerns the reliance
that some communities had on heavy industry and manufacturing. These economic
sectors were environmentally destructive even though they supplied the community
with a large tax base and a significant number of employment opportunities. Given
the emergence of a globalized economy where production and manufacturing relocates
to low-cost and low-regulation destinations, many communities hosting industrial
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activities have seen these jobs displaced, leaving a highly skilled blue-collar
workforce with idle hands and an environment in a degraded state (McKibben, 2008;
Tumber, 2012). If a community lacks a resilient and environmentally benign
economic base, it remains prone to these types of volatile economic shifts, the effects
of which will be felt long after the factory doors are shuttered.
The PSC response takes this hard lesson of post-war economic development
and anticipates and plans for a sustainable economic landscape for the future. First,
there is acknowledgment that despite industry’s grey and dirty past, the industrial
manufacturing sector has made remarkable strides towards cleaning up its processes,
or as Condon (2010, p. 87) writes, “smelly, dangerous, noisy, and industrial-scale
jobs...are increasingly rare. Most of the new jobs are clean, quiet, and safe.” The PSC
response contends that not all industrial and manufacturing processes are damaging to
the community and environment, so they should not be prejudged and excluded from
consideration because of past performance. Second, the PSC response recognizes that
many of these new, low environmental impact jobs are actually manufacturing the
components of the physical infrastructure needed for a sustainable future, items like
alternative energy and energy conservation technologies for example (Tumber, 2012,
Chapter 5; Wheeler, 2013, p. 207).
The result of this assessment is an orientation away from typical blue collar
heavy manufacturing jobs toward green collar jobs. High tech, low environmental
impact manufacturing becomes an attractive economic option, especially if it produces
components of renewable energy technologies and systems. These green collar jobs
are attracted to communities that create green-tech business clusters, such as the San
Jose Environmental Business Cluster (Roseland, 2012, p. 226) and the Muncie,
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Indiana wind energy cluster (Tumber, 2012, p. 94). Green collar jobs can also be
created by investing in building energy retrofits and upgrades, green infrastructure,
and alternative energy systems (Section 4.4.5). These green investment activities are
labor intensive operations that employ many community members; solar panel
installation jobs cannot be offshored, for instance.
In addition to advocating for mixed-use development which can locate nonpolluting jobs near residents (Section 4.4.1.1), planners can promote economically
sustainable green collar jobs by recommending more stringent building codes which
require developers to make energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades, thus
boosting demand for local labor (Roseland, 2012, pp. 215–216). Finally, the PSC
response proposes the idea of eco-industrial parks where the waste product of one
business becomes an input into another (Beatley & Manning, 1997, pp. 140–143;
Roseland, 2012, p. 225; Wheeler, 2013, p. 124).
4.4.3.2
Promoting Local Business and Limiting the Big Box
Big Box commercial outlets are drains on local economies. Their purchasing
power can drive down costs to the point where smaller scale, Main Street businesses
can no longer compete on price. They are frequently located on greenfields on the
fringes of the community which forces shoppers into their vehicles. Economic
leakage with Big Boxes is a major problem. Leakage occurs when:
community members travel outside the community to spend their
locally generated income on non-local purchases, or when residents
make purchases within the community on products that were originally
purchased or manufactured elsewhere (Roseland, 2012, p. 218).
Big Box retailers also suppress a thriving economy because they tend to offer
minimum wages to their employees.
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From the PSC perspective, there is much to improve upon in terms of
community-scale economic vibrancy and sustainability. In addition to mixed-use
development to facilitate local commercial transactions, there are a number of ideas
offered by the PSC response to revive Main Street as the center and foundation of a
community’s economy. Downtown Development Authorities are popular collectives
that pool resources, organize special events, and finance improvements, all with the
goal of boosting locally owned and operated businesses (Roseland, 2012, p. 220). An
additional option is the greening and façade improvement of Main Street commercial
districts by taking actions such as planting trees, landscaping, or installing parklets
(small pop-up seating spaces typically installed within one or two parking spaces) to
make these areas more attractive and desirable places to shop (Figure 4.3).
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Figure 4.3: A parklet in San Francisco, California (image credit: Mark Hogan under
Creative Commons License)
Planners can also ensure that the codes and ordinances governing local
businesses are not overly-restrictive and a hindrance to local business success, while at
the same time using these tools to limit Big Box stores. For example, outdoor seating
is popular at restaurants and cafes, so a code that prohibits this type of activity would
hamper a locally owned establishment from obtaining additional revenue. On the
reverse side, codes and ordinances can be modified to limit the intrusion of Big Boxes
into a community. For example, planners could mandate a maximum floorplan size
for new commercial buildings to ensure that the giant commercial outlets are
prohibited from developing in a community (Wheeler, 2013, p. 145).
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The PSC response recognizes that physical space limitations can also restrict
outdoor seating. If a sidewalk is too narrow or crowded with permanent items, or if
building setbacks are insufficient, then cafes and restaurants simply will not have
room to set up tables and chairs. Not only do ordinances and governing codes need to
align with local business interests, the layout of physical space can be carried out in
such a way that enables economic activity. Form based codes, which are a New
Urbanism concept, can be employed in communities to create a specific, predictable
urban form that defines layout dimensions such as building setbacks (Allison & Peters,
2011, p. 93; Wheeler, 2013, p. 145). If sidewalk space is already at a premium
because existing building setbacks are short, and if on-street parking exists in front of
an establishment, one or two parking spots can be commissioned and parklet-like
seating areas can be installed in their place. An even more extensive option to
improve the look and feel of commercial districts is to cordon off streets to vehicular
traffic altogether and permit only pedestrian access. In any case, the PSC response
recognizes the need to develop a sustainable community by promoting local economic
activity while at the same time preventing economic leakage through non-local
business ventures such as Big Box retailers.
4.4.3.3
Diverse, Affordable Housing Options
Traditional pre-sustainable development effectively facilitated the outward
migration of wealth from urban areas to the surrounding suburbs. The process created
a split between a socio-economically affluent suburban fringe surrounding a lowincome, economically depressed urban core. Housing prices followed the trend, as the
suburbs became enclaves for wealthy people who could afford large homes with high
property values while low-income families were grouped into areas with cheap
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substandard housing and (often government subsidized) rental space. The types of
houses and their affordability were thus homogenized depending on location, creating
physical segregation between socio-economic groups (Condon, 2010, pp. 5–6).
Improper zoning practices were also criticized as a driver of socio-economic
inequality (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 190). Condon (Condon, 2010, pp. 96–97)
argues that:
Zoning has been used, consciously or unconsciously, as a tool to
undercut social sustainability. It does so by enforcing social inequality.
Zoning regulations do one thing well. They ensure that large districts
are covered by residential lots of one size and that these lots allow only
one tenure type. Neighborhoods regulated this way are inherently
exclusionary and thus defy the most elemental definition of a
sustainable society. Proscriptive policies lead naturally to
neighborhoods occupied by a very narrow demographic band, a narrow
range of ages, a narrow range of incomes, and a narrow range of family
types.
From the PSC perspective, this state of affairs in the housing sector is
unsustainable because it runs counter to the equity component of the Three E’s.
Homogeneity in housing types and prices, for example if all properties are expensive
detached homes on large land parcels, is a recipe for segregation and inequality. The
PSC response echoes the tenets of cosmopolitanism and argues that a demographically
diverse community gives individuals the opportunity for new experiences and
relationship-building, thus strengthening inter-social bonds and developing a stronger
sense of community identity. (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 200). Therefore, the PSC
response strongly emphasizes the need for communities to be inclusive by offering a
diversity of housing types – stand-alone homes, rental homes, large and small
apartments – as well as a broad range of housing prices and affordable housing options
(Beatley & Manning, 1997, pp. 189–190; Condon, 2010, Chapter 5; Wheeler, 2013, p.
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321). People need adequate, quality housing as a precondition for a thriving,
sustainable, equitable community and there are ways that planners can both
incentivize and mandate the provision of diverse housing options.
One strategy to provide affordable housing is to mandate, through inclusionary
zoning, a certain percentage of affordable units within any new development (Beatley
& Manning, 1997, p. 190; Wheeler, 2013, p. 201). Another tool that planners have
available is the development of a community land trust which is residential land that is
held and managed by a trust, often a non-profit entity. The title to the land is held in
perpetuity by the trust which is governed by a community-based Board of Directors,
or trustees. Use of the land is granted to occupants on a ninety nine year lease cycle
which helps keep housing costs low (Roseland, 2012, p. 174). A land bank is another
option similar to a land trust in that both are designed to increase the availability of
affordable housing, but there are several key differences between the two. Whereas
land trusts are governed by a board, land banks are governed by politically appointed
mangers. Further, land banks typically take delinquent and blighted property into
public possession, clear the title, and then mandate that the buyers/developers offer
affordable housing options within their redevelopment plans (Tumber, 2012, pp. 68–
69). Once a land bank property is sold, there is no guarantee of its continued longterm affordability as is the case with land trusts offering ninety nine year leases.
Another affordable housing strategy proposed by the PSC response is for affordable
housing developments to be built as infill (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 190; Tumber,
2012, p. 61; Wheeler, 2013, p. 178) or adaptive reuse of existing buildings (Allison &
Peters, 2011, pp. 129–131) to ensure that lower-income residents are able to live close
to amenities and hence spend less of their limited disposable income on transportation.
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Affordable housing should also be inexpensive to live in, which means that energy
efficiency becomes a priority (Section 4.4.5.1). This can be achieved by mandating
stricter building codes and performance standards for new affordable housing
developments and retrofits (Roseland, 2012, pp. 205–206).
The provision of affordable housing options for people of all socio-economic
groups is a top priority for the PSC response because it is the primary vehicle for
creating more equitable, and hence sustainable communities. Indeed, it can be argued
that no other theme of the PSC response emphasizes the equity component of the
Three E’s more directly than the affordable and diverse housing theme.
4.4.4
Public Participation and Place-Making
Pre-sustainability planning was conducted as a top-down model wherein
planners, developers, and government officials dictated and controlled the community
development process. This approach emanated from the belief that highly specialized
knowledge sectors like planning, coupled with technocratic rationality, could move
society in general, and communities in particular, in the most appropriate and optimal
direction. By privileging their own expertise and specialized knowledge, planners
imposed their values, visions, and goals on a community (Wheeler, 2013, pp. 52–53).
The opportunities for bottom-up participation and place making – when all members
of the community can have a say, make their voices and visions heard, share power in
the decision-making process, express themselves, co-produce their environment, and
otherwise make the community their own and develop it according to their shared
desires – were either non-existent or minimal. Authority in the planning process and
the distribution of decision-making power was ultimately skewed in favor of the
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experts even though community members were the ones that had to live with the
outcomes, both positive and negative.
For these reasons, a major meta-theme in the PSC response focuses on a more
equitable alignment of power between experts and the various community
stakeholders and interest groups. It is recognized that expertise-driven planning is
inherently dogmatic because it imposes a rigid set of values on the community. For
community members, the freedom to express oneself is limited. The PSC response
emphasizes the involvement of community members and their ability to have authority
and a voice in the direction of development and place-making. Stakeholders need to
be given the opportunity, platform, and space – both literally and figuratively – to coproduce and develop their community in a way that is internally appropriate, not
simply in a way that is deemed appropriate by external influences.
4.4.4.1
Community Influence on Development Directions
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the shortcomings of the rational planning
strategy dominated by expert and specialized knowledge became apparent. Postmodern influences infiltrated the design characteristics of architecture and planning
forms as well as actual process of planning which was being conducted and
implemented in isolation and without input from community members. The
postmodern critique led directly to the theory and practice of participatory and
communicative planning (Roseland, 2012, p. 263; Wheeler, 2013, pp. 54–57).
Participatory planning is where community members are afforded the opportunity –
through the various avenues discussed below – to voice their opinions on the most
appropriate development direction and hence influence the outcome of the planning
process. Communicative planning is similar, but it demands a more direct role on the
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part of the planner to be an interlocutor and facilitate dialogue, education, and learning
between community members, developers, government officials, and various
stakeholder groups. In both cases, the goal is to achieve a more equitable communitywide distribution of planning authority and influence.
The opportunity to engage in participatory planning is a formal requirement in
many instances, such as the case of public comment periods on individual
development proposals and permit applications. Beyond these outlets, there are
numerous ways in which planners can “begin to structure a community dialogue
around the future and to identify mechanisms, procedures, processes, tools, and
techniques for carrying out such a dialogue” (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 205).
Quite often, when planners initiate dialogue around documents such as comprehensive
community development plans, a first step is to capture the vision of what the
community would like to become in the future.
Holding visioning sessions is a popular public participation technique.
Visioning sessions are events where community members are notified about, and
encouraged to attend, a public workshop where they are given the opportunity to offer
projections about long-term community goals and outcomes (Beatley & Manning,
1997, p. 205; Roseland, 2012, p. 266; Tumber, 2012, p. 41; Wheeler, 2013, pp. 90–
92). Design charrettes are another public participation technique similar to visioning
except that these typically last several days, and attendees are engaged in intense
collaborative design-related activities (Beatley & Manning, 1997, pp. 206–207;
Roseland, 2012, pp. 265–266). At the end of the community design period, a working
model (for example maps, spatial layout, amenities, etc.) of the future is produced
(Figure 4.4).
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Figure 4.4: A design charrette (image credit: Daniel Farrell under Creative Commons
license)
Design charrettes are clear expressions of power and knowledge sharing
between specialized planning expertise and the community. The practice stems
directly from the equity-based motivations of the PSC response where community
members’ voices are amplified. When conducted with care, the public participation
strategies result in more community buy-in because from a political perspective, an
engaged community takes ownership of its co-produced plans, legitimates them, and is
therefore more invested in their ultimate success (Roseland, 2012, p. 265).
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4.4.4.2
Space- and Place-Making Opportunity
The PSC response desires to give communities the opportunity to express
themselves, as exemplified by the public participation sessions discussed above, but
that desire extends beyond the conceptual planning stages. Drawing upon a neoMarxist critique of planning that argues public space is becoming increasingly
privatized and commoditized through development practices such as gentrification, the
PSC response is concerned about the loss of spaces and places where community
members can exercise their citizenship creatively, collaboratively, and publically
(Beatley & Manning, 1997, pp. 180–181; Wheeler, 2013, p. 54). There is a distinct
equity-focused component to this critique. Community capacity to engage and
collectively actualize is diminished when public assets and resources are swapped for
private and hence exclusionary spaces (McKibben, 2008, p. 103). Tumber (2012, p.
122) extends the analysis further by arguing that the hollowing out of publically
owned resources is due to the political and economic ideology underpinning
neoliberalism.
To combat the continual erosion of both public space and the opportunity for
civic expression, the PSC response intends to restore a more equitable distribution of
space and resources between public and private ownership. When communities form
or redevelop, or when land becomes available, the PSC response affirms the
importance of carving out, maintaining, and offering public space accessible to – and
shared by – all community members. These spaces may take the form of parks,
squares, plazas, playgrounds, libraries, theaters, or any other publicly owned and
operated venue.
In addition to crafting public spaces where the community can assemble and
express themselves, the PSC response also encourages community members to create
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a sense of place and identity by participating as citizens. Active citizens are essential
for sustainable communities because, like those citizens who are able to influence
development plans and decisions, engaged community members who co-produce their
surroundings have a sense of ownership and are invested in the long-term viability of
the community. From an equity perspective, the PSC response recognizes that all
community members, not just a small group or an insular elite, must be given a forum
for place-making and identity formation through co-production. This can be
accomplished with something as simple as organized tree plantings which are
“opportunities for citizens to make tangible expressions of their commitment to place
and to the future inhabitants of their community” (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 199).
The promotion of local businesses (Section 4.4.3.2) can go a long way towards
instilling a sense of place and identity. Additional opportunities for place-making
exist by encouraging the installation of locally produced art or offering public
performances and events (Wheeler, 2013, pp. 157–158).
4.4.4.3
Historic Preservation
In many ways, a community’s identity and culture is wrapped up in its physical
environment such as the buildings, structures, and spaces. When iconic or meaningful
architecture and landmarks are eliminated from a community, the sense of identity and
place goes with it. The PSC response argues – aesthetic and political interpretations
aside – that historically and culturally significant buildings, structures, and spaces
contribute to the cohesive fabric shared equally by all members of a community and
their preservation represents a significant cornerstone to long-term sustainability
(Allison & Peters, 2011). A community’s heritage is important and therefore worthy
of preservation efforts and resources.
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The goal of historic preservation is to maintain, and in some cases restore, a
community’s important historical and cultural heritage (buildings, landmarks,
landscapes, etc.) through measured oversight of development or redevelopment plans
as well as through investments of public and private resources. There are a number of
tools that planners have available to establish historic preservation practices. First,
local planners can create historic districts in their community which help to protect
and regulate the forms and functions of redevelopment within the district, while often
precluding new construction (Allison & Peters, 2011, pp. 140–141). Design
guidelines control changes to properties in the district. Neighborhood conservation
districts are similar to historic districts and to form-based codes in that they seek to
preserve an area’s character, but they permit new development that is aesthetically and
historically compatible with the existing stock (Allison & Peters, 2011, p. 90).
Historic Preservation Zoning Overlays, which are areas superimposed on a zoning
map, are a major tool used by planners to create these types of districts. Zoning
ordinances, in what is referred to as contextual zoning, can also be modified to
regulate the character of new development or redevelopment of existing buildings, for
example by requiring a particular visual appearance that is consistent with the
surroundings (Allison & Peters, 2011, p. 93).
In addition to the community identity benefits of historic preservation, there
are environmental advantages as well (Section 4.4.5.2). When buildings and
structures are preserved rather than torn down and redeveloped, a significant amount
of energy is saved because the existing architectures’ embodied energy is maintained
(Allison & Peters, 2011, p. 167; Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 212). Energy lifecycle
costs can be lower for existing buildings compared to new building because new
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developments require significant investments in energy, whereas preservation is
comparatively low energy endeavor. Furthermore, historic buildings often possess a
number of energy efficient design features such as foot-thick masonry walls found in
many historic row homes (Allison & Peters, 2011, p. 9). Construction sites also
generate significant amounts of waste and can disturb local ecosystems through heavy
vehicle traffic and subsurface excavations. Historic preservation of existing buildings
does not suffer from these same drawbacks.
4.4.5
Energy and Natural Resources
As noted earlier, a criticism of the traditional pre-sustainability planning
approach is that it is extremely energy and resource intensive because it consumes vast
quantities of land and people are required to drive their automobiles whenever they
leave home. But beyond these consequences, there are constant energy and resource
costs to constructing and maintaining a built environment (Roseland, 2012, p. 195).
All building structures are made of a mix of resources – wood, bricks, slate, asphalt,
glass, insulation, plastics – and they consume energy when they are manufactured.
The PSC response recommends that communities should make every effort to
keep their energy and resource consumption as low as possible, to minimize their
footprint on the environment, and that includes construction and operation costs.
Essentially, the idea is to minimize the consumption of scarce energy and resources
and when those inputs must be consumed, as they do in running, heating, and cooling
a building for example, they should be supplied from environmentally appropriate
sources. For this reason, the PSC response emphasizes a meta-theme of energy and
resource efficient buildings as well as an increase in renewable and sustainable energy
systems to power those buildings.
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4.4.5.1
Energy Efficient Buildings
Buildings in the United States account for approximately 40% of the total
national energy use (Roseland, 2012, p. 195). This single statistic demonstrates the
impact building operation has on aggregate energy and resource consumption. The
environmental consequences of a community’s building stock can be enormous and
there is an opportunity to reduce energy consumption by making changes to the energy
demands of buildings.
The PSC response emphasizes the need to take energy efficiency seriously,
especially as it relates to building operation, and to implement strategies to reduce
energy consumption. For example, in the physical shape of a building contributes to
the energy intensity of its heating and cooling demands. Low-density single homes
are inefficient because they have a large surface area exposed to the elements which
facilitates energy loss. High density towers are inefficient in the winter because they
are exposed to high velocity cooling winds, particularly on the upper floors. Also,
towers are typically made of glass which acts as a heat trap in the hotter months and is
a poor insulator in the colder months. In the middle of the density range – in zoning
codes classified as medium density which is typical of 4 to 6 story townhomes and
apartments – the units share internal walls and have less exposure to high wind speeds.
These types of residences are the most energy efficient, so planners can encourage
their construction through zoning modifications or amendments (Condon, 2010, pp.
98–99). Incidentally, this also helps to concentrate population (Section 4.4.1.2).
There are other design considerations that the PSC response advocates. If a
building can take advantage of passive solar heating, it will consume less energy
during operation. Orienting a northern hemisphere building so that it faces south,
ensuring that the glazing is installed primarily on the south-facing side, and installing
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an overhang which blocks the overhead sun in the summer but permits the entry of
lower sunlight in the winter, can reduce heating and cooling costs significantly
(Roseland, 2012, p. 201; Wheeler, 2013, p. 185). Another easily-achievable solution
to reduce cooling costs during the summer months is to plant trees in front of
buildings so that they block the low morning and afternoon sun. As Condon (2010, p.
100) notes, “trees provide protection more elegantly and cheaply than elaborate wall
details and ‘green gizmos’ ever can.” Additional energy-conscious building design
and retrofit options include the use of high efficiency windows, high spec insulation in
exterior walls and foundations, an air-tight building envelope with a heat exchanger
ventilation system, as well as green and reflective roofs which improve heating and
cooling performance (Wheeler, 2013, pp. 185–186). Although extremely rare,
planners can mandate certain energy performance standards for new developments by
amending local building codes, as was done in Burnaby, British Columbia which
requires new builds to achieve a 30% minimum energy efficiency improvement over
existing designs (Roseland, 2012, pp. 119 & 205).
4.4.5.2
Green Building Materials and Construction
Worldwide, construction accounts for 25% of wood harvested and building
demolition makes up 44% of all landfill waste (Wheeler, 2013, p. 184). There are also
significant energy and resource costs to creating concrete foundations and blocks for
construction. Such is the nature of modern buildings, where the manufacturing of
nearly all construction materials requires large energy and resource inputs. While
communities themselves may not be manufacturing building materials, they are
nevertheless responsible for the embedded – or embodied – energy and resources used
to produce and distribute them.
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Whenever new construction is planned and building materials are required, the
PSC response promotes the use low-impact green materials by taking into account
total energy and resource lifecycle costs. Examples of green materials are reclaimed
wood – from barns, old homes, and salvaged pieces from demolition projects – and
concrete aggregate which is “an alternative to newly created concrete... [and] is made
up of recycled concrete and...other recycled materials such as glass, sand, or rock”
(Roseland, 2012, p. 203). Lumber that was traditionally considered unusable or
inferior because it contained defects such as knots and mineral stains can be
reconceptualized to add “character” to structures (McKibben, 2008, p. 159). Durable
plastic lumber, which is frequently used in decks, park benches, or places where
material is susceptible to rot, is another construction material that is considered green
because it is made from post-consumer products (Wheeler, 2013, p. 189). Even old
used tires can be stacked and filled with dirt to form a retailing wall. An additional
PSC consideration is the use of locally-sourced materials, such as timber and quarry
stone, which cuts down on transportation. The LEED certification program awards
points for building materials that are sourced within a 500 mile radius of the
construction site (Roseland, 2012, p. 203). Essentially, any local construction material
that is recycled, reused, or repurposed is preferable to a newly manufactured item
which goes through an energy and resource intensive production and transportation
process.
Beyond traditional construction techniques that utilize large amounts of
standard building materials such as timber and concrete, there are alternative building
design methods that employ natural materials. Straw bale construction is a classic
technique for achieving a well-insulated structure (Roseland, 2012, p. 183). Rammed
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earth wall construction uses local soil compacted into a 12 to 18 inch wooden form
which is then removed when the wall is created (Wheeler, 2013, p. 189). Cob – which
is a mixture of clayey soil, water, sand, and straw or some other type of fibrous tensile
material – is an ancient building material that is gaining attention because of its ability
to accommodate curvilinear and bespoke architectural forms (Figure 4.5). Earthships
are houses that are embedded and dug into the landscape, thus utilizing the earth to
naturally function as walls. Another opportunity to employ natural materials is with
thatch and sod roofs which can replace common asphalt shingles (Wheeler, 2013, p.
190).
Figure 4.5: Cob construction (image credit: Gerry Thomasen under Creative
Commons License)
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Planners can promote these low energy and resource alternative building
construction techniques by suggesting and recommending them to developers, but
more importantly they can ensure that local building codes are not restricting their use.
Construction using dimensional lumber and concrete is so common that many building
codes require contractors to use these materials because accepted construction details
have been developed over the years, for example details such as fireproofing and
sound insulation. Alternative construction options like dirt-filled tire retaining walls
coupled with cob walls and a thatched roof may not be permitted in the code. The
PSC response can ensure that non-traditional construction methods and materials are
options permitted within the local building code in ways that protect the health, safety,
and private property of building users as well as the health and safety of emergency
personnel such as firefighters (Wheeler, 2013, p. 194).
4.4.5.3
Renewable Energy Development
In the United States, a significant portion of energy comes from fossil fuels
sources such as coal, oil, and natural gas. Based on a recent account, 82% of all
energy used in the United States in 2013 was from coal, oil, and gas (Energy
Information Administration, 2014, p. 7). Although these sources are incredibly energy
dense and easily stored and transported, fossil fuels pose a number of problems.
Roseland (2012, p. 113) reiterates the common criticisms of fossil fuel use when he
writes that:
Our excessive energy consumption depletes our natural capital and
contributes to climate change, ozone layer depletion, smog, acid rain,
oil spills and other forms of pollution.
In addition to the costs of fossil fuel use highlighted by Roseland, fossil fuel
supplies are finite and the PSC response seeks to limit their use as much as possible so
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that reserves are available to future generations should they need them. Beyond
emphasizing the smart growth and multi-modal transport themes to minimize the
consumption of petroleum, the PSC response also tackles the challenge of
transitioning away from fossil fuels by diminishing their use in other ways. One half
of that transition is reducing overall demand for energy (Section 4.4.5.1) while the
other half is changing the supply side of the equation. Specifically, the goal is to shift
communities from consuming dirty, non-renewable, and finite fossil fuels to
consuming clean energy from renewable systems such as solar, wind, and geothermal.
This energy transition is also proclaimed to satisfy economic imperatives as well as
environmental ones, as the installation, maintenance, and evaluation of renewable
energy systems will require a local labor force, thus stimulating a community’s
economy (Roseland, 2012, p. 120; Tumber, 2012, p. 110).
While a significant responsibility for catalyzing local energy transitions lies
with local governments and the energy policymaking powers they wield (for example
by using tax rebates or other financial incentives, creating a municipal utility,
participating in a community choice aggregator scheme, or negotiating purchase
power agreements), planners do have opportunities to facilitate and encourage
renewable energy systems. To start with, local codes and permitting processes to
install renewable energy systems like biodigesters or rooftop solar can be onerous,
lengthy, and expensive. Planners can review their local protocols and propose ways to
streamline building codes and the permitting processes to make it easier for
homeowners or landowners who want to install these types of systems. Or, as one
interviewee noted, they can recommend policy changes to fee structures:
Simplifying the permitting processes for someone trying to come in and
get a rooftop solar panel or something like that [is important]. So
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there’s an incentive there. Like if you get a solar panel on your roof,
maybe the trade-off is that you don’t have to pay the permit fee, or
something like that. So what would normally be a cost to you is now
minimized.
In addition, planners speaking with developers during a project’s design stage
can suggest and encourage the installation of renewable energy systems like solar
photovoltaics or solar water heaters by providing renewable energy design guidelines
(Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 91). With a more direct interventionist approach,
planners can recommend changes to local zoning ordinances to require developers
install solar PV or hot water systems on all new buildings (Roseland, 2012, p. 127).
Another option for the PSC response is to create a “solar access ordinance” where new
developments are only permitted if they can ensure that their construction will not
block sunlight from reaching a neighbor’s roof because that neighbor may wish to
install solar systems in the future (Beatley & Manning, 1997, p. 91; Wheeler, 2013, p.
187). Planners can also encourage local governments to lead by example and use their
financial resource to purchase and install renewable energy systems on public
buildings or publically owned land (Roseland, 2012, p. 125).
Regardless of the method involved, the PSC response is concerned about the
deleterious environmental consequences of excessive fossil fuel consumption.
Renewable energy systems that are decentralized and ideologically aligned with the
ideals of sustainability are preferable to coal, oil, and gas energy. While local
governments possess the policymaking power to take large steps in the renewable
energy direction, there are opportunities for the PSC response to influence and
facilitate an energy transition for both environmental and economic reasons.
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4.5
The Identity of PSC Response as a Planning Reform Effort
The PSC response views traditional pre-Brundtland planning as unsustainable
in a number of important areas. Many community development and planning
decisions were made without regard to the long-term economic, environmental, and
social consequences. A clear and often-cited example of unsustainable planning
occurred in the post-WWII era where suburbanization became a popular planning
strategy for a growing and increasingly affluent society (Figure 4.6).
Figure 4.6: Levittown, Pennsylvania (image credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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The PSC response acknowledges that the planning profession, theory, and
development practices that operated and took place prior to the sustainability
framework directly caused the unsustainable lifestyles and social patterns that exist
today. Wheeler (2013, pp. 1–2) writes:
Planners themselves have led to many unsustainable development
practices. They have issued the building permits for suburban sprawl,
programmed the monies for ever-expanding freeway systems, set up
urban renewal programs that at times have bulldozed vibrant
neighborhoods, assisted with the rise of an economy run by global
corporations, and, most importantly, failed to be as creative as they
might at developing alternative development visions.
The response’s advocates are effectively declaring a mea culpa and recognize the need
to atone for their mistakes by positioning themselves as a healing and restorative force
to amend previous environmental, economic, and equity transgressions.
The PSC response is therefore a professional planning reform effort, one that
takes a more holistic, long-term, and considered approach to community development.
The themes described in this chapter represent individual elements of that effort where
unsustainable planning practices are modified to align with the sustainability
framework. As a community institution, the PSC response is a three to four decadesold progressive agenda for reimagining the way in which communities are designed,
organized, and operated and this reform effort is promulgated by professional
planners, planning theorists, and developers. The response has become more
prominent in recent years, as the expansion in sustainability-related planning literature
demonstrates. Thus while the theory and discourse of Planning Sustainable
Communities is several decades old, the practice is relatively new.
These planning reformers – who may otherwise be far removed from the
community – solicit community members’ perspectives on the desired development
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direction and incorporate the sustainability framework into that outlook. The
development pathway that emerges is a synthesis of local views expressed by the
community and the PSC response advocates’ personal values, dispositions, and
recommendations.
While the PSC response’s primary goal is to improve outcomes at the
community scale, it anticipates that if enough communities adopt its development
framework and implement sustainability-oriented proposals and plans, the aggregation
of these efforts will have an appreciable global impact. Through its reform effort and
strategies for sustainable development at the community level, the PSC response seeks
to mitigate the causes and consequences of global unsustainability. It believes that it
has the tools, expertise, and mandate to confront the overconsumption of energy and
resources, the pollution of global environments, and the inequities that arise between
and within communities, regions, and nations.
4.6
Conclusion
This chapter introduced the planning profession, and more specifically a subset
of the profession that is making an effort to incorporate the principles of sustainability
into the theory and practice of planning. In the PSC response, planners evaluate
development decisions based on environmental, economic, and equity concerns and
seek to balance these three pillars, all of which are essential to the creation and
maintenance of sustainable communities. The chapter then discussed the key themes
contained within the PSC response. These themes emerge from a fusion of the
sustainable planning discourse with the practical action-oriented tools that planners
have at their disposal to move communities in a sustainable direction. Specifically,
the key meta-themes are smart growth land use practices, multi-modal transportation
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options, economic and housing opportunities, public participation and place-making
forums, and finally reduced energy and natural resource consumption and renewable
energy production. The next chapter investigates the PSC response efforts in Media,
Pennsylvania to explore and better understand the manner in which these themes are
expressed in a real community.
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Chapter 5
THE PSC RESPONSE IN MEDIA, PENNSYLVANIA
5.1
Introduction
This chapter examines Planning Sustainable Communities in practice by
investigating an expression of the response’s themes in an actual community. The
borough of Media, Pennsylvania presents this opportunity. In 2013, the borough
government initiated a substantial update to its comprehensive plan and a draft was
released in March, 2014. The chapter begins with a broad overview and description of
Media and it highlights the current planning context and land-use practices in the
borough. It describes previous, non-PSC planning efforts and argues that the 2014
comprehensive plan update is a document written by PSC response advocates. The
comprehensive planning process and the plan are examined for the PSC response
themes.
The chapter’s objective is to give the PSC response shape and context as a
community institution. The advocates, discourse, and practice of the PSC response are
better understood when they are communicated through a real-world example.
Consequently, the chapter is largely descriptive. However, this description is
important because it contributes to the evaluation of the PSC response conducted in
Chapters 8 and 9. When the PSC response is fully assessed in those later chapters,
elements from this chapter are reintroduced and add significantly more depth to the
analysis.
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In March 2015, Media’s comprehensive plan was undergoing minor revisions.
The borough council is scheduled to vote on adopting the document as official policy
in May, 2015. Only then can the recommendations contained in the plan (and
highlighted in this chapter) be implemented. It is therefore too soon to observe and
investigate the manner in which the plan’s proposals are implemented in the borough.
Nevertheless, in the initial stages of the planning process, some PSC response themes
were translated from discourse to practice, particularly the public participation theme.
The investigation of the PSC response’s practice is limited due to these considerations.
5.2
Media Borough Profile
The Borough of Media is located in southeastern Pennsylvania, approximately
twelve miles west of Philadelphia. Self-designated “Everybody’s Hometown,” the
borough limits are triangular in shape and enclose an area of only 0.8 square miles
(Figure 5.1). Nether Providence Township borders Media to the southeast, while
Upper Providence borders to the northwest. The US Census Bureau (2012) states that
the population of Media is 5,327 people. The racial makeup of Media is 81% white,
14% African America, 2% Asian, and 2% Latino. The average household income
level, according to the most recent US census five year survey, is just over $57,000
(compared to the US average of $53,000) (US Census Bureau, 2012).
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Figure 5.1: Media, Pennsylvania with borough limits in red (image credit: Google,
Digital Globe, U.S. Geological Survey, USDA Farm Service Agency)
The borough is the county seat for Delaware County and the large county
courthouse complex occupies a prominent position in the center of Media. State
Street, which runs east-west through the borough, is home to the commercial district.
Adjacent townships are predominately residential and thus rely on Media for many of
their own commercial activities. Banks, restaurants, specialty stores, and the Media
Theater are positioned on State Street as is a trolley line that connects the borough to
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the 69th Street Transportation Center in West Philadelphia. A SEPTA Regional Rail
line also provides public transport from the train station located just outside the
borough limits into Center City Philadelphia, while daily bus service connects Media
to the Chester Transportation Center. The I-476 expressway runs about one mile to
the east of Media. Media’s economy is primarily professional service-based, with
only 13% of the population working in the construction and manufacturing sectors
(US Census Bureau, 2012).
In terms of local government, the borough Mayor and all seven council
members are Democrats. In addition to borough council, the borough is governed by a
number of boards, sub-councils, and commissions populated with residents who
volunteer their time. These groups meet monthly and the public is free to attend and
hear deliberations on borough matters. Examples of these groups are the
Environmental Advisory Council, the Historic Architecture Review Board, the
Planning Commission, the Shade Tree Commission, and the Zoning Hearing Board.
Along with the volunteer residents, each board, council, and commission reserves a
seat for a borough council member, called a liaison, that reports back to council on the
proposals and actions taken by each group. The borough also employs a full time
code enforcement officer and manager to administer and oversee the implementation
of municipal policies.
5.3
Land Use and Planning in Media
This section describes the current land use patterns in Media as well as the
history and legislative authority of planning in the borough. The section provides
context for the description of the various PSC themes contained in the 2014
comprehensive plan update.
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5.3.1
Current Land Use in Media
Much of Media is zoned residential and this land use comprises 41% of the
total area of the borough (Table 5.1). Interestingly, the land use category with the
most coverage, at over one quarter of the total area, is roads and alleyways. This high
percentage of road cover and impervious surface creates stormwater management
challenges in the borough, and some areas are prone to flooding during severe storms.
Commercial activities such as banks and stores occupy 8% of the land area, most of it
on and around the State Street and Baltimore Avenue corridors. Administrative and
institutional buildings, such as the county courthouse complex and the Borough Hall
Complex account for 5% of land use. There is a nominal amount of industrial activity
in the borough, all of it located far into the southwest corner of the triangle (Figure
5.2).
Table 5.1:
Land uses in Media, PA (Simone Collins, 2014, p. 45)
Land Use Type
Roads/Alleyways
Single-family detached
Single-family semi-detached
Commercial
Institutional
Apartment
Office
Recreation
Vacant
Single-family attached
Mixed Use
Parking Lot
Multi-family
Railroad/Utility
Light Industrial
Cemetery
Acreage
128.33
117.26
44.61
38.72
24.37
23.70
19.74
16.31
9.65
9.01
6.96
6.67
5.11
3.35
1.08
0.57
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Percent Coverage
26.4%
24.1%
9.2%
8.0%
5.0%
4.9%
4.1%
3.4%
2.0%
1.9%
1.4%
1.4%
1.1%
0.7%
0.2%
0.1%
Figure 5.2: Existing Land Use in Media (Simone Collins, 2014, p. 44)
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Because Media is small and because it is the site of the Delaware County seat,
much of the borough was developed prior to the post-WWII housing boom. The
development that was carried out following the war was primarily apartment
construction during the late 1960’s, followed by a round of residential infill
developments in the past ten years (Simone Collins, 2014, p. 14). The extent of
development in Media means that there is very little new development opportunity as
evidenced by the small amount of vacant land (only 2.0%). Most of the open space
land is contained within the densely forested Glen Providence Park which is located
on the western border of the borough. Overseen and maintained by Delaware County,
the park has a small creek that has carved out steep slopes unsuitable for development.
5.3.2
Previous Planning Efforts in Media
Media Borough has a long history of planning. In the late 1960’s, Media
developed its first comprehensive plan, complete with fiscal predictions to determine
the economic feasibility of implementing the plan’s proposals. That plan, written in
1968, contains arguments and recommendations for regulating development while
preserving the historical character and culture of the borough. While it predated the
environmental movement’s influence of the 1970s and the PSC response by several
decades, there are some progressive elements such as the need to preserve the local
business district against the encroachment of retail outlets popping up in the
surrounding townships, the creation of a publicly owned housing bank for low-income
residents, and a recommendation to place commercial uses within high-rise apartment
developments (Delaware County Planning Commission, 1968, pp. Part II 1–3 & 4–
11). However, perhaps foreshadowing of future disputes surrounding the automobile,
the plan argues for and lays out a strategy to increase parking availability and ease
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automobile circulation in the borough (Delaware County Planning Commission, 1968,
pp. Part I 4–13 & 5–10). It rationalizes this position by claiming that the automobile
and parking spaces are necessary for successful operation of businesses; if customers
lack a place to park their car, they will be dissuaded from patronizing businesses.
The impetus for writing the first comprehensive plan followed the adoption of
the 1968 Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code. This code mandates that
comprehensive plans in the commonwealth be updated periodically, typically on a ten
year cycle. Media’s comprehensive plan underwent revisions in 1986 and again in
2005 (Media Borough, 2005). Neither of these plans can lay claim to having a strong
socio-environmental or sustainability focus. In the 2005 plan, which was drafted after
the advent of the PSC response, the word “parking” occurs 137 times while mention of
the natural “environment” occurs only five times. Indeed, the 2005 plan lacks a strong
vision and essentially reads like a laundry list of best practices for preserving the
borough’s aesthetics while retaining the traditional framework of automobile-centric
economic development.
5.4
Media Comprehensive Plan 2014 Update
Prior to and during the 2005 comprehensive plan update, the planning context
in Media was not built around a sustainability ethos, at least in terms of the three
pillars of environment, equity, and economy. However, the 2014 comprehensive plan
offers a new planning framework and development direction for the Media
community.
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5.4.1
Moving Toward Sustainability
In the past decade, the borough of Media has taken a number of incremental
steps toward more sustainable practices. The borough installed nine solar photovoltaic
arrays on publicly owned buildings including the armory building, the Media Youth
Center, and the courthouse. The nine arrays have 41 kW of power capacity and
generate approximately 45,000 kWh of energy per year. In 2009, the borough passed
a resolution to purchase 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010, a goal
that it eventually met. Finally, it is claimed that 7% of Media residents get at least
some of their electricity through renewable means, likely via subscriptions to
alternative energy providers in a deregulated utility market (Media Borough, n.d.).
Additional efforts by the borough to foster sustainable community development
include the installation of an electric vehicle charging station, a 2006 campaign and
resolution to make Media a Fair Trade Town, and the granting of permission to the
Media Farmers Market allowing it to occupy, free of charge, a municipally-owned
parking lot for their weekly event (Media Borough, 2012).
While these incremental projects more closely align the borough toward
sustainability’s logic, they are somewhat limited in that they are ad hoc and
tangentially related to the PSC response which is much more holistic and systemic in
its scope. Following on from these stepwise projects, a major window of opportunity
for inserting the PSC response into the Media community occurred in 2013 when the
borough government initiated an update to its comprehensive plan. The borough
council and administration solicited the planning expertise and skills of Simone
Collins from Norristown, Pennsylvania – who have a reputation for incorporating
sustainability principles into their work (Simone Collins, n.d.). Additional planning
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consultants from the Delaware County Planning Department also consulted on the
planning process.
A draft version of the comprehensive plan was released in March 2014. Based
on an assessment of the plan’s contents and recommendations against the key PSC
themes outlined in Chapter 4, it is evident that many elements of the PSC response are
integrated into the comprehensive plan. A second draft was released in August 2014
and is virtually identical to the earlier draft (Figure 5.3). In the sections that follow,
the Media Borough Comprehensive Plan is explored in greater detail, beginning with
an outline of the planning process and continuing with a description of the PSC
themes written into the plan’s recommendations.
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Figure 5.3: Front cover of the 2014 Media comprehensive plan
5.4.2
The Comprehensive Planning Process
The planning process for the Media Borough Comprehensive Plan began on
January 8th, 2013 with a brainstorming and kick-off meeting by the organizing
committee. In attendance were three members of borough council, three borough
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administrators, two planning consultants from Delaware County Planning Department,
and two planning consultants from Simone Collins.
Over the course of the next year, in an effort to solicit community input on the
plan, Simone Collins held seven more committee meetings focusing on the following
topics: housing, employment, transportation, land use, energy, community facilities,
and natural and historic resources. The borough council sent a request to Media
residents asking for volunteers to sit on these committees. Three focus group
meetings were held that were devoted to specific aspects of the borough’s functioning
and appearance, namely business growth, transportation and technology, and
beautification. In addition, two public meetings were held. These meetings were
advertised on the borough’s website and in the local newspaper. The meetings sought
to gather the community’s insights into the existing conditions of the borough as well
as the ideas and future-oriented visions from Media residents. In yet another public
participation gesture, and in an effort to capture the demographics, sentiment,
experiences, and desires of the community, Simone Collins created a nineteenquestion online survey and advertised it to borough residents via the borough website,
the local newspaper, and at the committee meetings. A total of 222 responses were
received.
In addition to the thirteen meetings and the survey directly initiated and run by
Simone Collins, additional public discussion of the plan was carried out at the local
government level. Several monthly planning commission meetings (open to the
public) were devoted to debating on merits of the draft plan. A public hearing was
held before the full borough council, administrator, solicitor, and code enforcement
officer on July 17th, 2014. At this hearing, several community members took the
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opportunity to offer their comments on the draft plan. In August 2014, a final version
of the comprehensive plan was posted on the borough’s website.
There was a great diversity of individuals, civil society organizations, interest
groups, and public sector stakeholders that contributed to the vision and
recommendations contained in the comprehensive plan. The minutes taken at each of
the thirteen open public meetings indicates that representatives from various interest
groups offered their perspectives and input during the planning process. These
include, but are not limited to, members of Media Arts Council, the Fair Trade
Committee, Media Business Authority, Media Farmers Market, Media Real Estate,
Media NAACP, Transition Town Media, Greener Partners (a coordinator for local
food and agriculture activity in the region), Southeast Pennsylvania Regional
Transportation Authority, Delaware County Transportation Management Association,
Media School District, local architects, and faith-based organizations such as the
Media Baptist Church.
The comprehensive planning process undertaken in Media is an illustration of
the community influence on development decisions theme contained in the PSC
response. Rather than relying solely on the expertise of their in-house chartered
professional planners, Simone Collins and the borough made a concerted effort to
solicit the input of borough residents and community stakeholders. The committee
meetings, public meetings, focus groups, the survey, and the public hearing were
forums by which the community members and institutions could take the opportunity
to voice their opinions and perspectives on the direction of future development in
Media. This planning process, which is a real-life expression of the PSC theme,
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helped shape the goals, analysis, and the recommendations contained in the
comprehensive plan.
5.5
Elements of the PSC Response in the Plan
Beyond the commitment to solicit community input during the planning
process, there are PSC response themes expressed through the comprehensive plan.
This section elaborates on those themes and demonstrates how they are given shape in
the plan. Please note that all statutes cited via the symbol § are contained within the
Media Borough code located at ecode360.com/ME1269. Furthermore, all citations of
page number in the comprehensive plan are in reference to the document produced by
Simone Collins (2014).
5.5.1
Smart Growth Land Use
While not explicitly mentioning the intent to influence development in the
borough through the lens of Smart Growth, the comprehensive plan contains many
recommendations that fall under the meta-theme of Smart Growth Land Use.
5.5.1.1
Mixed-Use Development
In 1996, the borough of Media enacted an amendment to the zoning ordinance
to permit mixed-use development within the same building. Office and residential
space is permitted above retail establishments and residential space is permitted above
office space (§ 311-38K). Based on the current land use map and figures offered by
Simone Collins (Table 5.1 and Figure 5.2), there is a cluster of mixed-use
development in the central commercial area of the borough, predominately on State
Street. The comprehensive plan stresses the importance of increasing the presence of
mixed-use development in the borough and does so with an eye towards increasing
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density, facilitating walkability and non-motorized transport, and enhancing local
economic activity.
For example, the plan (p. 97) recommends that the borough redevelop a
publicly-owned parking lot at the heavily-trafficked intersection of Orange Street and
Baltimore Pike:
by selling or leasing it to a private developer interested in building a
mixed use commercial building with structured parking. Active uses
should provide street frontage and parking should be located to the rear
and upper floors.
The plan also suggests that the borough amend the zoning ordinance to create
high density R-4 residential zoning district along the main thoroughfare, Baltimore
Avenue, to accommodate commercial opportunities and mixed-use development
potential for this area (p. 97). It is important to note that this Baltimore Avenue area
resides on the south side of the borough and is within easy walking distance to the
SEPTA station and the trolley, enhancing prospects for Transit-Oriented Development
(Section 5.5.2.1).
5.5.1.2
Concentration of Populations
Because the borough is less than a square mile in size and it is surrounded by
independent townships on all sides, it is not feasible, or practical, to institute an urban
growth boundary to contain sprawl and force the population to concentrate in Media.
The borough limits effectively serve as an urban growth boundary on their own. Also,
because the borough is nearly fully developed, infilling is not a realistic possibility.
Still, there are planning tools available to concentrate populations in Media and the
comprehensive plan strongly recommends their use. During an interview, a consultant
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stated that, “one of the big recommendations in the comp plan is to go denser and
higher.”
The plan notes (p. 14) that there is continued pressure on some homeowners in
Media to convert their large, single family neo-colonial and neo-Victorian homes into
apartments. This is consistent with the intensification of land use. The plan makes the
recommendation for this practice continue, and that rehabilitation and conversion of
historic homes into apartments be partially incentivized by the Federal Rehabilitation
Incentive Tax Credit program (p. 105). Note that with this recommendation, the plan
blends the sub-themes of population concentration with historic preservation.
The plan also promotes the concentration of populations through the
densification of land use. This can be accomplished in two ways. First, the plan notes
that new developments, whether built on vacant land or when older structures are
demolished and replaced, should increase the number of units per floor. Second, the
plan recommends that new developments increase in overall height to the maximum
allowable, thus creating additional stories to carry more units. There is currently a 35
foot maximum building height restriction on the R-1, R-2, and R-3 residential zones in
the borough code (§ 311-17, § 311-22, § 311-27), 40 foot maximum in the highwaybusiness-office zone (§ 311-48), 45 foot maximum in the office zone (§ 311-36), and
55 foot maximum in the R-4 residential zone (§ 311-27.5). This can be achieved
through density bonuses where developers are given the right to increase density
beyond what is normally permitted in the code (p. 99).
5.5.1.3
Open Space/Ecological Preservation
Media is small and nearly fully developed so there is very little open space left
to preserve. Indeed, in the planning consultant’s survey, 45% of respondents said that
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lack of open space and parks was an obstacle to development in the borough (page not
officially numbered in the plan but contained on page 181 of .pdf file). Still, there are
recommendations to preserve what little open space and ecologically valuable areas
are left while simultaneously enhancing those areas already under public stewardship.
The plan calls for at least one public park to be located within a quarter mile
radius of all homes in Media. There are currently two underserved areas – the
southeast corner and along the northwest edge of the borough (p. 85). The
recommendation is to have the borough council and the planning commission look
into “covering” these areas, although the plan stops short of suggesting the borough
acquire property and convert it into open space (p. 100). It does however recommend
creating a pocket park in the publicly-owned land around the water tower in the
northern corner of the borough.
The largest piece of open space in and directly adjacent to Media is Glen
Providence Park which is owned and operated by Delaware County. Although the
borough is limited in what it can do with the parcel, the plan suggests that Media be
more effective in getting residents to utilize the space. There are recommendations to
adding signage to direct pedestrians and trolley users to the park as well as
recommendations for the borough to work closely with the county to promote the
park’s use and to organize events and activities (p. 101).
5.5.1.4
Hydrology-Oriented Land Use and Development
Like many cities, towns, and municipalities, Media faces significant challenges
when it comes to stormwater management. There are a number of locations in the
borough that regularly flood during extreme storm events. This is partially due to the
aging stormwater infrastructure installed 75 to 100 years ago when the borough was
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still developing and hence when the impervious surface coverage was much less than
what it currently is today (p. 52). In response to these challenges, the comprehensive
plan calls for a serious reexamination of the land use and development practices that
take into consideration hydrological impacts.
First, in order to manage stormwater runoff and prevent flooding, the plan
argues that alternative stormwater management systems like bio-swales and permeable
paving be installed in the borough (p. 101). Each of these systems would allow direct
infiltration and groundwater recharge, control overland runoff into the watersheds, and
obviate the need to replace the aging and inadequate gutter and sewer infrastructure.
With regards to site-specific stormwater management practices, the plan recommends
that the borough “encourage” new and old developments alike to install options such
as rainwater gardens and rainbarrels (p. 101). Exactly how the borough should
“encourage” these practices policy-wise is unstated.
5.5.1.5
Local Agriculture
No land is available within Media to engage in large-scale agricultural activity.
Nevertheless there are opportunities to produce food locally, whether it is through
small-scale gardens on public and private property, or through animal husbandry.
Some local food produced around the borough is sold at the Media Farmers Market
which operates weekly during the summer months. Although the vendors are based
outside of the borough limits, they may still be considered part of the local foodshed
so it is important from the PSC perspective to maintain this segment of the local food
economy.
The comprehensive plan does make a number of recommendations in terms of
local agriculture. First, it states that the zoning ordinance must be revised to ensure
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that barriers to small scale local agriculture are removed (p. 98). For instance, the
borough’s code (§ 311-67) states that
No lot or premises in any part of the Borough shall be used to keep or
raise chickens, ducks, pigeons or other fowl, or any rabbits, hares,
guinea pigs, white mice, hamsters or any other small animals with the
exception of specimens kept as household pets, provided the keeping of
same shall not cause a nuisance.
The plan also argues that small scale greenhouses should be permitted in commercial
zones as well as the industrial zone in the southwest corner of the borough (p. 98).
Hoop houses, which are typically used in small residential applications, should be
classified as temporary structures and thus fall outside of the formal permitting
process. Finally, in an attempt to create the first full community garden in Media, the
plan says that the borough should “make land available to Transition Town Media and
other groups to establish community vegetable gardens and permaculture plantings in
appropriate public spaces” (p. 101).
5.5.2
Multi-Modal Transport Choice
The Media Borough Comprehensive Plan makes a serious effort to
deemphasize the automobile as the default mode of transportation and seeks to
promote alternative transit options such as the trolley, regional rail, bicycling, and
walking. In order to offer community members a range of transportation choices, the
plan makes transit-related recommendations that correspond to the themes of transitoriented development, transportation system connectivity, and investments in bicycle
and pedestrian infrastructure.
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5.5.2.1
Transit-Oriented Development
One of the comprehensive plan’s most ambitious and defining elements is its
promotion and vision of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). In an interview, one
of the consultants on the plan commented that Media is “mass transit heaven” because
it is located on bus, trolley, and SEPTA Regional Rail lines. Another consultant noted
that, “any big planning effort is going to have big planning ideas” and with the Media
plan, that is “definitely the TOD aspect.”
Rather than having to develop a transit infrastructure from the bottom up, the
transit options are already in place and TOD simply becomes a matter of locating new
construction and development near the existing mass transit corridors. The draft plan
suggests that TOD areas be located within a 500 foot radius of the SEPTA station
south of the borough and within a 500 foot radius of the Providence Road trolley
station on the eastern edge of the borough (p. 96). The plan goes on to recommend
that in both of these areas, high density mixed-use development should occur. The
proposal further suggests that the zoning classifications be changed to allow for
increased building height in these areas (p. 106). It is worth noting that at the public
hearing on July 17th, 2014, a member of the public made the comment that the 500
foot radius seemed somewhat arbitrary and that all of State Street, because it is also
the trolley line, should be classified as a TOD area.
The plan recognizes that the proposed TOD sites, which are essentially circles
with 500 foot radii, are partially located in the adjacent Upper and Nether Providence
Townships (p. 106). The SEPTA station is located just outside the borough in Upper
Providence Township while the Providence Road Trolley stop is located at the eastern
border of the borough. As a result, Media only has the authority to classify and
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control development in a portion of the proposed TOD area. The plan notes that it will
be necessary to:
work with Upper Providence Township, Nether Providence Township
and SEPTA to redevelop the area of the Media regional rail station and
Providence Road trolley station as a fully integrated mixed-use transit
oriented development (p. 106).
With the TOD proposal, the plan demonstrates how the various themes of the
PSC discourse integrate to form a more comprehensive picture. TOD combines with
the mixed-use development and concentration of population themes to enable
residents’ mobility without automatically resorting to the automobile, thus improving
the environmental performance of the community. The draft plan also notes that in
addition to the environmental benefits, there are long-term economic advantages to
this type of integrated development (p. 82). It says that:
This plan recommends the establishment of mixed-use
commercial/residential districts with increased building heights in close
proximity to transportation hubs. Densification of these areas will
enhance economic development, increase tax ratables and increase
mass transit ridership – ensuring that these critical transportation
services are maintained.
5.5.2.2
Transport System Connectivity
There are two main recommendations in the comprehensive plan that aim to
improve the efficiency and efficacy of the transport system in Media. First, the plan
suggests that the borough coordinate with adjacent townships to operate an
“alternative fuel shuttle bus service” that would link the surrounding park-and-ride lots
with the high traffic volume areas of Media including the courthouse, the commercial
district on the State Street trolley corridor, and the SEPTA regional rail station (p. 95).
The second proposal to improve connectivity is to create a system of
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bicycle/pedestrian paths that link Media to surrounding townships (p. 91). In order to
make this recommendation work, it is incumbent upon Media to create a system of
bicycle lanes in the borough as none currently exist (see next section). Media must
work with the surrounding townships to develop a “regional bicycle and pedestrian
network master plan” to connect the surrounding areas to Media and its transit options
(p. 107).
5.5.2.3
Bicycle and Pedestrian-Friendly Infrastructure
Bicycle and pedestrian safety is an issue in Media, particularly along the
heavily trafficked Baltimore Avenue. As mentioned in the previous section, there are
no designated bicycle lanes in the borough (p. 34). The comprehensive plan therefore
encourages investments to create a system of on-road bicycle routes to improve public
health and safety (p. 94). Because the mapping of bicycle routes is a substantial
project requiring detailed analysis, the plan simply recommends that the borough
conduct a feasibility study to identify bike lanes and share-the-road alignments,
utilizing low volume roads and alleys to connect schools with mass transit options.
Although it calls for an extensive study, the plan does offer a conceptual bike route
plan showing possible locations for designated lanes and share-the-road infrastructure
(Figure 5.4).
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Figure 5.4: Conceptual bike lanes in Media (Simone Collins, 2014, p. 80)
Another element of improving and encouraging cycling is the availability of
bicycle parking infrastructure such as bike racks. The plan notes that there is a
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shortage of racks in the borough (p. 33) and suggests that more needs to be done,
particularly in the transit hubs such as the State Street trolley corridor and at the
SEPTA station (p. 81). The plan suggests that these racks could be funded through
local businesses that pay for the right to use the racks as advertising space (p. 94).
In terms of improving the walkability of Media, the plan suggests that
pedestrian mobility can be enhanced by completing gaps in the sidewalk infrastructure
and it provides a list of gap locations (p. 94). Additional proposals include traffic
calming measures such as the installation of curb bulb outs and textured or colored
crosswalks to improve visibility and driver awareness at dangerous intersections (pp.
81 & 95). Finally, the plan argues that it is important to work with the surrounding
townships to improve their bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure because residents of
those communities need access to the borough for commercial and transit-related
activities (p. 106).
5.5.3
Economic and Housing Opportunity
Creating and then maintaining economic and housing opportunities are areas of
critical importance to the Media community. In terms of offering recommendations
targeted to the sub-themes, the comprehensive plan goes some way toward promoting
local businesses and creating the conditions for a diverse and affordable housing stock,
but it falls short of recommending strategies for attracting green-collar jobs to the
borough.
5.5.3.1
Green-Collar Jobs
Although Media contains a small light industrial zone in the southwest corner
of the borough, no serious industrial or manufacturing activity occurs there. The area
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is mostly populated with auto-related shops and construction/building/lumber yards.
Consequently, there is no opportunity to green an existing grey industry, and there is
very little available space to locate a high-tech manufacturing center in the borough.
To the extent that the majority of jobs in the borough – health care, professional
service, retail, administrative, and other sorts of social assistance jobs – are considered
green because they are not directly involved in the exploitation or consumption of
natural resources, Media’s workforce is already low-impact. Therefore, the plan
makes no mention or recommendations to incentivize green-collar jobs in the borough.
5.5.3.2
Promoting Local Business and Limiting the Big Box
The central business, commercial, and retail district in Media, which is almost
exclusively populated with locally owned establishments, has enjoyed a good deal of
success over the decades. In addition to the borough’s own customers, business
interests in Media attract residents from the surrounding municipalities because those
townships lack a central business district of their own – although there are two aging
malls in nearby Springfield and Middletown Townships. Exactly what makes Media’s
business district so successful in the face of these surrounding Big Box retailers is not
fully clear. One likely factor, particularly with respect to the role of sustaining a
diverse and sizable locally owned business community in Media, is the presence of the
Delaware County Courthouse and its concentration of well-paid lawyers and
administrative employees. Another likely contributing factor is the efforts of the
Media Business Authority (MBA) which, similar to a Downtown Development
Authority, is a collection of business owners that coordinate and advocate to enhance
their interests in the borough. The MBA will create, sponsor, and manage events in
Media such as the weekly and extremely popular “Dining Under the Stars” where
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every Wednesday over the summer months, State Street is closed to traffic and
restaurant goers are able to dine outside (Figure 5.5).
Figure 5.5: Dining Under the Stars in Media (image credit: Facebook)
The comprehensive plan’s recommendations for promoting local businesses
centers on enhancing and replicating these types of events. The plan suggests that the
borough should consider hiring a full time “Events Coordinator” to work closely with
the MBA to expand the events calendar (p. 103). A consultant said:
Media has a huge array of events and things. One of the
recommendations in the plan is that the Borough perhaps fund a
position of events coordinator because it is all done by volunteers now.
It is onerous in terms of responsibility.
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The plan also recommends that the borough create application standards to
streamline the event permitting process and street closure procedures, thus “promoting
more temporary market opportunities for artisans and local food producers” (p. 102).
While remaining unspecific about the types of changes to local laws and regulations
that would be required, the plan notes that it the borough council will need to “adopt
ordinances as necessary” (p. 102). Lastly, in an effort to promote local retail outlets,
the plan advises a retail version of Dining Under the Stars that could include activities
such as street fairs and sidewalk sales (p. 103).
In terms of limiting Big Box stores from locating in the borough, the plan
makes no recommendations, perhaps because there is very little developable land
available for the Big Boxes to occupy. While it may not technically be considered a
consequence of Big Boxes, some economic leakage does exist in Media because there
are a number of externally owned corporate operations inside the borough limits, for
example a PNC bank branch and Trader Joe’s grocery store on State Street as well as a
Starbucks café and McDonald’s restaurant in the southeast corner.
5.5.3.3
Diverse, Affordable Housing Options
The plan recognizes that one of the negative consequences of Media’s success
as a vibrant and commercially active borough is the decline of housing affordability
and demographic diversity (p. 3). The median home price is nearly $285,000, slightly
more than the county average of $236,000 (US Census Bureau, 2012). The plan notes
that one significant impact of high property values is the decrease in volunteers for the
Media fire department because potential recruits are moving to municipalities with
more moderately priced homes. A consultant on the plan made a similar claim during
an interview:
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From the equality standpoint, [the plan] does touch on the fact that
Media might be becoming a more expensive community to live in that
could have an impact on its diversity which would be related to
sustainability. It could have an impact on volunteer fire fighters, police
officers.
If the trend continues, it will create a situation where the borough will be
forced to pay a professional firefighting staff (p. 61). It should be noted that the high
value of homes is likely not due to exclusionary and exclusive zoning practices. There
is a good mix of housing and apartment types available to Media residents (Table 5.2).
Table 5.2:
Housing availability in Media, PA (US Census Bureau, 2012)
Units
1-Unit Detached
1-Unit Attached
2 Units
3-4 Units
5-9 Units
10-19 Units
20 or more Units
Number
665
681
283
232
160
391
549
Percent
22.3%
22.9%
9.5%
7.8%
5.4%
13.1%
18.4%
To improve housing affordability, the plan makes a recommendation to create
a Land Bank in the borough (p.102). Typically, this tool is used where there is a large
amount of vacant, delinquent, and blighted property in an area. Thus does not appear
to be the case with Media, so it is hard to understand how such a program would be
feasible and effective. More sensibly, the plan suggests that borough ordinances be
amended to permit the construction, redevelopment, and use of “new trends in
residential building types” such as co-housing units and in-law quarters (p. 102).
Finally, the plan recommends that borough council offer tax reliefs, for example a
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property tax abatement, to volunteer firefighters so they can afford to live in Media (p.
106).
5.5.4
Public Participation and Place-Making
Public participation and place-making is more likely to occur in a community
that is active and engaged in local affairs. This is current the case in Media and the
comprehensive plan contains a section that details the list of active social movements
and groups operating in the community. Specifically, the plan (p. 68) mentions that:
Media’s civic culture is unique to Delaware County, as well as the
Delaware Valley. Social and civic organizations in Media include
more than business/service organizations like the Rotary Club of
Media, but also organizations tied to social movements, including the
Media Arts Council, Transition Town Media and Timebank Media.
These organizations have helped redefine Media as a civic-minded and
progressive town with numerous events, initiatives and opportunities
for community engagement, from residents, visitors and local
businesses.
Public participation in local affairs in Media is already strong by normal
standards. In addition to the groups listed above, Media contains a Fair Trade
Committee, Republican and Democratic political organizations, Quaker and religious
organizations, a branch of the national NAACP, and the aforementioned Media
Business Authority (p. 6). The involvement of these groups and active citizens in
community life is vital to sustainability according to an interviewee who stated:
I think sustainability has a lot to do with the health of a community and
how involved that community is and how comfortable that community
feels in voicing out concerns and how comfortable they feel with
making things happen in the town.
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The comprehensive plan targets ways to expand the participation, placemaking, and co-production opportunities of civic groups, as well as those of individual
residents and the community as a whole.
5.5.4.1
Community Influence on Development Decisions
The influence of the Media community on the comprehensive plan was already
covered in detail in section 5.4.2. To recap, the consultants went to great lengths to
solicit stakeholder and resident input in the early stages of the plan. Committee
meetings, focus groups, and community surveys were all designed with the intention
of garnering the Media community’s experiences and aspirations for the future of the
borough. The vision and goals of the plan reflect the values expressed by the
community. There was also a public comment period on the draft plan and it is
therefore reasonable to assert that the planning process allowed the community to
influence the comprehensive plan to a very large degree.
5.5.4.2
Space- and Place-Making Opportunity
Many Media residents and civic groups are active and engaged in the
community’s affairs, yet at the same time opportunities remain to promote collective
actualization and civic expression. For example, it was mentioned in Section 5.5.1.3
that the goal to have a public park or public space within a quarter mile of all residents
is unmet. Much of the borough’s property is privately owned which places restrictions
and limits on community members’ opportunities for space and place-making.
The draft comprehensive plan does offer some strategies for enabling residents
and groups to co-produce their community. First, a major recommendation is for the
borough to utilize the permission granted in the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning
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Code to draft and adopt an “Official Map” (pp. 87, 100, & 108). An Official Map is a
document that lays out the public infrastructure the community would like to see
developed in their area and it requires any developer to provide those infrastructural
elements as part of their proposals. For example, the Official Map could identify,
define, and reserve space for a desired public park in the southeast corner of the
borough (an area currently underserved by public space) and any developer who
wishes to build up the land where the hypothetical park is located on the Official Map
must carve out space for the actual park in their development plans.
Another recommendation the plan offers is to remove and reconfigure parking
in Veterans Square, which is centrally located in the business/commercial district, in
order to “create a flexible civic space that can be used for events” (p. 100). The
creation of publicly owned and operated “gateways” at each of the three main
entrances to the borough is yet another proposal made in the plan. The plan suggests
that these gateways, which could take the form of plazas, should serve the dual
purpose of offering civic space and a forum for local artisans to install and exhibit
their works.
In terms of place-making, it was noted (Section 5.5.3.2) that the plan advises
the borough to hire an events coordinator to program and implement activities like the
popular Dining Under the Stars (p. 106). Other events held in Media that offer placemaking opportunities include the annual Roots Ramble and Blues Stroll (public music
and concerts) and the annual Bastille Day celebration (p. 68). The Media Arts Council
receives particular place-making attention in the plan, not only with respect to the
gateway locations described above, but also as a civic organization that can create a
stronger identity for the Media community. For example, one recommendation is to
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allow the Council to use the water tower in the northern corner of the borough as a
canvas for a giant mural (p. 104). Another is for the Council to work with the borough
to create guidelines for purchasing and installing public art throughout the community,
even if those installations are on a temporary basis.
5.5.4.3
Historic Preservation
Media is an old town with a long and rich architectural history. The oldest
structure is the Thomas Minshall House, erected in 1750. Many architectural styles
were employed as Media developed including a number of Victorian-, Gothic-, and
colonial-inspired homes. In 1975, under the authority of Pennsylvania State Act 167,
the borough adopted an ordinance to designate three historic districts (Courthouse
Square, Providence Friends Meetinghouse, and Lemon Street). Demolitions,
additions, restorations, and alterations to any structure located in these districts are
tightly controlled and regulated by the borough council and the Historic Architecture
Review Board (HARB), a group that operates as an advisory committee to borough
council (pp. 53-57). Regulation of architectural styles and building modifications in
the historic districts are covered by Chapter 183 of the borough code. In January of
2014, the Media HARB issued a full set of design guidelines to inform property
owners inside the three districts of their responsibilities and what types of
modifications and alterations would normally be considered appropriate (Media
Historic Architecture Review Board, 2014).
In addition to creating designated historic districts, in 2008 the borough
adopted an official historic resources overlay district to control demolition and
development to key historic structures scattered throughout the community (§ 311Article XXI). To further preserve historic structures, in 2003 the borough, with the
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help of $1.3 million in state funding, also purchased the Media Armory which was
added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Shortly after acquiring the
property, the borough installed solar panels on the roof and converted the interior to
retail space, eventually leasing it one year later to Trader Joe’s (Serbin, 2004).
Because the borough is already deeply engaged in preserving its historic
resources, the comprehensive plan simply recommends expanding the number of
properties in the historic resources overlay district. It does suggest that the borough
should “gauge support” by the public to create new historic districts on State Street,
Orange Street, Church Street and North Media (p. 104). In a creative attempt to
promote the architectural character of the borough, the plan also recommends that the
borough develop walking tours through historic residential neighborhoods, thus
educating residents and visitors as to the importance of preservation and, hopefully,
building public support behind further efforts (p. 105).
5.5.5
Energy and Natural Resources
This section outlines the comprehensive plan’s recommendations for how
Media can reduce consumption of energy and natural resources as well as
recommendations for producing those inputs locally through renewable means.
5.5.5.1
Energy Efficient Buildings
Although no specific data or evidence is provided to support the claim, the
comprehensive plan argues that a great opportunity exists to improve the energy
performance of the borough’s building stock (p. 84). One of the recommendations is
for the borough to form a committee to work with local universities and organizations
to establish the current baseline for energy usage in the borough (p. 99). This is
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proposed so that progress can be monitored and benchmarked as the community works
toward achieving energy efficiency-related goals. Despite the lack of understanding
of the current energy figures for the borough’s building stock, the plan still makes a
number of recommendations to conserve and reduce overall energy use.
One focus for achieving energy efficient buildings is on direct education
campaigns to the borough’s property owners. The plan recommends that the borough
can use its newsletters and mailings to enhance public awareness of energy
conservation practices by promoting the benefits of weatherization and other energy
saving measures (p. 99). Furthermore, since the borough has already taken some steps
to retrofit its own publicly owned and operated buildings, the plan suggests that
appropriate signage and promotional materials could showcase these efforts to the
community.
In terms of recommendations to directly incentivize the construction and
retrofitting of energy efficient buildings, the plan does mention the fact that subsidies
are one option, although it stops short of providing concrete details on how or what the
subsidies would target (p. 99). Another suggestion is to permit buildings in the high
density R-4 and mixed-use zoning areas to increase in height beyond what is typically
allowed in the code if those buildings are constructed with energy-saving techniques
such as green roofs and low-flow water fixtures (p. 99). Although the intent of such a
policy is to concentrate populations (Section 5.5.1.2), structures in the 4 to 6 story
range perform well energy-wise because their heating and cooling demands are
comparatively lower than high rises and one or two story buildings (Section 4.4.5.1).
Finally, the plan recommends that the borough create a “green points” scoring system
where permit application fees can be reduced when building designs incorporate
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energy efficiency techniques such as passive solar and heat island reduction methods
(p. 99).
5.5.5.2
Green Building Materials and Construction
As with the recommendations to advance energy efficient buildings, the plan’s
ideas for how to incentivize the use of green materials rests on a points system that
awards density and height bonuses as well as reduced permit application fees to
developers who make use of green materials in their structures. However, the plan
does not specifically mention that reused or repurposed construction materials should
be incorporated into the point system. The plan makes no mention of reviewing and
amending as necessary the borough building code to allow for the use of alternative
construction materials such as cob, straw bale, or repurposed shipping containers.
Interestingly, the plan recommends that the borough not pursue LEED certification
standards because the process of gaining certification “will be expensive and difficult
for the borough to monitor and may increase development costs” (p. 99).
5.5.5.3
Renewable Energy Development
The borough government has already installed solar panel arrays on nine
publicly owned building in Media. In addition, some residents and businesses have
taken it upon themselves to invest in solar energy projects for their properties. The
comprehensive plan aims to build on these efforts and to grow the total renewable
energy generated in Media. Suggestions for how to achieve that outcome are limited
however. The only direct recommendation the plan offers is to “adopt alternative
energy ordinances to ensure a streamlined approval process” (p. 99). The green points
system highlighted above, as well as the installation of signage to advertise the
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borough’s own renewable energy infrastructure, could also be interpreted as efforts to
promote renewable energy development in the borough.
5.6
Conclusion
The PSC response finds expression in Media through the 2014 update to the
borough’s comprehensive plan and there are obvious efforts to incorporate the Three
E’s into the plan’s recommendations. As a planning consultant noted during an
interview:
Certainly, Media is interested in being more sustainable in terms of
reduced energy use, less stormwater runoff, more shade, reducing heat
island effect, more energy efficient buildings, more reliance on mass
transit.
The environmental pillar of sustainable communities is addressed through a
number of the key themes, from smart growth principles that advocate for dense,
mixed-use, and hydrologically sensitive development, to the multi-modal transit
options that place additional emphasis on connectivity, mass transit, walkability, and
bike-ability. The plan also addresses the need to expand local agricultural practices.
Existing solar energy installations on borough-owned property, and the plan’s
recommendations to expand them, represent another aspect of improving communitywide environmental performance. The economy pillar of the PSC response overlaps
with the smart growth themes because economic transactions are facilitated when
individuals live in close proximity to commercial and retail opportunities.
Furthermore, events like Dining Under the Stars attract people from the community
and surrounding area to patronize Media’s local restaurant scene. Finally, the equity
pillar of the PSC response was taken seriously during the planning process, as direct
input from the community was sought early and often. In terms of equity-based
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recommendations contained in the plan itself, the subtheme targeting diverse and
affordable housing seeks, at a minimum, to maintain existing housing conditions in the
borough which are characterized by a broad range of housing types and prices. The
plan also stresses the importance of creating opportunities for community-wide
engagement in space- and place-making, as well as a recommendation that all
residents should be able to live within a quarter mile of a public park.
There are some themes where the plan falls short of the PSC response. For
example, there are no recommendations to limit Big Box stores in the borough, no
suggestions for how to attract green collar jobs, and no mention of the permissibility
of residences constructed with alternative materials. Still, while the 2014 Media
comprehensive plan is not fully inclusive in the sense that it does not encompass every
theme offered by the PSC response, it recognizes and recommends a broad range of
strategies for overcoming the traditional challenges to socially and environmentally
sensitive community development. The planning processes, coupled with the plan’s
recommendations, therefore represent an important contribution to the PSC response
in Media.
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Chapter 6
THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT RESPONSE
6.1
Introduction
The Transition Movement response is described and investigated in this
chapter. First, the history of the Transition Movement is sketched from its beginnings
in Totnes, England in 2005. The analysis then details and discusses the motivations
and logic for the Transition Movement response as well as the rationale for why the
movement prioritizes action at the community scale. The chapter concludes with a
thorough description of the key themes offered by the Transition Movement response
and a discussion about what the response represents and envisions as a community
development movement.
The Transition Movement has a well-defined identity and offers a consistent
narrative about the challenges facing communities and what actions can be taken at the
local level to reasonably and pragmatically respond to those challenges. It is driven,
almost exclusively, from a grassroots level where dedicated, local residents volunteer
their time and effort to implement a development strategy that is motivated by an
unambiguous interpretation of a combination of exogenous forces impacting
communities. The Transition Movement, therefore, is a resolutely bottom-up, citizenled social movement that offers a consistent definition of the problem facing all
communities and a conviction that substantive economic, political, and technological
change is not only necessary, it is quickly becoming inevitable (North, 2011; Seyfang
& Haxeltine, 2012). For Transition Movement advocates, most of whom are average
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community members, there is an overwhelming consensus about where the
unavoidable direction for community development is heading. Equipped with this
clear and unambiguous trajectory for community development, the movement’s
activists are able anticipate and engage in the prefigurative practice of creating their
future.
As a grassroots community-based movement, the Transition Movement
encourages all communities to seriously consider its interpretation of exogenous
forces and implement local, contextually appropriate development strategies in
response. It is organized to raise community awareness and spread its message
between them, and it offers interested communities the support and resources to take
action for themselves. The Transition Movement therefore aspires to replicate its
development response in all communities.
6.2
History of the Transition Movement Response
The Transition Movement (or simply Transition) offers a community
development response designed to confront the implications of three exogenous
forces: peak oil, climate change, and a dysfunctional global economy – what are
referred to in this inquiry as the triple threat. The response began in Totnes, England
through the sustained efforts of a core group of socially and environmentallyconscious residents. Rob Hopkins, who is the response’s leading figure, was an
integral part of that core group. In formulating the Transition community
development response, Hopkins drew upon his knowledge of the philosophical
underpinnings and practices of permaculture. Permaculture is an integrative,
interactive, and an ideally zero-waste ecological and horticultural design framework
that situates productive human activity within a mutually beneficial relationship to
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nature as opposed to a zero-sum domination over and against nature (Holmgren, 2002;
Mollison, 1988).
In 2008, Hopkins wrote the response’s guiding document, The Transition
Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (Hopkins, 2008). The
Transition Handbook lays out Hopkins’s interpretation of the economic and
environmental implications of peak oil and climate change and presents a theoretical
and practical vision for how communities can thrive in a post-peak oil and a climate
changed world.8 The book recounts events in Totnes where, in 2005, a core group of
activists began to raise awareness among the town’s residents about the threats peak
oil and climate change pose to the community and what, if anything, the residents
could do to transition toward mitigating those threats and adapting to the
consequences. After eight months of awareness raising, which included film
screenings and talks on peak oil and climate change, the group decided there was
sufficient community and local government motivation to take concrete steps to
address the challenges and in September 2006 the participants anointed Totnes with
the title of “Transition Town Totnes” (Hopkins, 2008). Afterward, community
members active in Transition Town Totnes began to reshape a number of different
aspects of social and economic life in the town. Residents planted almond and walnut
trees on public land to enhance food security and a local currency, the Totnes Pound,
8 The collapse of global financial markets in 2008 occurred after The Transition
Handbook was published so the triple threat the Transition Movement response
confronts today was a dual threat (peak oil and climate change) when the response
formed in 2005. The global economic dysfunction threat is a post-2008 addition to the
response’s interpretation of why the current trajectory of economic, political, and
technological progress cannot be sustained indefinitely.
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was rolled out in an effort to recirculate economic activity and value within the
community.
At the September, 2006 launch of Transition Town Totnes, a public meeting
was held in the Totnes Civic Hall to celebrate the event. In attendance were residents
from Falmouth, Penzance, and Lewes who then returned to their communities with an
eye to adapt the Transition approach in their municipalities. Soon afterward, Hopkins
and Ben Brangwyn, another Totnes resident, began receiving enquiries from other
communities about Transition Town Totnes and they quickly realized that the
Transition message was reverberating around England. A decision was made to create
Transition Network, a central resource and support hub for communities looking to
start a local Transition group (Hopkins, 2011a). 9 Hopkins and Brangwyn received
funding for their efforts from the Tudor Trust and used the money to rent a small
office, hire an office manager, create a website, and write an information and start-up
guide for interested communities (Transition Network, 2013). The organizers in
Totnes also decided to organize training sessions to help communities successfully
navigate through the early stages of initiative formation. Soon after, new initiatives
formed in Falmouth, Lewes, Penwith, Otter St. Mary, Bristol, Brixton, and Forest of
Dean (Hopkins, 2008, Chapter 13).
When The Transition Handbook was published in 2008, awareness of and
interest in the response grew rapidly and began to spread beyond the boundaries of
9 A community adopting the Transition Movement response is called a “Transition
initiative.” In the early days of the movement, the phrase “Transition Town” was used
but this wording quickly became problematic when larger, more metropolitan
communities located in places such as Brixton chose to adopt the response.
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England. Transition initiatives formed in communities in Austria, Canada, England,
Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain,
Sweden, the United States, and Wales (Transition Network, 2013). Over time,
national coordinating hubs and training courses were developed in these countries to
further support communities interested in the Transition Movement response. What
began with Transition Town Totnes in 2005 morphed into the wider Transition
Movement in a very short time.
6.3
A Current Profile of Transition
As of November 2014, nearly 1,200 communities in 43 countries have adopted
the Transition Movement’s development response, a prodigious expansion (Transition
Network, 2014). While the Transition Network and the national hubs offer support
services to communities, they refrain from managing individual initiatives (Hopkins &
Lipman, 2009). A core tenet informing the governance of the wider movement is that
each initiative is unique and contextually significant so there is a strong emphasis on
affording each community the space and freedom to determine for itself the most
appropriate development pathway. The Transition Movement response does not
prescribe a one-size-fits-all agenda for every community and it encourages local,
grassroots community innovation (Seyfang & Haxeltine, 2012). However, there are a
number of best practices that all Transition initiatives are encouraged to adopt and
adapt to their community such as developing an energy descent plan and creating
working groups that focus on areas like local food security, local economic
revitalization, energy conservation, and mental healthcare. The response takes pains
to be as open and inclusive as possible so any community member who wishes to
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become involved feels welcome to join a local Transition initiative or else start one if
no initiative is present in their community.
Initiatives typically form in smaller towns or medium sized cities, although
some initiatives act as regional coordinating hubs for surrounding Transition groups.
For example, there are Transition initiatives in the municipality of Julian,
Pennsylvania (population 152) and in Los Angeles, California, while a Transition hub
exists for the state of Colorado and for the entire mid-Atlantic region. Currently there
are 153 official initiatives in the United States, all located in the contiguous 48 states
(Transition US, 2015). The areas with the highest concentration of initiatives are
along the east and west coasts (Figure 6.1). There is a cluster of initiatives in the
Boulder, Colorado area where the first US initiative formed in 2008. For a complete
list of the Transition initiatives in the United States, see the Appendix.
Figure 6.1: Map of officially recognized Transition initiatives in the United States
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To become recognized as an “official” Transition initiative through the
Transition Network, a community must progress through the “mulling” stage of the
initiative development process. Mulling groups initially form through any number of
manners, for example around a book club that reads The Transition Handbook
(Wilmington, DE and Media, PA) or through the efforts of a committed group of likeminded residents (Boulder, CO and Northfield, MN). A mulling community is one
who is building grassroots support from residents and is examining innovative ways to
adopt the Transition Movement response to their local context. After a sufficient level
of community interest is attained and after the organized mullers demonstrate that they
are serious about proactively adopting the Transition Movement response, the mulling
community submits its application to the national body for approach, Transition
United States (TUS). There are only three part-time employees who work for TUS.
The standards that must be met to achieve official status are rigorous and formalized
because the movement wants to avoid situations where less-than-serious communities
are official in name but not in action. If the application is accepted, the mulling group
becomes officially designated as a Transition initiative which entitles them to receive
additional technical and consulting support from TUS, such as space for the creation
of a webpage. Hubs in other nations where the Transition Movement response
operates offer similar support services to TUS.
6.4
The Key Themes of the Transition Movement Response
The themes of the Transition Movement response were identified using the
research methods outlined in Chapter 1. Through a review of the literature,
interviews, participant observation, and the 2014 Transition US survey, the themes
represent a consistent discourse and practice that is shared across the Transition
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Network and the initiatives applying the development response. There are localized,
contextual factors that lead some Transition initiatives to emphasize particular themes,
but the themes highlighted below represent a consistency in discourse and practice,
from the leading figures such as Hopkins to the individuals creating, innovating, and
implementing projects in their local communities.
The themes are informed by the social and environmental consequences of the
triple threat. There is a consensus among the response’s advocates that communities,
at present, are severely vulnerable to these macro-scale forces beyond their control.
This vulnerability results from communities’ economic and development futures being
thoroughly integrated and inseparable from global political and economic systems that
are completely dependent upon continuing supplies of cheap and abundant fossil fuels,
stable climactic conditions, and a nonstop growth oriented economy, all of which are
no longer taken for granted. The Transition Movement response views several critical
20th Century phenomena – from the globalization, production, transportation, and
storage of cheap consumer goods to automobile-enabled suburbanization and the
mechanization and industrialization of agriculture – with much skepticism, seeing
each of these processes as carbon intensive operations made possible by a fossil fuel
energy glut and a stable climate. According to the response’s interpretation of peak
oil, the expansion and growth of these phenomena must eventually slow and reverse
direction when oil supplies become scarce and prices rise.
Like the neo-Malthusian analyses offered by Donella Meadows (1972),
Herman Daly (1996), Tim Jackson (2009) and what John Dryzek (2005) calls the
survivalism discourse, the Transition Movement response argues that there are
insurmountable limitations to natural resource production and consumption.
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Advocates speak of “realistic energy constraints” and of the need to respect the
“biological limits of our planet” (Hopkins, 2008, pp. 43 & 134). These limits-togrowth sentiments were continually reiterated by interviewees. In a vein similar to the
challenges posed by peak oil, the Transition Movement response views the climate
crisis as one that will destabilize an already volatile and fragile economic system.
Specifically, the continued viability of importing consumer goods from Asia or
growing and transporting food through a world-wide foodshed will simply become
unfeasible once the economic and environmental consequences of peak oil and climate
change impact the ecologically limited global economy that depends on perpetual
growth for its maintenance.
The Transition Movement response calls upon local communities, which are
identified as the scale and nexus of action, to take concrete steps to both mitigate and
prepare for the impacts of the triple threat. The community is seen as the appropriate
scale of action for a number of reasons. First, there is a general lack of confidence that
national governments possess the knowledge, desire, policy tools, and political power
to effectively address the triple threat. There is a high level of skepticism in the
response that powerful and international moneyed institutions are able to bend national
governments to preserve their financial interests at the expense of rectifying the causes
or consequences of the triple threat. Special distrust is reserved for the fossil fuel and
industrial agriculture sectors. A second reason why the response stresses action at the
community scale is because the movement is critical of an individualistic survivalist or
“prepping” strategy which draws from the already short supply of social capital that is
needed for a peaceful evolution of industrial civilization (Quilley, 2013; SchneiderMayerson, 2013). If, for example, people are individually hoarding food and weapons
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in anticipation of civilization’s breakdown, it comes at the opportunity cost of social
and peaceful interaction with others. Lastly, the community scale acts as a bridge
between the individual and the global and is one where the whole is larger than the
sum of the parts. The local community is where many people feel they can make a
direct and meaningful impact in the world, and as a result, people are more likely to be
engaged and active (Aiken, 2012). One interviewee summed up the motivation for
focusing on the community scale with the comment that:
It’s the scale of events that you can understand and have any influence
on. It’s a community of people that you know and work with. So it
does bring it back to the community level. But a local group can do
what it feels it needs to do. If you’re waiting for the state or the nation
or the world to come up with policies, you’ve got to wait for everybody
to agree. If you got a group in a place from a few thousand people to
maybe 100 or 200 thousand people who say, “We want our community
to do this,” and they decide to do it, they can. Again, they don’t have
to wait for any larger consensus. They don’t have to wait for laws and
policy and everything else. They simply need to start mobilizing the
resources they have.
It is evident that the Transition Movement response is motivated by a sense of
urgency. The grassroots activists in the movement, including Hopkins (2008, 2011a),
believe that the timing of peak oil is near, if it has not already occurred. After the
peak, or during the energy descent phase, current lifestyles and socio-economic
systems will be forced to transform and adjust to a low-energy reality. In order to
avoid post-collapse cataclysmic or barbarian scenarios, voluntary effort towards a
socially and ecologically agreeable future must begin immediately and the Transition
Movement response argues that the window for effective action is shrinking. The
same sense of urgency is applied to the challenges of adapting to a climate changed
world. Climate change is not an abstract or existential crisis that will be felt in the
future. The community-level consequences of a changed climate are occurring now in
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the form of higher food prices, for example. As with peak oil, successful adaptation to
a changed climate demands immediate action. Finally, the Transition Movement
response interprets the sudden appearance and speed of the 2008 financial crisis as a
warning that the global economic system is more fragile that many perceived it to be.
Another unravelling, likely more severe than the 2008 crisis, could arise at any time
with little advance notice. Thus, the Transition Movement response argues for the
need for communities to rapidly engage in efforts to prepare for sudden and
unanticipated economic shocks. The rationale and logic behind the movement’s
community-centric development response is best summed up in the often cited
“Cheerful Disclaimer” (Hopkins, 2011a, p. 17) which states:
We are convinced of this: if we wait for governments, it’ll be too little,
too late; if we act as individuals, it’ll be too little; but if we act as
communities, it might be just enough, just in time.
With the triple threat identified and the implications and responsibilities for
communities spelled out, the Transition Movement response then turns to the vital
question of how best to approach development practice at the community level. As
with the PSC response, the Transition Movement response is a combination of the
discourse – which is how the response thinks about, communicates, and
conceptualizes the main problems facing communities – and the practical steps that
can be taken to address those problems. Discourse and practice therefore combine
into problem-solving themes.
A core theme of the Transition Movement response is economic localization
which is used by the movement to conceptualize and then enact a spatial and material
contraction of how communities provide for their livelihoods. Community building,
as a compliment to economic localization, is a theme offered by the response which
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demonstrates a commitment to the process of reweaving interpersonal bonds, all with
a view towards a productive support network. Building resilience is another theme
motivated by the desire to insulate communities against severe exogenous pressures
and shocks. Under the macro-theme of resilience building are the sub-themes of
energy descent and transformation as well as reskilling. Energy descent and
transformation is a process of planning and lowering a community’s overall energy
consumption and then producing whatever energy is needed from local renewable
sources. Reskilling is a process by which a Transition initiative seeks to share and
replicate the knowledge and skills required for a post-carbon energy descent among
community members. Reskilling targets many economic areas of homemade
production such as gardening, food preservation, and sewing. Finally, a major theme
in the Transition Movement response is the politically neutral posture assumed when
interfacing with local government.
Table 6.1:
Themes of the Transition Movement response
Meta-Theme
Economic Localization
Community Building
Building Resilience
Sub-Theme
Energy Descent and Energy Transformation
Reskilling
Politically Neutral
Relationship with Local
Governments
Compared to the PSC response, the Transition Movement response offers
fewer themes. This is likely due to age of the responses and the different emphasis
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they place on context-specific community innovation. Whereas the PSC response is
older and has benefited from years of intellectual and experiential development, the
Transition Movement response is younger and is still progressing through selfreflexive learning and growth phases. More substantively, the PSC proposes a more
prescriptive set of well-developed themes that can apply to any community, while the
Transition Movement response stresses the importance of place-based community
innovation and entrepreneurship (Seyfang & Haxeltine, 2012). Consequently, the
Transition Movement response simply recommends general development guidelines
within which communities are encouraged to propose unique, place-based solutions to
prepare for and adapt to the unavoidable triple threat.
6.4.1
Economic Localization
Localization is a major theme of Transition Movement response and it refers to
the process of shifting the economic livelihoods of a community from the global and
distant scale to the local and community scale. It is viewed as a direct consequence to
the unavoidable rippling effect peak oil and climate change are predicted to have on
global production, trade, transportation, consumption of goods, and the
macroeconomic dysfunction that will result (Curtis, 2009). As a guideline for local
community development, economic localization demands a distinct spatial contraction
of production and consumption cycles (Bailey, Hopkins, & Wilson, 2010). The spatial
contraction applies to material consumer goods as well as services.
Rather than directly challenging global economic structure and seeking to
force them to change their practices through advocacy or consumer sovereignty,
economic localization in the Transition Movement context emphasizes the promotion
and ascendancy of homegrown cottage industries to replace globalized heavy
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industries. In addition, economic localization also implies the emergence of a true
sharing or gift economy that operates outside of the monetary economy. An
interviewee captured the essence of the economic localization theme:
A key aspect of the Transition Movement and part of what makes it so
powerful is that it’s not attempting to change institutions and systems
that are already in place. It is in essence building localized parallel
systems from scratch so that we can make the shift away from these
more globalized economic systems.
The Transition Movement response’s theme of economic localization stops
short of complete self-sufficiency (North, 2010). Another interviewee stated that the
response’s emphasis on localizing economic activity should absolutely not be viewed
as “permission to be isolating, or isolated” while Hopkins (2008, p. 55) writes that “a
stronger local economy does not mean that we put a fence up around our towns and
cities and refuse to allow anything in or out.” Efforts to procure the energy and
resources used by the community from locally available renewable sources are
strongly encouraged, but there are practical limitations to how spatially compact a
local economy can become. Even in a hyper-localized economy, specialty goods,
services, and surpluses can still be traded with neighboring communities or even
internationally, albeit at a much diminished rate (Hopkins, 2008, p. 59).
Moving from discourse to practice, communities adopting the Transition
Movement response seek to develop projects, activities, and programs that localize
economic activity. Developing garden share programs and mental health support
groups are two examples of economic localization projects that initiatives frequently
undertake. Strengthening local food production through the creation and promotion of
Framers Markets and community garden programs are particularly popular enterprises
for Transition initiatives. The first Transition initiative established in the United
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States, in Boulder, devotes the vast majority of its energy and resources to building
and then expanding the currently modest local food production and distribution
industry in the Boulder County area.
Operating outside of the money economy, a number of Transition initiatives
have created Time Banks in an effort to localize economic activity. Resonating with
the theory of a gift economy (Eisenstein, 2011; Sahlins, 1972), Time Banking is an
economic model where community members register, on a centralized website, the
personalized services they are able to provide to other member of the community. In
exchange for performing one hour of that service whenever they are asked by a
community member in need, the person providing the service is subsequently entitled
to one hour of service offered by another community member. No money changes
hands when an exchange occurs and everyone’s time and labor is valued equally. One
hour of cabinetry work is equivalent to one hour of dog walking for someone who is
away from home. Thus Time Banking is a free flowing inter-community service
exchange system organized through a centralized accounting system to keep track of
hours.
In addition to the general activities such as community gardening and Time
Banking, there are place-based localization projects that initiatives develop
specifically for their local community. The Wilmington, Delaware initiative organizes
an annual “Local Gift Holiday Fair” prior to Christmas where area artisans display and
sell their wares to residents. An initiative in the Hamptons of Long Island, NY is
developing a shellfish hatchery which is appropriate given their proximity to the
seashore. Initiatives are therefore encouraged to explore ways to utilize locally
available resources – natural resources, cultural resources, human resources, etc. – to
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develop and expand the economic activities in and around the community. These
examples of place-based, community innovations are integral to the economic
localization theme.
6.4.2
Community Building
A common criticism that the Transition Movement response levels against
high-energy lifestyles is that community members no longer feel the need or desire to
interact with those around them. With the convenient and efficient living offered by
fossil fuels and consumer culture, beliefs and actions trend toward the individualistic,
wherein a person’s immediate socio-economic network is taken for granted or ignored
simply because the person has virtually instant access to basic goods and services.
There is less incentive for people to work together, to cooperate, or to utilize the skills
and talents of other community members. This is a major concern for the Transition
Movement response because when the dimensions of a community’s economy
contract spatially, as they inevitably will when the exogenous forces of the triple threat
intensify, community members will be forced, by default, to rely on and cooperate
with those around them (Bailey et al., 2010). Both individual and collective welfare
will languish in the absence of a supportive, interdependent community.
The response’s strategy to strengthen the weakened, disconnected community
state is an effort to create and reconnect inter-personal relationships. Catalyzing and
enhancing the productive power of close, cooperative, reciprocal, and mutually
beneficial socio-economic relationships between community members is essential for
the Transition Movement response because it greatly improves the performance of
local economic activity and enables people’s needs to be met locally. Community
members should feel comfortable depending on their immediate social circle to
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provide goods and services, while simultaneously contributing to the social circle of
others. In an interview, a Transition activist stressed the importance of building a
network:
that allows individuals to get their needs met. And the network could
be within the town or outside the town – hopefully as local as possible.
But the town itself is less important than knowing that each individual
has the safety net... within which to share and get all of their needs met.
So that’s what I think Transition’s goal is, is to reweave those
networks.... [of] reliance on other people and allowing yourself to be
dependent on other people and have them depend upon you.
The response therefore draws from theories of bioregionalism and views
economic localization as inseparable from social localization and cooperation (Carr,
2004; Sale, 1985). When the spatial and material dimensions of a community’s
economy contract, knowledge of and engagement with local social networks becomes
important for sustaining community and environmental cohesion (Plumwood, 2002).
For the Transition Movement response, a local economy built through a responsive
and reflexive network of interpersonal relationships leads to socially and
environmentally beneficial outcomes because the negative consequences of economic
activity cannot be ignored when an individual’s immediate social network is also their
economic network. An interviewee noted that with an impersonal and spatially diffuse
economic system:
It’s easy to distance yourself from what happens with production and
consumption. The end consumer doesn’t see the process, doesn’t
necessarily see the despoiled land where the raw stuff is harvested, or
the sweatshops where child labor is treated abysmally making products
that we are consuming. By keeping production more local, and
consumption, there’s less of a psychological distancing of the cause and
effect of what your choices are as a consumer and how you live your
life... [You] wouldn’t allow somebody to abuse and take advantage of
the labor because again, it’s not far away. It’s your neighbor that this is
happening to.
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Community building by reweaving interpersonal relationships therefore goes
hand in hand with localizing economic activity. As a result, the projects and activities
that initiatives create and implement are explicitly designed with community building
in mind. For example, with Time Banking, direct interaction between community
members, even if they are complete strangers, is normally required to complete each
exchange, thus building interpersonal relationships and strengthening community.
Community gardening and potluck dinner events are expressions of the goal of
creating and strengthening social relations by encouraging participants to engage
interpersonally with other community members. Community gardeners meet and
come to know each other, frequently pooling their labor and resources to help the
whole garden thrive – for example by sharing knowledge on best practices in pest
control. The social rituals of potluck dinners, which are very popular events organized
by most initiatives, are obvious expressions of community building. Hosting open
invitation potluck meals is therefore a simple method for creating and sustaining the
inter-personal bonds that are vital to the success of local economic systems. Another
strategy that Transition initiatives offer to build community is the creation of
celebratory events and rituals. A local, placed-based festival, annual carnival, or
regularly scheduled ceremony has the potential to bring the community together and
animate a sense of shared identity and purpose. Art, music, and dance created by and
for the community are encouraged (Hopkins, 2011a, pp. 117–121)
Inner Transition (sometimes called Heart & Soul) is an important component
of the Transition Movement response that addresses and mollifies the anxiety and fear
that many people experience when they grasp the motivation for, and challenges of,
the impending transformation in socio-economic relations. For the Transition
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Movement response, it is essential that communities take meaningful and direct
actions to prepare for the impact of triple threat. The movement recognizes that fear
and anxiety about the future can lead to a sense of hopelessness and social paralysis.
In order to confront this danger, initiatives are encouraged to form support groups
where concerned community members can assemble in a comfortable and respectful
environment and share their anxieties – as well as hopes – for the future. The goal is
to give people an opportunity to voice their concerns and fears, listen to others do the
same, initiate meaningful and productive dialogue, and form close bonds with people
who are struggling through psychological challenges to the inner transition. Inner
Transition support groups, where attendance and participation is completely voluntary,
also provide space for discussing development strategies and potential communitybased solutions to the impact of the triple threat. It is therefore a platform where
community members can feel secure knowing they are in the company of like-minded
people who understand the nature of the challenge and wish to take actions to deal
with it. Fostering such an environment is a fundamental community building strategy
that most Transition initiatives undertake.
The Transition Movement response theme of community building thus
embraces the idea that strong relationships must be created between active community
members in order to generate and maintain a thriving, spatially compact local
economic network. Within this social environment, the values of openness,
inclusiveness, and consensus building ascend in importance. Consequently, initiatives
and their activists make an effort to avoid open disputes or divisive conflicts because
they are viewed as socially alienating and serve as impediments to a tightly bonded
community (Section 6.4.4). Furthermore, part of the response’s desire to maintain
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community openness is due to the understanding that the triple threat is nondiscriminatory and will impact everyone, thus anyone who wishes to contribute to
preparing for the threats should have the opportunity and space to do so (Hopkins,
2011a). Social conflict and confrontation encloses those spaces.
An example of how this non-confrontational attitude manifests in the
Transition Movement response is seen in the embrace of Open Space Technology
which is as a method for bringing community members together and enabling civic
dialogue and decision-making around important issues (Hopkins, 2008, pp. 168–169;
Owen, 2008; Rowell, 2010). In Open Space Technology events, community members
self-organize into groups to discuss various topics, then move around the room freely
to engage in discussion with other groups, the idea being that the most important and
meaningful topic will attract the most people and generate the most productive
conversation. One of the rules of holding an open space event is that “whatever
happens is the only thing that could have” which is decidedly non-confrontational
(Owen, 2008). Another example of how the Transition Movement response attempts
to avoid conflict is the suggested guideline, given to organizers of groups just starting
to form, that they should “let [the initiative] go where it wants to go” (Hopkins, 2008,
p. 172). Friction and resistance are to be avoided in the quest for social inclusion and
community building.
In summary, the Transition Movement response’s community building theme
is motivated by the triple threat and the assertion that local economic success is
enhanced when community cohesion and interpersonal relationships are increased. To
ensure that communities have a thriving, productive, interdependent social network in
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place where individuals can easily connect with and rely on each other to meet their
needs, the response offers a number of strategies to reweave inter-personal bonds.
6.4.3
Building Resilience
The theme of resilience is used in the Transition Movement response to
describe the conditions conducive to human and environmental flourishing in the face
of severe dependency on and vulnerability to fragile support networks (Barry, 2012).
Resilience is defined as “the ability of a system, from individual people to whole
economies, to hold together and maintain their ability to function in the face of change
and shocks from outside.” (Hopkins, 2008, p. 12). From the response’s perspective,
both the global economy with its fragile network of economic relations – and
importantly the communities that exist within it – are not resilient to the impacts of
peaking oil, a changing climate, and the type of global economic dysfunction
experienced in 2008. Communities that intentionally frame and guide development
through the theme of resilience take change and shocks from the triple threat as
inevitable and therefore strive to build buffers and layers of redundancy so that when
shock do occur, the community will evolve smoothly rather than collapse
catastrophically.
Within the Transition Movement response, a close relationship exists between
the themes of economic localization, community building, and resilience. Resilience
building is both the cause and consequence of economic localization and the spatial
downsizing of a community’s social, economic, and material activity. There is a tacit
assumption that a low carbon and localized community, with a sufficiently diversified
economy, is also a resilient community (Wilson, 2012). The response maintains that a
successful economic localization and decarbonization program without a home grown
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substitute for the work and services rendered by cheap fossil fuels is both unlikely and
undesirable. Thus the development of a community’s capacity to deliver economic
livelihoods and benefits in a low-carbon manner, be it through local agriculture or
cottage industries, is intrinsic to the process of resilience building. An interviewee
commented on the close relationship between economic localization and resilience by
noting that,
We need to prepare our communities to meet our own essential needs
locally to the greatest degree that we can, which is the heart of
relocalization. It’s about our communities becoming resilient in the
face of these massive changes that are unfolding around the planet.
Key elements of a resilient community are diversity and modularity (Hopkins,
2008, pp. 55–56). Local economic diversity is important for community resilience, for
example, because a community that is over-dependent on a single economic activity or
industry lacks a safety net to fall back on should that activity or industry decline.
Modularity in a system, where many parts link up and organize into a whole, insulates
the system from collapse because there is built in redundancy and substitutability. The
two sub-themes within the macro theme of resilience building – energy descent and
transformation and reskilling – both feature the elements of diversity and modularity.
These sub-themes are discussed in greater detail below.
6.4.3.1
Energy Descent and Energy Transformation
All Transition initiatives are encouraged to create and implement an energy
descent plan to radically reduce the community’s high energy usage in general and
fossil fuel usage in particular. Written with the conviction that communities and
economies must rapidly adapt to scarce and expensive carbon-based energy supplies,
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an energy descent plan presents a comprehensive powered down vision for the
community’s future.
The practice of energy descent planning is part of the resilience building
process. In the completely hypothetical situation where fossil fuel supplies are
suddenly and unexpectedly exhausted tomorrow, a community with an energy descent
plan would at a minimum have a low-carbon development strategy at the ready and
would be less likely to collapse. Implementing the energy descent plan – actually
reducing community consumption of fossil fuels – builds resilience further because the
community moves itself closer to the future low-energy and low-carbon scenario that
it believes is inevitable. Many essential aspects of community life are addressed in an
energy descent plan including food, health and well-being, energy, transportation,
building and housing, economics and livelihoods, arts and culture, media, respect for
others and nature, and education.
Of the nearly 1,200 Transition initiatives worldwide, only a few have
successfully written an energy descent plan, the most expansive and thorough plan is
from Transition Town Totnes (2010). This plan profiles the current situation in
Totnes for each of the subject areas listed above and then identifies how each subject
area lacks the resilience to withstand the forces of the triple threat. For each area, the
plan then lays out Transition Town Totnes’s vision of the energy descending and
resilience building steps the community should take in 5 year intervals up to 2030.
In addition to reducing overall consumption of carbon-intensive energy
through the energy descent planning process, the Transition Movement response also
stresses the importance of energy transformation, meaning that rather than producing
energy externally through centralized non-renewable means, communities must take
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immediate steps to produce energy locally through a diversity of decentralized
renewable energy technologies. There are various methods to move in a localized
renewable energy direction. For example, in a deregulated utility market that offers a
choice of electricity providers, initiatives can advocate that individual community
members subscribe to a utility that guarantees a percentage of its electricity is
generated through renewable means – typically solar and wind. Going even further,
initiatives can look to create and invest in community-owned energy schemes. The
Dunbar Community Energy Company, a trading subsidiary of the Transition initiative
in Dunbar, Scotland, attempted to construct seven 2.3 megawatt community-owned
wind turbines in an effort to localize and decarbonize their energy supply. Ultimately,
Scottish authorities denied planning permission and the effort was terminated (Dunbar
Community Energy Company, 2013). Still, this shows that initiatives are actively
taking steps to transform and decarbonize energy supplies in their communities.
The Transition Movement response sees the processes of energy descent and
energy transformation as integral to building resilience in a community. If a
community’s socio-economic foundation can wean itself off fossil fuels and function
successfully at a low-energy state, then it is less vulnerable to energy shocks and
imbalances. In essence, it cannot descend as far because will have already pre-adapted
to the inevitable low-energy state. Further, if a community develops a distributed
energy production system through a number of diverse small-scale renewable projects,
then the modularity of the system buffers the community against wide-spread
disturbances (Hopkins, 2008, p. 56).
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6.4.3.2
Reskilling
The Transition Movement response recognizes that a post-peak oil, low-
carbon, and dysfunctional global economy necessarily means the spatial extent of
production and consumption cycles will be under immense pressure to contract and
localize. By accepting the non-negotiable responsibility to localize economic activity,
Transition communities can focus on the practical aspect of how to develop and thrive
in the low-energy future envisioned. A major step towards practical action involves
acknowledging that although communities will largely be responsible for their
economic futures, they currently lack the capacity and experience to realistically
achieve decidedly positive and feasible outcomes. Rob Hopkins (2008, pp. 98–99 &
166) writes that:
It is no exaggeration to say that we in the West are the single most
useless generation (in terms of practical skills) to which this planet has
ever played host… I believe that one of the main factors contributing to
a sense of panic that often sets in immediately after an awareness of
peak oil…is the realization that we no longer have many of the basic
skills our grandparents took for granted.
An interviewee echoed these sentiments when she said that the Transition Movement
response attempts to:
Enable people to do for themselves what they can, and to relearn skills
that we took for granted as a culture only two generations ago.... Those
skills are still important and we’ve basically outsourced all of those
skills to a network, an international network of people to take care of
us. We’ve become reliant on that network to take care of us and... that
network is fragile and perishable... because of climate change and
economic instability and a lack of community on a basic level. And we
have to take this back.
While Transition Movement response stresses the importance of local
economic vibrancy and the necessity of developing a diversity of cottage industries, it
recognizes practical, skill-based limitations to accomplish that outcome. Simply put,
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communities do not currently possess the knowledge, skills, or capacity to create the
localized, low-carbon, economically vibrant future that is envisioned. Without those
basic skills, community members must enter into relationships of dependence on an
extra-local economy that is increasingly vulnerable to the forces of the triple threat.
Not only is this undesirable from a community building perspective (Section 6.4.2),
but the Transition Movement response views the dearth of practical skills and the
inability to function economically as the antithesis of resilience. Therefore, a key
theme is the “reskilling” of community members.
Reskilling in the context of the Transition Movement response can be defined
as both the teaching and learning of the prerequisite knowledge and skills used to
produce and create goods and services, all without the added benefit of large fossil
fuel energy inputs (Hopkins, 2008, 2011a). Through reskilling, a community’s
resilience is built from within. In practice, any community member possessing the
knowledge and skills required to produce a good or service – for example the
knowledge and skills to produce food – freely shares their insights with other
community members. Reskilling is accomplished through multiple methods and
settings. Workshops focusing on one particular skill, demonstrations, one-on-one
tutoring sessions, and reskilling fair and expo formats are used by Transition
initiatives. Some of the popular skills that are shared within and between communities
are gardening and food production, food preservation, beekeeping, animal husbandry,
rainwater harvesting, vernacular architecture and building construction, bicycle
maintenance and repair, sewing, mending, and darning clothes, wool spinning, soap
making, mental and physical health care, and home energy auditing.
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The Transition Movement response proposes that if a reskilled community is to
be an economically resilient community, it must maintain a great diversity of essential
skills (Hopkins, 2008, p. 55). If everyone in a community possesses the same skill,
canning food for example, but has no other skill to offer, then the community remains
in a precarious situation and is more vulnerable to the shocks and disturbances of the
triple threat. Transition contends that in a resilient community, everyone should have
the basic skills to produce economic necessities such as growing food, preserving
food, collecting and storing water, etc. Beyond those essential skills, the aggregate
skillset of the wider community should be sufficiently diversified so as to maintain the
viability of the local economy.
Because the practice of reskilling is exercised with a post-carbon and lowenergy outlook, the means by which individuals and communities learn to produce
goods and services is steeped in pre-modern and even pre-industrial techniques.
Traditional beekeeping is one example. Food preservation by fermenting and canning,
yarn spinning, and making clothes by sewing are others. In those pre-modern (or preindustrial) production techniques requiring energy inputs, human power becomes the
prime mover that substitutes for fossil fueled motors, engines, or other intricate
mechanics. Consequently, because human power and skill is employed, the
technological systems used to produce a community’s economic necessities are
significantly different from advanced systems. For example, the device used to
produce hand-spun wool is quite unlike a mechanized spinning mule (Figure 6.2).
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Figure 6.2: Hand spinning yarn at a reskilling event (image credit: author's
photograph)
Consistent with the Transition Movement response’s emphasis on community
innovation and place-based development, individual initiatives choose the types of
skills they need to develop and strengthen. The 2014 survey of Transition initiatives
in the United States revealed a long list of the productive skills that were shared in
communities. The complete list includes: canning food, gardening skills of all sorts
such as building raised beds and controlling pests, demonstrating solar and alternative
energy systems, soap making, weaving, beekeeping, animal husbandry, creating a
sense of place, maintaining bicycles, making rocket and masonry stoves, creating and
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using greywater systems, cooking and preparing food, sewing, mending, darning,
making cheese, making bread, teaching and employing permaculture principles and
techniques, making herbal and natural medicines, practicing meditation, butter
churning, seed saving, making homemade cleaning products, practicing vermiculture,
preparing for emergencies, rainwater harvesting, building and constructing with
natural materials, practicing hugelkultur (technique to boost soil fertility), sailing,
practicing aquaculture, making paper, mushroom growing, knitting, composting, solar
cooking, foraging, dehydrating food, trapping gophers, planting and pruning fruit
trees, felting wool, making yogurt, making charcoal, fish seining, producing videos,
deer hunting, yurt building, scything, carving spoons, home brewing, spinning fiber,
practicing shiatsu massage, making furniture, making tools, welding, soldering,
purifying water, making fire, making music, storytelling, crowdfunding, making ropes
and cords, practicing first aid, preparing and tanning hides, woodworking, knife and
tool sharpening, repairing small engines, designing environmentally friendly houses to
passive standards, maintaining a chainsaw, making tofu, butchering a chicken, wreath
making, smoking meat, building wind-powered water pumps, conducting green
funerals, making maple syrup, building electric motorcycles, grafting trees, making
sausage, making beeswax candles, tying fishing flies, maintaining horse hooves,
making biodiesel, and making silk screen banners.
6.4.4
Politically Neutral Relationship with Local Government
The Transition Movement response maintains a skeptical attitude toward
higher levels of government. There is little confidence that national or international
governing structures will take decisive action to mitigate and adapt to the triple threat.
Indeed some activists argue that policies at these higher scales are currently making a
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desperate situation worse. However, this is not to suggest that the Transition
Movement response is dismissive of the theory, ideas, and organizations underpinning
institutionalized governing structures. Small scale and local governmental structures
and processes are viewed in a more positive light because they are more responsive to
the needs of the community (Wells & Graymore, 2014). An interviewee state that:
There needs to be some form of local government to control and help
manage a community. You definitely need a local government to
manage things like roads, to help encourage local businesses to
flourish, and help to coordinate the actions of the community. So yes,
local government is very much needed and it should have a much
greater role than it has today.
Despite the rhetorical endorsement of local governments, the Transition
Movement response proposes that a delicate and politically neutral relationship should
be maintained between initiatives and their local governments. On the one hand, as
the quote above demonstrates, the response explicitly recognizes that local
governments hold institutionalized policy making and implementation powers and
therefore have a vital role to play if initiatives are to take serious strides toward
attaining their development objectives (Calfee & Weissman, 2012). On the other
hand, although local government backing is essential to achieving its development
goals, the response consistently maintains that initiatives must remain functionally
independent from local governments. Transitioning communities are reminded that
the role of local government is to “support, not drive” an initiative (Hopkins, 2008, p.
144). Intentionally designed into the Transition Movement response from its
conception, the functional separation between an initiative and local government is
seen as vital to an initiative’s ability to engage in economic localization and
community and resilience building without being politically co-opted. The need for
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independence stems from the perceived slow pace at which institutionalized policy
making and implementation takes place. This sentiment was captured by an
interviewee who stated:
In many towns, much progress has been made with working with city
councils and local government institutions. But in general, I’d say that
Transition attempts to not have to depend upon local government.
They realize that there is a need for collaboration and cooperation but
much can be done by local citizens without having to go through the
government. Governments are very slow to act, so it’s difficult for
them to respond to some of these issues, especially with any speed.
Initiatives must therefore walk a fine line with local governments, seeking
institutional support while simultaneously striving to maintain the autonomy and
ability to respond to the triple threat on their own. The strategy that initiatives employ
to engage in this balancing act is to build working and amicable relationships with
local government while stressing the importance of maintaining political neutrality,
particularly political party neutrality (Hopkins, 2008, 2011a). Consistent with their
approach to building a collaborative and non-confrontational community, initiatives
try to accomplish this politically neutral outcome by avoiding overtly divisive conflict
with local government, activist posturing, and a “them and us” dichotomous attitude
(Hopkins, 2008, p. 170). Initiatives are mindful that if they stake a claim on a
politically contentious topic, they risk alienating those policy makers or institutions
who disagree in that one instance but might otherwise be allies – and hence offer much
needed support – for their broader economic localization, community building, and
resilience building agenda. This strategy has led commentators to the conclusion that
the Transition Movement and the initiatives it spawns are “post-political” (Neal,
2013), “depoliticized” (Chatterton & Cutler, 2008), “non-political” (Rotherham,
2013), “unpolitical” (Smith, 2011), and “apolitical” (Mason & Whitehead, 2012).
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6.5
Discussion
The Transition Movement response presents an alternative community
development strategy. It aims to achieve self-reliant communities that engage in
voluntary, cooperative, do-it-ourselves action to improve their livelihoods. The
Transition Movement response is radical in its orientation and outlook, but it is
communicated in a way that appeals to ordinary citizens who may not have any
knowledge of the triple threat or the implications for communities. However, it is not
as radical as some theoretical outlooks for community development and organization,
such as Murray Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism proposal.
6.5.1
Self-Reliant, Do-it-Ourselves Community Development
The Transition Movement response offers a clear and unambiguous definition
of the fundamental challenges facing communities today. By framing the issue in
terms of the exogenous and hence unavoidable consequences of expensive and scarce
energy, a changed climate, and a dysfunctional macroeconomy, the Transition
Movement response asks communities to engage in prefigurative action and prepare
for the eventual unraveling of the global economic networks they currently depend on
to satisfy their basic needs. What prefigurative action entails in practice will vary
from place to place because the response allows context-specific community
innovation to occur. However, the goal of the Transition Movement is to create
economically localized, resilient, self-reliant communities and it proposes a set of
general guidelines for communities to experiment with.
If it is able to achieve and deliver its vision, the Transition Movement response
would create a network of low-carbon, low-energy, environmentally benign, locally
self-reliant communities. With this form of socio-economic organization, low-carbon
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communities become immune to fossil fuel scarcity brought on by peak oil and they
cease contributing to climate change. The raw materials flowing through local
economies are primarily sourced from locally available energy and resources. The
consumption of material goods is reduced significantly because of practical and
logistical limitations to energy and resource exchange. Cottage industries run by
skilled laborers and goods made by homemade artisan assume a much more prominent
role in satisfying community needs. Local agriculture is a priority and there are many
more people (and likely more draught animals) involved in the production of food.
Needs are also met through social giving between community members and, when
coupled with personal small-scale credit and debt arrangements, a gift economy
substitutes for portions of a monetary system based on impersonal exchange.
The agents for this transformation in socio-economic relations are community
members working in voluntary cooperation with each other to form a functioning
whole. Skepticism is reserved for the individual and supra-local scales to effect the
necessary changes. There is a strong, almost sacred belief that the most effective,
straightforward path to preparing for the triple threat lies with engaged local
community members taking direct, meaningful action together. This leads to a distinct
do-it-ourselves approach to community development. Again, the Transition
Movement response’s “Cheerful Disclaimer” (Hopkins, 2011a, p. 17) states:
We are convinced of this: if we wait for governments, it’ll be too, little
too late; if we act as individuals, it’ll be too little; but if we act as
communities, it might be just enough, just in time.
Do-it-yourself action is not discouraged by the Transition Movement response, as
homemade production will become increasingly important to satisfy one’s needs.
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However, the optimal response to the triple threat involves a do-it-ourselves approach
to development that operates through a cooperative and engaged local community.
6.5.2
Radical yet Accessible
Taken as a whole, the Transition Movement response is quite radical in the
manner in which it prepares for the triple threat. The response seeks to dramatically
cut community reliance on carbon-based energy systems while simultaneously
disentangling communities from international economic networks and creating
alternative local networks. For example, on the surface Time Banking may appear to
be a quaint and unconventional method for exchanging services, but it is radical in that
it creates an economic space built on trust and social relationships rather than on
impersonal monetary transactions.
Yet despite the Transition Movement response’s radical low-carbon selfreliance and do-it-ourselves strategy, it is actually very accessible and acceptable to
people from across a wide spectrum of beliefs and values. Not everyone comes to
participate in a Transition initiative because they are motivated by the need to prepare
for the impacts of the triple threat. Instead, many people are attracted to and
participate in Transition through the community development projects and activities
that initiatives implement. For instance, attendees at a potluck meal may not be
motivated to respond to peak oil, climate change, and macroeconomic instability, but
will attend nonetheless because they simply appreciate the neighborly aspect of
connecting with their community and are encouraged to see positive change at the
local level.
The Transition Movement response is also accessible because the message and
vision of creating a healthy, green, local community-based economy taps into a
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romantic if not utopian ideal. This is a message that resonates, and one that is not
easily rejected or dismissed simply because of one’s bias towards a particular political
ideology. The romantic community imagery is accessible to progressive liberals as
much as it is to conservative libertarians. Speaking about the messaging and
communication of the Transition Movement response to community members who are
disinterested about the triple threat, an interviewee said that:
We sometimes couch [Transition] in terms that don’t sound so radical.
But bottom line, it’s really radical. It’s intent on turning upside down –
well I would say turning right-side up – our economic systems and the
way that we position it is rather subversive. You know, it sounds great.
For instance if you talk about local food, people can get excited about
local food. It feels good, it sounds good. But they don’t think about
what the implications really are.
The Transition Movement response is therefore a radical community
development approach that bridges ideological differences because it is designed and
packaged in a sophisticated way. It is accessible in theory and in practice. This broad
appeal is likely a major factor contributing to the rapid emergence and geographic
expansion of the movement since its birth in 2005.
6.5.3
A Transition to Libertarian Municipalism?
Scholars have sought to draw comparisons between the Transition Movement
response and existing theories of social organization and practice. Sarah Neal (2013)
and to a greater extent Kevin Mason and Mark Whitehead (2012) argue that there are
distinct parallels between the Transition Movement response and Murray Bookchin’s
(1989) socially and environmentally-minded libertarian municipalism. Indeed, the
Transition Movement response’s decentralized, do-it-ourselves local community
innovation and development strategy squares with Bookchin’s flattened organizational
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contours of a confederated network of democratic municipalities, a “commune of
communes,” comprised of engaged citizen-planners (Bookchin, 1995). Both the
Transition Movement response and Bookchin – who argues that municipalized
economic interdependence is essential to keep libertarian municipalism’s latent
parochialism in check – view communal autarky as an undesirable and unattainable
goal. And one could readily see Bookchin endorsing the community building
activities and face-to-face interactions Transition initiatives foster through projects
like Time Banking and community gardening (White, 2008, p. 152).
Yet despite the superficial similarities in organizational structures and
processes, distinct differences emerge between the Transition Movement response and
Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism when their ground-level views on the structure
and process of policy making and implementation are investigated. Although the
Transition Movement response’s do-it-ourselves community development strategy is
designed to come in under the radar of institutionalized governing structures, the
movement remains committed to the current governmental system of formalized
policy making and implementation. Local governments are viewed as potential
partners and allies, not as enemies. The Transition Movement response also maintains
that local governments retain the authority and power to implement community
development proposals and initiatives are willing to share administrative
responsibilities if it aligns with their development agenda.
Bookchin (1989, pp. 174–175), on the other hand, sees the structure and
process of local policy making and public administration rather differently under
libertarian municipalism. For him, the rights and responsibilities to policy formulation
should not be vested in elected representatives but in the classic Greek
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conceptualization of a polis – an assembly of free, knowledgeable, empowered, and
engaged citizens who meet face-to-face to debate and determine a development
direction. The responsibility for implementing development proposals then falls to
qualified and elected individuals and commissions who, with one eye to the social and
ecological imperatives of the wider confederation, remain accountable to and
immediately recallable by the polis.
Moving to the supra-local level, the Transition Movement response and
Bookchin have starkly divergent views on the role of the nation state and its power to
effect positive change. Bookchin holds that in order to achieve socially and
ecologically beneficial outcomes, the hierarchy inherent to national statecraft must be
completely decentered and abolished. The deconstruction of the nation state is the
raison d’être of libertarian municipalism. On the other hand, although the Transition
Movement response is tremendously skeptical, it remains hopeful of the critical role
that national governments can, although not necessarily will play to address the triple
threat. While the response acknowledges the monumental global challenges, the
response contends it can qualitatively influence national priorities if it grows
quantitatively and its values and views become more widely distributed among the
populace (Hopkins, 2008, p. 135). Decision makers would have little choice but to
react to the will of the people. The Transition Movement response’s selfacknowledged and far-flung hope for a coordinated “hierarchy” of local, national, and
international responses to the triple threat is likely due to the sense of urgency and the
magnitude of the transformation that are required for successful, peaceful adaptation
and mitigation (Hopkins, 2011a, p. 53).
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At both the local and national scales, conflicting differences between
Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism and the Transition Movement response can be
identified. While part of the Transition Movement response’s do-it-ourselves theory
and practice circumvents government, the fact that the movement looks to partner with
institutionalized structures instead of replace them makes the response appear tame
and pragmatic when compared to Bookchin’s more radical and anti-state libertarian
municipalism arrangement and the complete reorganization of decision-making
structures it requires.
6.6
Conclusion
The Transition Movement response, having started in 2005, is a new and
emerging strategy for socially- and environmentally-minded community development.
Informed and motivated by the need to address the challenges and impacts of peak oil,
climate change, and macroeconomic dysfunction, the Transition Movement response
prioritizes the local community as the most appropriate scale for action. Decidedly
grassroots and bottom-up, the movement has spawned initiatives in over 150
communities in the United States and nearly 1,200 worldwide. Each of these
initiatives takes prefigurative steps to prepare for a world in which fossil fuel energy
supplies are scarce and expensive, the climate system is destabilized, and the global
economy struggle to maintain exponential growth.
According to the Transition Movement response, the confluence of these
forces will further destabilize already-fragile globalized economic networks and auger
in a new normal for community livelihoods. In turn, there are a number of key themes
offered by the response for how communities can best plan for and navigate the
looming transformation in economic relationships: economic localization, community
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building, building resilience through energy descent and reskilling, and maintaining a
politically neutral relationship with local governments. The next chapter explores the
manner in which these themes are put into practice by investigating the active
Transition initiative in Media, Pennsylvania.
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Chapter 7
THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT RESPONSE IN MEDIA, PENNSYLVANIA
7.1
Introduction
This chapter examines the Transition Movement response in both discourse
and practice by investigating an expression of the response’s themes in the community
of Media, Pennsylvania. The chapter begins with a description of Transition Town
Media by tracing its historical evolution from 2009 to the present. It then examines
Transition Town Media in discourse and practice by highlighting the manner in which
the initiative expresses the Transition Movement response themes. Transition Town
Media is active in the community and has implemented many projects and programs.
Thus whereas Chapter 5 described the PSC response in Media and was limited by the
fact that the comprehensive plan has yet to be adopted and implemented by the
borough council, this chapter is able to offer additional insights into the Transition
Movement response’s practice.
By investigating the advocates, discourse, and practice of Transition Town
Media, this chapter gives the Transition Movement response more shape and identity
as a community development strategy. As with Chapter 5 on the PSC response in
Media, this chapter is mostly descriptive. This description is important, however,
because it contributes to the evaluation of the Transition Movement response
conducted in subsequent chapters. When the Transition Movement response is fully
assessed, elements from this chapter are reintroduced and add significantly more depth
to the analysis.
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7.2
Transition Town Media
Transition Town Media (TTM) is the name of the Transition initiative
operating in the Media, Pennsylvania community. When it formed, it was the thirty
ninth initiative to receive official status in the United States and the first in
Pennsylvania. TTM is horizontally organized with separate, all-volunteer working
groups dedicated to areas of interest and a central steering group that coordinates
overall activities.
7.2.1
History
The seeds of TTM were planted and began to germinate in 2008. In August of
that year, the Fair Trade committee in Media held an all-day event with
demonstrations of various sustainability practices. At one table, a volunteer was
giving out information on composting. That volunteer, Catherine, struck up a
conversation with an attendee about Hopkins’ Transition Handbook which was
published just a year earlier. The attendee mentioned that there was a book group that
was going to read the Handbook and discuss its contents. Catherine joined the group
and said in an interview that:
In November was when this book discussion group started. And so I
got the book. I read it before the group started. The group started in
November. I was like on fire. I said, “We have got to do this.” By the
time January rolled around, I said to [a friend who was also reading the
Handbook], “Please come to my house. We need to talk about this
because we have to do this in Media.” And so she came and we talked
about it. And I thought, well, you know, other people still haven’t
finished reading the book so I guess maybe we should wait until after
the book discussion was finished. And so the instant it was finished,
before people even left the room on our last meeting, I said, “Ok, who
wants to do this? Who is willing to work with me on this?”
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From there, Catherine and a few other committed residents started laying the
groundwork for what would later become Transition Town Media. Initially strangers,
they met regularly over potlucks to become familiar with each other. After several
meeting they began to create a website, brochures, a constitution, and bylaws. In June
of 2009, the core group applied to the national organization overseeing the growth of
Transition in the United States (TUS) to obtain the status of an official Transition
initiative. In August of that year, Transition Town Media became the first officially
recognized Transition group in Pennsylvania and the thirty eighth in the United States.
After receiving official status, the initiating group began to hold open meetings
to raise awareness and recruit members to tackle the major issues – peak oil, climate
change, and macroeconomic dysfunction – in the Media community. The first event
they held in Media was a discussion entitled “What is a Transition Town?” (Figure
7.1). The event was well attended, with an estimated seventy people showing up and
participating.
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Figure 7.1: Flyer for Transition Town Media's first event (courtesy of Transition
Town Media)
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The level of community interest and participation in TTM fluctuated in the
early weeks and months. Slowly, over time, and after organizing many community
events such as potlucks, film screenings, and group discussions, TTM garnered
considerably more attention from Media residents and civic associations. In the
middle of 2010, there were 250 subscribers to the TTM email list. One year later,
there were 400 and in the summer of 2012, there were over 700 email list subscribers.
TTM began to make stronger connections with other organizations operating in the
borough such as the Media Arts Council, the Fair Trade Commission, the
Environmental Advisory Council, and the Media Farmers Market. In fact, the Farmers
Market grew directly out of TTM and is now a stand-alone organization. An influx of
highly motivated, committed, and well-connected individuals also helped TTM
broaden its reach.
7.2.2
Current Organizational Structure and Membership
Transition Town Media is organized horizontally through a number of
different working groups all operating around a central steering group. The steering
group is made up of one member of each working group and any other individuals
who wish to participate in the discussion about the direction and actions of TTM.
There are typically about 10 to 15 people that attend the bi-monthly steering
committee meetings. The steering group, which meets in a private home twice per
month, coordinates the various activities of the working groups and makes decisions
on how to manage requests for collaboration. To give an example of the latter, the
director of the Penn State Brandywine Laboratory of Civic Engagement approached
TTM and asked if there were projects that Penn State Brandywine students could work
on.
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In terms of the working groups that focus on particular aspects of the
Transition Movement response in Media, there are separate groups for the following
areas: food, energy, outreach, economy, resiliency response, core, Inner Transition,
and skill sharing (reskilling). The focus of the food, energy, outreach, economy, and
skill sharing groups is evident in their names. The core group, on the other hand, is
the administrative wing of TTM while the Inner Transition working group (formerly
called Heart & Soul) concentrates on the psychological aspects of dealing with the
sometimes frightening and incapacitating thought of a radical transformation in socioeconomic relations. Inner Transition thus serves as an important support group for
those who experience anxiety about how events might unfold in the future. The
resiliency response group focuses on planning for and operationalizing a Media
community that is more resilient to disasters – both natural and manmade.
Current membership in TTM includes more than 900 individuals on the
mailing list, 250 paying members to the Timebank, between seventy five and 125
people that reliably come to the periodic potluck events, seventy active FreeStore
volunteers (the Freestore is described in greater detail below), between fifty and
seventy five people who regularly participate in one or more working groups, twenty
five people on the steering committee mailing list, and between ten and fifteen people
who attend the steering committee meetings. In addition to these figures which give
some indication of the membership and reach of TTM in the Media community, there
are a number of Facebook pages operated by TTM that are well-subscribed and that
will be discussed in greater detail. As of March 31, 2015, there are over 3,500
members of the TTM FreeStore Facebook page, over 1,000 members on the TTM
Swap/Share Facebook page, 230 members of the Yardens Facebook page, and 150
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members on the Reskilling Facebook page. The 3,500 members of the FreeStore page
is very impressive considering the population of Media is just over 5,300 (there are
undoubtedly members of the page that are not residents of Media).
Participation with TTM is on an all-volunteer basis. Although the group
applied for and received 501(c)3 status in 2011 and obtained recognition in 2012,
TTM does not offer paid positions or compensation for participation in its programs
and activities.
No survey has been completed of the demographic makeup of the TTM group
so the estimates that follow are simply based on the author’s own observations when
attending and participating in various events. A majority of the activists in TTM are
women, perhaps somewhere in the sixty percent range. Most members are highlyeducated working professionals – architects, consultants, artists, IT professionals, etc.
– although there are some retirees that also participate. Age-wise, TTM members are
mostly upwards of forty plus years old with very few participants in their thirties or
younger. Racially, the makeup is overwhelmingly white. It is also safe to say that
socio-economically, the group is doing quite well (middle class and above), although
there are likely some participants who appear to struggle financially. Finally, not all
participants and contributors to TTM are residents of Media. Some live just outside
the borough limits while others reside many miles away. Indeed, the author considers
himself a member of TTM but lives twenty miles outside of Media.
7.3
Elements of the Transition Movement Response in TTM
Like other Transition initiatives around the country and around the world,
TTM is engaged in many aspects of the Transition Movement response. The initiative
in Media emphasizes some, like the economic localization theme, more than others,
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energy descent and energy transformation for instance. The sections that follow
outline the practices and projects that TTM developed to advance each theme of the
Transition Movement response.
7.3.1
Economic Localization
Many of the projects that TTM designs and implements are motivated by the
desire to localize economic activity. The economy working group is particularly
engaged in developing ideas for shifting the material and geographic dimensions of
Media’s basic economic necessities – including food, energy, and resources – from the
global toward the regional and community scale.
One of many TTM expressions of the economic localization theme is a
FreeMarket event the group organizes every year. This event coincides with a much
larger community-wide yard sale, known as the Great Media Garage Sale, which has
been held annually for twenty five years. At the FreeMarket, Media residents arrive at
a central location, deposit the items that they failed to sell during the Great Media
Garage Sale, and then simply mingle about and freely take whatever they need from
the newly created ‘market.’ (Figure 7.2). Even if a resident did not participate in the
Great Media Garage Sale, they are still permitted to take items from the FreeMarket.
Rather than engaging in the energy intensive process of sending usable consumer
goods to the landfill and purchasing new products, TTM’s FreeMarket project
effectively extends the life of goods by recirculating them into the local community.
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Figure 7.2: The 2014 Media FreeMarket (image credit: author’s photograph)
After three years of successfully organizing the FreeMarket event, TTM
expanded on the model and created a FreeStore which has become wildly popular with
the wider community. As noted above, there are over 3,500 members of the FreeStore
Facebook page. The FreeStore is housed in the Methodist church in Media and it is
basically a brick and mortar version of the FreeMarket. Community members can
drop off their unused and unneeded items (with the exception of a few items such as
clothes and stuffed animals) and also take what they need from the store. No money
changes hands. The FreeStore is similar to a typical Goodwill or Salvation Army store
except that patrons do not have to pay for the items they wish to take home. Like the
FreeMarket, the FreeStore extends the life of existing consumer goods and it does so
in a distinctly local manner, thus serving and satisfying the theme of spatially
localized production and consumption cycles. The argument is that while the
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consumer goods were likely produced externally, the reality is that if they are
discarded, new goods would be produced as replacements. Thus instead of spatially
shrinking production cycles to a local scale, the FreeMarket and FreeStore limit
additional extra-local production.
Figure 7.3: The FreeStore logo.
In addition to the FreeStore and FreeMarket, there is also a “Swap/Share”
Facebook page that was created by the economic working group of TTM. This page
effectively serves as a centralized community notice board for subscribers. The page
is a platform where members post items that they no longer need and any other
member can reply and request the item. Similarly, members can post an item or
service that they need and any of the site’s subscribers can reply and offer the good or
service. Money is not integral to the process of swapping and sharing. All swaps and
shares are done free of charge. The page is popular in the borough, far beyond the
group of individuals who would self-associate with TTM. One interviewee
commented that:
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I was at my daughter’s softball game which is a group of pretty
mainstream people. And I just heard on the sideline, “Oh my God, I
needed a flower dress for my daughter. And have you heard about this
Swap page?” And they were going on about how wonderful this Swap
page is... People are talking about it. I think it’s so awesome how
things are getting recycled and people are meeting people through it
and thinking differently about their stuff.
Another economic localization project created by TTM is TimeBank Media.
TimeBank Media is modeled after the time banking concept where participants
exchange services with each other and where each hour of labor in an exchange is
valued equally; the value of one hour of mowing a lawn for someone is equal to the
value of one hour of financial advice. There is a central website where all exchanges
are recorded and peoples’ “Time Dollars,” both earned and spent, are counted. In
order to participate in the TimeBank, the organizers ask for a one-time contribution of
$35 to cover the cost of paying for the website service. As noted above, there are
currently 250 members subscribed to the TimeBank and exchanges are constantly
occurring. TimeBank Media therefore facilitates connections between people so that
services can be exchanged and peoples’ needs can be met by another member of their
community. The end result is that economic localization is fostered in the borough.
Figure 7.4: The TimeBank Media logo.
Shrinking and intensifying Media’s foodshed is an important component of
TTM’s economic localization goals and a number of projects were implemented to
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realize that goal. As noted above, the Media Farmers Market held every Thursday in
the summer began as a project of TTM’s food working group. The food working
group helped the local Walden School (K-8) set up a garden on the school grounds and
they also created a program to match gardeners without land with borough
homeowners who were willing to give permission to others to use some of their
property for gardening activities. Another food-related project called Yardens (a
portmanteau of yard and gardens) focuses on building individual and community-level
capacity for food production in Media. Through activities like seed saving and
swapping, organic pest control, exchanges of gardening knowledge and expertise,
backyard gardening workshops, and the development of proposals to plant edible
landscapes on borough-owned land, the Yardens project strongly emphasizes the need
to become more agriculturally self-reliant by producing food locally. There is a good
deal of overlap between the economics of food localization and reskilling (Section
7.3.3.2) and the reskilling component of TTM frequently discusses food production
and food preservation techniques.
7.3.2
Community Building
All of the economic localization activities, projects, events, and programs that
TTM creates and implements are designed to achieve the goal of economic selfreliance as well as a closer, more cooperative, and more networked community. The
two objectives – economic localization and community building – are tightly bound
together, and TTM considers both when making decisions on how best to design and
implement the Transition Movement response in Media. Yet there are also activities
that TTM administers which neatly fit into the community building category that do
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not necessarily promote strict economic localization. This is discussed in greater
detail below.
The TimeBank Media is perhaps the most apparent example of a TTM project
that advances the economic localization and community building goals
simultaneously. In order to complete an exchange through the TimeBank network,
direct one-on-one interactions are normally required between both parties in the
exchange. The individuals might be strangers or they could be close friends. In the
former case, TimeBank Media serves as a mechanism to facilitate the creation of new
interpersonal relationships. Trust and cooperation become critical factors in each
exchange. The TimeBank’s website (TimeBank Media, n.d.) lists community building
as one of its goals:
When we use the time bank, we will meet our neighbors, get to know
them, give them a ride, help them in their garden, fix their computer,
teach them a new skill – and vice versa. When we work together, we
build relationships.
An interviewee from Media who regularly uses the TimeBank to offer and
receive services confirmed her personal experience with the community-building
aspect of the platform. She said that she appreciates the TimeBank for more reasons
than the strict economic benefits:
It has changed my life and brought empowerment and validation
because I’m with a group of people. I have a network of people who
are like-minded, who are generous, and who have skills that I need on a
regular basis, not to mention friendship. That’s the validation part... I
didn’t know any of these people. Not a one... I now have my new
family through both TimeBank and Transition. And I am completely
supported by this family.
Similar to the TimeBank, the Swap/Share Facebook page that facilitates the
circulation of consumer goods and services also connects people who might otherwise
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be strangers. People get to know each other on a more personal level when they
connect and freely exchange items. The FreeMarket event operates on the same
model. Goods are not bartered in the classic sense, but face-to-face gifting and
exchanging nevertheless allows borough residents to recognize each other and begin to
form the bonds of community. A similar community building process is at work with
the FreeStore. This project is a little different than the FreeMarket, TimeBank, or
Swap/Share page because in the FreeStore an item may be placed on a shelf and sit
there until another patron takes it. The direct face-to-face interaction does not
necessarily occur as it does with the other economic localization and community
building projects. Still, the FreeStore and the volunteers that staff it connects and
networks people together, as evidenced by the comments of one patron (Media
FreeStore, 2014) who wrote that:
I met a new volunteer on Friday night at the FreeStore who said that for
a long time she has been wanting Media to be the way it used to be-everybody knowing each other, knowing all the owners of the stores, a
real sense of community. She said we're doing a good job of bringing
that back.
There are TTM events and projects that do not specifically aim at achieving
economic localization but nevertheless serve as community-building forums. For
instance, TTM regularly organizes potluck events where borough residents – whether
active in TTM or not – come together to share a meal and build interpersonal
relationship. The Inner Transition working group in Media effectively allows
individuals to voice their anxiety about the rapidly changing nature of world, and the
transition yet to come, in a communal setting where they feel supported and enriched
by others. TTM organizes periodic nature walks and film screenings that are followed
by group discussions. The initiative also holds an annual Strategic Planning Meeting
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where active members of the group gather for a full day in January, assess the
successes and failures of the past year’s efforts, and collectively prioritize where the
group’s energy and resources should be allocated in the year to come.
TTM also aims to build community be creating festivals that celebrate the
uniqueness of the borough. In November, 2014, TTM hosted their third annual
Gratitude Celebration and Potluck Banquet which is an honorary celebration of the
various non-profit organizations operating in the Media community. Recapping the
event afterward, Transition Town Media (2014b) stated on their website:
We had 22 organizations join us and a little over 100 people heard
about their missions, their programs, and how the community could
support them. Organization representatives were also able to network
with and learn about each other, as they rarely get a chance to come
together and socialize.
The largest and most challenging event organized by TTM in 2014 was the Happiness
Week festival. Between April 22nd and April 27th, TTM programed a large number of
free activities throughout the borough, all intended to draw community members
together for a borough-wide celebration of happiness and wellbeing. Activities
included concerts, Zumba classes, scavenger hunts, arboretum walks, potluck meals,
roundtable discussions, film screenings, and salsa lessons (Transition Town Media,
2014a). According to members of TTM, Happiness Week was a tremendous success
and was well received by borough residents. Another Happiness Week is planned for
the week of May 2nd, 2015.
7.3.3
Building Resilience
In terms of enhancing the Media community’s ability to withstand major
external shocks and forces, what the Transition Movement calls building resilience,
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TTM engages in a number of important practices, the TimeBank being one of them.
The TimeBank offers an alternative economic system – it could be considered a
backup – to portions of the conventional economic system. An interviewee
commented that TimeBank Media is useful now in terms of economic localization and
community building, but also predicted that it will become even more essential in a
future that is more susceptible to macroeconomic dysfunction and volatility:
It is a system that is in place that when people are in crisis, they’ll turn
to. And more and more, and it may not happen for ten years, but more
and more, people will turn to it when they lose their job or they are
downsized or they recognize the importance of community and don’t
have it. People will turn to it and more skills and services will be
offered.
The TimeBank builds resilience in Media because it provides an economic
buffer in the community that will absorb shocks. For example, should another wave
of financial and economic volatility strike the global economy as it did in 2008, at a
minimum TimeBank Media is a platform to connect community members who skills
and services to offer with those in need. When compared to other communities that do
not have a TimeBank or a similar alternative economic systems in place, Media
appears to be in a better position to weather macroeconomic dysfunction and
volatility. Similar understandings and interpretations of resilience building can be
applied to the FreeStore, Swap/Share Facebook page, and the annual FreeMarket
event. The Yardens project, with its activities such as seed saving and swapping, also
contributes to community-level food resilience as does the Farmers Market.
In addition to the actions described above, there are processes that TTM
undertakes to focus on the two key elements of the process of building resilient
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communities, energy descent and transformation and reskilling. Each of these is
discussed in greater detail below.
7.3.3.1
Energy Descent and Energy Transformation
Transition Town Media has taken a number of steps to reduce overall energy
demand in the Media community, with varying degrees of success. The primary
strategy employed by the group thus far is an educational campaign to inform TTM
participants and Media residents about the benefits of energy efficiency and
conservation. For example, on the group’s website, they have a page dedicated to “All
you need to know about buying LED’s” while another page looks at how a neighbor
was able to cut his home energy bill in half by conducting an energy audit of the
home, replacing old appliances with newer energy efficient ones, and disconnecting
appliances when they were not in use (Transition Town Media, 2013). TTM also
worked with Media borough’s Environmental Advisory Council, a resident-led group
that consults with the borough council on environmental matters, to host an energy
efficiency outreach initiative and workshop on November 17th, 2012. At this event,
TTM presented information on simple self-conducted home energy assessments and
how homeowners could take advantage of government subsidies to get a professional
assessment done on their property. Free home energy audits were also raffled off at
the workshop.
In terms of the energy transformation from carbon-based fossil fuels to
alternative energy production, TTM has engaged in education and outreach efforts to
promote solar and wind power. As an example of this strategy, on the website of the
Media initiative, there is an advertisement and a link to a Philadelphia-based solar
energy co-op where subscribers have the choice of receiving either 25% or 100% of
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their electricity through renewable generation technologies (currently the mix is 99%
wind and 1% solar photovoltaic). More directly, members can invest in solar systems
for their homes, as one TTM activist showed by installing a 7.5 kW system (Figure
7.5).
Figure 7.5: A solar array on a Transition member's home (image credit: Transition
Town Media)
Another active member of TTM took the energy transformation theme further
by writing an energy policy for the borough that would increase the installed capacity
of solar energy in Media. The policy proposal was presented to borough council for
consideration. The interviewee explained the policy by stating:
The idea being that essentially the council puts an amount of money
into a fund each year. And once per year there’s an auction. And
people go to the auction and they’re bidding on putting in a complete
solar system in their home. And they start their bidding essentially at a
percentage. So the council says “we’ll pay 5% of your installation and
you pay 95%” and if nobody moves at that price then they move to the
90% and then the 85% and so forth. The idea being that at the auction,
somebody will eventually say, “Ok, when the council will pay 35% of
my solar to have it installed, I’ll pay the remaining 65%.” They’d have
to go through an approved contractor that the council would approve.
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And the beauty of that is that that really encourages solar to take off in
the town. And it’s affordable. The town can set the budget each year
that it wants to do it at. The market sets its own price that it gets done.
And it provides a very powerful incentive for people wanting to install
those systems, with a couple of additional riders that they would have
to make their property viewable for the following year’s auction. That
they would have to get the work done in twelve months. They’d have
to submit approved invoices from the approved contractor so there’s no
gaming on the system.
The borough council’s response to this proposal was, in the interviewee’s
words, “That’s a lot of money.” The full policy was never considered by the council
for adoption or voted on. After failing to advance this policy for energy
transformation in Media, the interviewee subsequently proposed another energy policy
wherein the renewable energy credit (REC) monies the borough receives from its solar
installations located around town be used to fund the solar auction. Again, this
proposal was rejected. Even if the REC money was earmarked annually for this
purpose, it would not constitute a significant sum. According to the comments of a
member of the Environmental Advisory Council, the borough received only $550 in
REC money in 2013 because of the rapid decline in the market value for the credits.
While TTM is quite active in the community, namely in the area of economic
localization and community building projects, its efforts and results in the energy
descent and energy transformation process are not as remarkable. There are very few
instances of success that the group can point to other than broad outreach on energy
efficiency and conservation campaigns and the personal efforts of some individuals to
install renewable energy systems in their homes. Finally, it must be noted that TTM,
like the overwhelming majority of other Transition initiatives around the world, has
not written an energy descent plan for the Media community.
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7.3.3.2
Reskilling
The reskilling working group in TTM – now calling itself the skill sharing
group so as to associate with the principles of community building and reciprocity – is
extremely active and has been holding monthly events for more than a year. These
events are held in a number of different formats such as a reskilling fair where
multiple skills are shared simultaneously, workshops that focus on a specific skill, and
personal one on one sessions that are generated through TimeBank participation. At
each event, attendees are taught a specific skill by an individual who possesses the
skill. Typically the skills that are shared are associated with production or adding
value to a good. When skills are shared and disseminated throughout the Media
community, each individual’s capacity for self-reliance and their value in the
community improves. Consequently, the resiliency of the Media community as a
whole increases. In the event of sudden shocks or disturbances to the global economic
system, Media is better positioned and less susceptible to adverse consequences after
reskilling than before the skills were shared.
The skills shared in Media are numerous. At a reskilling fair held on February
26th, 2013, attendees learned how to spin yarn, preserve food through fermentation and
canning, make soap and toothpaste, make pasta, and sew. Workshops have covered
skills such as beekeeping, seed saving, bicycle maintenance, kombucha making,
vegetable fermenting, and mushroom foraging and identification. Various reskilling
events have also focused on gardening tips and techniques such as how to build a
raised bed, permaculture design principles and techniques, weaving, cheese making,
sour dough bread making, herbal medicine making, managing stormwater runoff on
homes by setting up and using rainwater barrels and by installing impervious pavers,
furniture making, and food dehydrating techniques.
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At nearly all of the reskilling events, the individuals giving the demonstrations
and instructions brought any necessary tools or technologies. For example, the
community member who talked about and demonstrated yarn spinning at the February
26th reskilling fair brought a foot-powered spinning wheel (Figure 6.2). For the
beekeeping reskilling event, the apiarist who led the instruction brought a homemade
horizontal top bar hive to show the attendees and to demonstrate the style of hive
commonly used by novice beekeepers (Figure 7.6).
Figure 7.6: An apiarist's homemade hive at a reskilling event (image credit: author’s
photograph)
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At the bicycle maintenance workshop, the organizer brought standard bike
tools like wrenches, tire patch repair kits, chain oil, and screwdrivers. At the canning
demonstration, the individual leading the session brought mason jars, a food mill, a
large pot for water bathing, and an assortment of other implements (jar lifter, funnel,
etc.). While attendees were invited to watch, listen, and in some instances practice the
skill (some attendees attempted to spin with minimal success), many of the reskilling
sessions were demonstrations that were instructional only and hands-off. The bicycle
maintenance workshop was a marked exception as the event organizers were explicit
that attendees would receive guidance from the instructors but would otherwise be
expected to perform the required maintenance themselves, to literally get their hands
dirty.
Attendance at each of the events has varied. At the reskilling fair, there were
approximately fifty attendees. At the beekeeping workshop, there were approximately
fifteen and at the bicycle maintenance workshop, there was even less. Typically, the
organizers of the events publicize the events to the TTM group through Facebook, the
TTM website, and through the group’s email list. Notices of the events are not printed
and put on display in the community, in the borough’s monthly newsletter, or any
other community event calendar board. Members of the community that are not active
in TTM, subscribers to the group’s Facebook page, or regularly visit the TTM website
are unlikely to know about each skill sharing event. As a result, the skill sharing tends
to remain internal to the core TTM activists and their close associates. The bulk of the
Media community is not engaged, including those who may wish to participate and
learn new skills but simply are not aware of the events.
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7.3.4
Politically Neutral Relationship to Local Government
The Transition initiative in Media has made an effort to follow the wider
movement’s advice that local government should “support, not drive” initiatives and
that political conflict is to be avoided so as not to alienate potential supporters. When
TTM first started to form, very little attention was paid to the borough government.
The organizers were more interested in the group being accepted and attracting
volunteer energy from residents and community members. Thus TTM felt that in the
early stages of its growth and development, interaction with the Media borough
government would be premature and detract from recruitment and raising community
awareness of the challenges posed by the triple threat.
After a sufficient period of time and after many TTM meetings and events like
potlucks and film screenings designed to raise awareness of the triple threat,
collaboration with the borough government began to take shape. An important and
early step came when the borough granted TTM free access to the community center
located in the borough hall. In an interview, it was emphasized how that small gesture
opened the door to further collaboration between TTM and the borough government:
We were using the Delaware County Institute of Science [for our
meetings] which is in Media near the courthouse. And it was a great
place except there were a lot of stairs so it was not real accessible. And
it was not very well heated or cooled so it was really hot in the summer
and really cold in the winter. So it had its drawbacks. So when the
community center opened up for us, we were like, “Oh, great!” It was
a big help. [Borough council is] a really great group of people.
They’re very conscientious. And it’s been great working with them
because they come up with really good ideas for things to do in the
Borough and they’re always open to our ideas... so it’s been pretty easy
to suggest things to them.
Once the initial connection was made between TTM and the borough
government, the relationship between the two groups developed further. Staying true
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to the movement’s mantra, at each instance of collaboration TTM sought support from
their local council and the Media Environmental Advisory Council (EAC) rather than
having the council or EAC dictate and drive TTM actions. In seeking support, TTM
initially communicated with the EAC by attending and participating in the council’s
monthly meetings. Then, when TTM wanted to showcase the potential for
permacultural gardening practices in Media, they sought direct assistance and
permission from the full borough council to place the demonstration project on public
land. An interviewee said:
That was actually the first time that we made a presentation to the
council and not something through the EAC. And I think we’re going
to be doing much more of that. The council members are getting more
and more friendly with TTM.
For the most part, support from the Media borough council to TTM has been
relatively small scale and uncontentious. Allowing the group to use the community
center and create a small series of plantings on public land is unlikely to cause serious
political conflict and dissent. However, there are indications and anecdotal evidence
that some of the causes and activities that TTM promotes could cause contention
between the group and the borough government. For example, TTM sought $800 of
direct financial assistance from the borough to fund the Happiness Week activities.
TTM asked for the funding late and eventually received it just before the events were
scheduled to begin. According to an interviewee, this irked some members of borough
council, who felt that TTM was presumptuous and reliant on the borough government
to fund whatever proposal came before them. During the Happiness Week, TTM
organized a flash mob on State Street and did not inform the borough that they were
going to dance in the street for several minutes. Traffic had to be stopped, including
the SEPTA trolley. This further upset members of the borough government who saw
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TTM’s actions as reckless because they did not ask for permission to close down the
busiest and most commercially active area of downtown Media. There is a mass
gathering permit application that any group must fill out and submit to borough
council before going forward with events like the flash mob. No member of TTM was
aware of the permit requirement which explains why the group unknowingly skipped
the application process when they organized the Happiness Week events.
In 2013, a significant collaboration between TTM and Media borough council
occurred when the council approached the Environmental Advisory Council and TTM
seeking help to manage poor stormwater runoff near the “Verizon Building” at the
corner of State and Veterans Square in the heart of the central commercial district
(Cressler, 2014). The area is completely paved and prone to flooding during heavy
storms so Media borough council sought guidance from the EAC and TTM on
alternative stormwater management techniques. Members of TTM drafted a
conceptual redesign of the area where the pavement is removed and replaced with
vegetated berms and swales (a common stormwater management feature in
permacultural designs). TTM also suggested that edibles, like espalier fruit trees,
could be planted to enhance local food security and beautify what is a rather austere
and ugly façade of the building. As of January 2015, the concept has been drawn up
by a local landscape architect who added some seating, and the borough is seeking
grant money to move forward with the project. This episode demonstrates the
borough council’s willingness to reach out to TTM and solicit their input and
knowledge on community improvement schemes like stormwater management and
beautification, and it also demonstrates that TTM has the capacity to address
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engineering-related challenges through permacultural design principles. An
interviewee stated that:
[Borough council] came to us with that. We didn’t go to them. And so
that, to me, is tremendous. That says that we’ve been accepted and that
we’re a valuable part of the community... That’s very exciting.
With the exception of the solar auction proposal, TTM did not advocate for
any major policy changes or shifts in the borough until August, 2014. Then, at the
August 7th, 2014 borough council workshop meeting, TTM organized some of its
members to attend and lobby the councilmembers to pass a resolution in support of a
“statewide and national ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feed”
(Media Borough, 2014). The group did this as part of an advocacy campaign that is
being spearheaded nationwide by the NGO Food and Water Watch. This is the first
group-level effort by TTM to directly influence legislation in the borough. Because it
is an overtly political position, it is liable to be contested, debated, and argued over.
Consequently, the idealized situation of a politically neutral relationship between TTM
and the borough’s government is called into question. In a small, progressive,
suburban community like Media, one would not expect to encounter much dissent
over a largely symbolic resolution like the one supporting the ban of antibiotics in
animal feed (the resolution was unanimously approved), but the episode is noteworthy
because it signals a marked shift in TTM’s willingness to engage with the borough
government at the policy advocacy level.
Happiness Week and the antibiotics resolution aside, it is safe to say that TTM
maintains a strong, working, amicable, and relatively politically neutral relationship
with the government in Media. Much of TTM’s activities and projects, such as
reskilling, the TimeBank, the Share/Swap Facebook page, The FreeStore, and the
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FreeMarket operate independently of the borough government’s authority, oversight,
and permission. Furthermore, the initiative itself and its members have not been coopted by the borough government. While TTM has been asked to volunteer their
expertise and energy to advance particular aspects of the borough’s functioning – such
as the beautification and stormwater management design of the Verizon Building – the
group maintains autonomy and will only consent to work on and implement boroughled projects that it deems worthwhile of their efforts.
7.4
Conclusion
Transition Town Media, which formed in 2009, has been advancing the
discourse and practice of the Transition Movement response in the Media community
for the past five years. The main themes of the Transition Movement response –
economic localization, community building, resilience building, reskilling, energy
decent and transformation, and political neutrality – are all practiced by TTM, with
some themes more prevalent and successful than others.
A primary focus of TTM activities is on economic localization, and the group
created a number of projects to advance the practical aspects of creating economic
networks and productive processes in the community. The FreeStore, FreeMarket,
Swap/Share Facebook page, and the Media TimeBank all facilitate local exchanges of
goods and services in a low-carbon manner.
TTM projects are also designed and implemented to build inter-personal
relationships between community members. The TimeBank in particular is a
community building mechanism as are the face-to-face interactions occurring through
the Swap/Share Facebook page. TTM organizes events to create a sense of shared
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identity in the community – the annual Gratitude Potluck Celebration and Happiness
Week, for instance.
The resilience of the community is increased with the introduction of the
alternative economic systems such as the TimeBank and the FreeStore. These
programs become ways that community members can meet their economic needs in
the present, but they will become more important should the global economic system
malfunction in the future. In terms of the subthemes of resilience – energy descent
and transformation and reskilling – TTM is much more successful in the latter than the
former. Very little has been attempted, let alone achieved, to transform the energy
production system in Media. The practice of reskilling, on the other hand, has
progressed a great deal. TTM members have shared many practical skills to increase
capacity for local production; gardening, home canning, beekeeping, and bicycle
maintenance.
Finally, TTM has maintained an uncontentious, amicable, and working
relationship with the local government in Media. Most TTM practices do not need
government approval and the group has yet to run up against significant barriers to
their activities. Still, the group’s advocacy in support of a ban on antibiotics in animal
feed does indicate the beginnings of a new level of political engagement
Armed with knowledge of the practical expression of the Transition Movement
and PSC responses, and taking into consideration the various themes offered by both,
the following chapter balances their strengths and weaknesses to determine if they are
viable and effective community development strategies. Specifically, an analysis is
conducted through the lens of Chapters 2 and 3 and the two responses are evaluated
for their ability to improve technological dependence, strengthen self-governance, and
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enhance distributive equities at the community level. The analysis also determines if
the responses confront and mitigate growth in global complexity.
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Chapter 8
ANALYZING THE PSC AND TRANSITION MOVEMENT REPSONSES
8.1
Introduction
In this chapter, the PSC and Transition Movement responses are assessed in
detail through the analytic framework developed in Chapters 2 and 3. The themes
from the Planning Sustainable Communities and Transition Movement responses are
evaluated for their ability to successfully address the undesirable community-level
impacts of global complexity. Specifically, the themes are measured against the
criteria of technological independence, strengthening of local self-governance, and
equitable distribution of resources, costs, and benefits. The responses are also
analyzed for their ability to confront and mitigate growth in global complexity.
Examples from Media, Pennsylvania are revisited and interview data is included,
where relevant, to lend additional evidentiary support and depth to the analysis.
The results of the analysis demonstrate that the two responses are well
constructed and can offer positive outcomes for communities, especially in the areas
of technological independence and self-governance. Desirable equity-related
development processes and outcomes cannot be taken as self-evident or guaranteed.
Indeed there is a possibility that for both responses, equitable distributions of costs and
benefits, as well as access to resources, could become skewed if little attention is paid
and meaningful action is not taken.
In terms of their ability to confront and mitigate growth in global complexity,
the two responses show different levels of promise. The Transition Movement
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response is more effective and has the potential to make a greater impact because it
directly challenges global complexity through its emphasis on community self-reliance
and appropriate technology. The PSC response’s impact is less certain and more a
function of the development and technological choices made by its advocates.
In the final analysis, the two responses pose viable and effective community
development strategies and should be encouraged and supported. Despite each
response’s shortcomings and potential to exacerbate the local impacts generated by
global complexity, both responses, after balancing their strengths and weaknesses,
offer a net improvement when compared to the community development strategy that
accommodates global complexity and contributes to its growth. Recommendations are
proposed for ways in which each response can overcome their weaknesses.
8.2
Revisiting the Evaluative Criteria
It is helpful to revisit the evaluative criteria identified in Chapter 3 –
technological independence, self-governance, and distributive equity – and clearly
define how success and failure of the themes is measured when judged against these
criteria. In terms of technological independence, relevant themes are assessed
favorably if they liberate communities from the global complex web of fragile,
centralized technological relations and give them more autonomy over their
technological milieu. Themes that further entrench communities into advanced,
unknowable, and uncontrollable technologies and technological systems are evaluated
unfavorably. For self-governance, the themes that permit and enable community
members to collectively make decisions about the most appropriate direction for
development of local resources are evaluated favorably. Distributive equity is fostered
in community by themes that ensure that all community members have access to basic
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goods and services in a fair manner and that costs and benefits of development are
equitably distributed. Themes that unreasonably skew or polarize the distribution of
resources, costs, and benefits throughout a community or between communities are
evaluated poorly against the criteria of distributive equity.
The analysis also determines the responses’ ability to confront and mitigate
global complexity. This is achieved by investigating their actions, technologies, and
patterns of consumption to determine if they foster simpler arrangements.
Simplification involves the intentional, calculated process of disengaging from global
complexity, reducing consumption of prodigious quantities of energy and resources,
and substituting locally-produced basic goods and services for those delivered through
globalized systems. Importantly, it also means communities discover ways to solve
problems without increasing complexity, contrary to Joseph Tainter’s deterministic
logic (Section 2.2.1).
8.3
Evaluating the Planning Sustainable Communities Response
In this section, the themes comprising the Planning Sustainable Communities
response are analyzed. The results of the analysis demonstrate there are positive
elements of the response related to technological independence, self-governance, and
distributive equity. However, there are potential undesirable outcomes generated by
certain PSC themes when they are evaluated against the criteria of technological
independence and distributive equity.
8.3.1
Technological Independence
There are both positive and negative themes in the PSC response that are
relevant to the degree of technological independence for a community. First, from a
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positive standpoint, the PSC response deemphasizes the automobile as the principle
transportation technology and gives community members greater mobility options and
opportunity, all of which are accomplished through simpler technological means. The
mixed-use development theme goes some way towards obviating the use of the
automobile for day-to-day errands. Furthermore, by promoting transit-oriented
development, especially bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, automobile dependency
is greatly reduced when community members’ mobility becomes self-powered rather
than powered through fossil-fueled technologies. The transit system connectivity
theme makes non-automobile transportation even more convenient and hence likely
that communities will opt out of the personal automobile. Although not motivated by
the logic of technological independence, the PSC response recognizes the importance
of transforming key aspects of communities so that the personal automobile is deemphasized and de-prioritized as a mode of transportation – mixed-use development
along with bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure enables walking and cycling, transit
oriented development enables the use of mass public transportation modes, and transit
system connectivity and concentrating populations mutually reinforces these themes
and makes them more likely to succeed. In sum, the combination of themes to deemphasize the automobile is well crafted, comprehensive, co-beneficial, and helps to
enhance community independence from the automobile.
The second way in which the PSC response liberates a community
technologically is its promotion of local agriculture. When communities consume
local food, they are less dependent on long-distance transportation technologies to
move the food from the site of production to the site of consumption as well as
distribution and storage technologies that are integral to a national and even
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international foodshed. There are advanced agricultural technologies and
technological systems that contribute to local food systems, but by going local, the
sheer quantity of intermediate technologies integral to the food supply chain is
reduced substantially (O’Hara & Stagl, 2001; Pollan, 2006). This is a positive
development from a technological independence standpoint.
With regards to the built environment, the building design standards and
recommendations offered in the PSC response provides many simple, low-tech
alternatives to resolve problems and in some cases obviate the need for complex
techno-fix solutions by adjusting design considerations. For instance, in the
hydrologically-oriented development theme, natural green roofs reduce runoff and
relieve the burden on expensive stormwater management systems. Rainwater barrels
are similarly low-tech solutions to deal with precipitation events, and permeable
paving and bioswales can entirely eliminate the need for sewers, gutters, and treatment
plants if the material is used on a large scale. In the energy efficient buildings theme,
simply orienting buildings to take advantage of passive solar heating and cooling
throughout the year, reduces demand for centralized home heating, air conditioning, or
high-tech insulation and ventilation systems. Planting trees to further reduce heat
island effects and cool homes in the summer is, as Condon (2010, p. 100) says, “more
elegant and cheap than elaborate wall details and ‘green gizmos.’” The use of natural
building materials, the ethos of which prioritizes locally-sourced resources, also
fosters independence from technologies and technological systems in the building
material supply chain. A community whose residences are built from recycled or
locally-sourced materials like cob and straw bales is more technologically independent
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than one whose homes are built using treated dimensional lumber, fiberglass
insulation, vinyl siding, and asphalt shingles brought into the community.
There are some themes in the PSC response which have the potential to both
exacerbate and alleviate a community’s technological dependency, conditional upon
the manner in which the themes are employed in practice. For example, the PSC
theme of promoting green collar jobs like renewable energy technology clusters could
leave a community susceptible to a local economy built upon and reliant on a single
industry, even one that is environmentally friendly. Attempts to attract a critical mass
of any advanced technology sector, regardless of their green or environmental
credentials (or because of them!), may deliver considerable economic returns and
benefits in the short turn. The risk inherent to this theme is that a successful
technology or industry grows quickly and becomes dominant in a community. History
is littered with evidence of communities that become overly-dependent upon a single
industry for the bulk of their economic livelihoods. Over long enough time frames,
these communities end up disintegrating because their industries are susceptible to
systemic interactions and changes beyond their control such as market dynamics,
competition, shifting consumer preferences, political transformations, product
saturation, raw material scarcities, and other macro-level changes. The PSC response
does not appreciate that just because the solar PV, wind turbine, and other high-tech
green manufacturing industries make products that are essential for a sustainable
world, it does not automatically mean that these same industries are themselves
sustainable. Over time, they remain just as vulnerable to eventual devolution as the
automobile industry, for example.
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The development and installation of solar and wind energy technologies could
be equally problematic if they are installed on a large, centralized scale similar to the
current arrangement of coal and nuclear power plants (Lovins, 1977, Chapter 2).
Communities could conceivably remain dependent upon a technological system of
sustainable energy that solidifies the importance of the complex electricity grid in
socio-economic relations. By recommending a simplification of the permitting
process for homeowners, the PSC response acknowledges the desirability of a
decentralized renewable energy system which, although it can still be interpreted as a
dependent relationship between communities and technology, is less prone to sudden
and cascading failure characteristic of the centralized system (Simon, 2007).
There are other aspects of the PSC response that can further embed
communities into relations of technological dependency. In Media, for example, there
is a feeling among some residents that the existing parking infrastructure is
insufficient to satisfy the needs of the community. Thus in spite of the comprehensive
plan’s recommendations to deemphasize the automobile, there are still pragmatic
challenges to consider. It is impractical (and undesirable) to eliminate all parking
from the borough when community and area residents currently have no alternative
mode of transportation, not to mention the aged and handicapped who require
automobile-enabled mobility. The PSC response in Media must therefore find a
balance between the rhetoric of and desire for a non-motorized transportation
infrastructure and the practical considerations of the wider community. In an attempt
to find the balance, a consultant on the Media comprehensive plan made the following
comment:
Everyone is complaining about parking... [so] we’ve also recommended
a real-time app for all the borough spaces so you can look at your
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phone and find out where the spaces are. The technology is there. To
me, that’s a sustainable thing.
If the app is successfully implemented, motorists that do not use it will
experience even more difficulty finding a parking space. In order to successfully
compete for the scarce parking resources – which could become scarcer with the
introduction of the app – motorists in the borough will be compelled to employ the
mobile technology. Ultimately, the parking problem would not be resolved and would
in fact worsen for those without smart phones.
The above analysis of the PSC response indicates that there are themes that can
enhance a community’s independence from fragile advanced technologies and
technological systems. Liberating communities from dependency on the personal
automobile is a significant improvement. By promoting local agriculture, cycling,
walking, natural building materials, and simple architectural techniques for designing
passive structures, the PSC response offers many compelling strategies and simple
technological solutions. However, there are some themes that need to be approached
with caution, particularly renewable energy and the possibility of its centralization as
well as green technology clusters. In addition, the PSC response is not immune from
proposing advanced techno-fix solutions, such as the real-time parking app, that could
exacerbate technological dependency.
8.3.2
Self-Governance
Certain themes within the PSC response can positively affect a community’s
capacity and ability to self-govern. The most impactful meta-theme that fosters selfgovernance is the public participation and place-making theme. Within that metatheme is the sub-theme of soliciting community input and participation on the
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planning process itself. This sub-theme, in particular, is the PSC’s most prominent
gateway to enhance community self-governance.
By giving a platform and a microphone to community members and soliciting
their opinions on development goals and processes, the PSC response strengthens
community decision-making power. A community that is engaged, vocal, and that
values local control of their resources has the opportunity to exercise their rights to
self-governance. By holding and conducting public events and forums such as
workshops, design charrettes, and surveys, the PSC response gives an outlet to local
knowledge, wishes, and voices (Innes & Booher, 2004). It is important, however, to
recognize the limitations and not overstate the absolute authority of this theme. Much
of urban planning and the recommendations made by the PSC response are advisory in
nature. Final decision-making powers still reside with local governments which could,
despite a unified voice from the community, cede control of local assets to external
influences (Bookchin, 1989). Nevertheless, the solicitation of input and participation
in the planning process strengthens community self-governance.
The PSC response theme that pushes back against the tendency toward the
privatization of space presents a further opportunity for community self-governance
and control. Carving out public space creates a canvas upon which the community has
the right to free expression and actualization. Artistic expressions, protests, festivals,
and community rituals can all be performed more freely when the PSC response
ensures that place- and space-making opportunities are built into development
strategies. This could entail the provision of public parks within walkable distance to
all residents – like the Media comprehensive plan recommends – or the construction of
a community center. Also, as the Media comprehensive plan demonstrates, it might
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also entail the drafting and implementation of an “Official Map” where any new
development on private land must conform to the public space requirements deemed
appropriate by the community.
Granting community access to land for food production systems further
strengthens self-governance. Community gardens, allotments, and policies that enable
individuals to come together and grow produce keeps valuable resources circulating
within the community. The same can be said for strategies to limit Big Box stores
such as building codes that define maximum floor plan sizes (Mitchell, 2006). These
recommendations from the PSC response empower communities to govern,
administer, and manage their own economic and environmental affairs. More directly,
the PSC theme of preserving open space and ecologically sensitive areas from
development pressure ensures that local resources are defined and maintained for the
benefit and use of the community as a whole.
More indirectly, the PSC recommendation to lift building codes that prohibit
the use of alternative building construction techniques and materials also grants
communities a platform for self-governance of local energy and resources. If natural
building materials such as straw bales, locally quarried stone, cob, or any other type of
structural element are produced and consumed locally and in large quantities, the
community will be confronted with the challenges and responsibilities of natural
resource management and governance (Kellert, Metha, Emmin, & Lichtenfeld, 2000).
Local communities in the United States are a long way from this hypothetical
situation, but one might imagine a community where the majority of the houses and
buildings are made from locally available materials - straw bales for example. This
community would need to put a public management and governance system in place to
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ensure responsible production, distribution, and consumption of straw. The need
would be even greater if the community also uses straw for energy production, as a
feedstock for animals, and as roof thatching. When the PSC response enables a
community to consume more local resources, for example by changing building codes
to permit certain construction materials, they enhance the same community’s
opportunity and responsibility to successfully govern and manage the resource.
The same argument applies to the PSC theme of renewable energy
development. Communities that rely on external utilities for their energy supplies
have little to no energy governance rights and responsibilities. But by recommending
that local building codes, permitting processes, and ordinances facilitate rather than
impede the installation of decentralized renewable energy systems, the PSC response
grants individuals and communities the opportunity to directly manage the energy they
themselves produce and consume (Bagliani, Dansero, & Puttilli, 2010). Even greater
steps toward self-governance of energy resources can be taken too, for example with
utility municipalization or the creation of a Community Choice Aggregation scheme.
However, these recommendations mostly originate directly from the community and
local governing councils and are not typically offered as part of the PSC response.
The historic preservation theme can potentially contribute to community selfgovernance. In this instance, it is cultural and historic resources that are governed and
managed rather than physical natural resources. A community’s identity is tied to
their history, culture, and aesthetics. By recommending that these intangible yet
important resources are controlled and managed through locally-staffed preservation
committees, preservation and conservation districts, zoning overlays, and design
standards, the PSC response empowers communities by providing the tools to
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maintain historic and cultural resources. Communities are thus better equipped to
resist attempts by extra-local interests to occupy, privatize, and substantially transform
unique local characteristics (Peck & Tickell, 2002; Zukin, 1995).
8.3.3
Distributive Equity
There are a number of themes within the PSC response that promote a more
equitable distribution of resources, costs, and benefits in community development,
foremost among them is the theme focusing on diverse and affordable housing
options. The theme itself is an expression of the equity component of sustainability’s
Three E’s. The PSC response argues that as a basic fundamental right, all members of
the community have access homes that are affordable, both initially and over the
design life of the home. Taking action to ensure housing equity through various
techniques such as inclusionary zoning mandates or community land trusts injects a
spirit of fairness into a community’s ability to provide adequate housing for all
residents. However, the private sector may interpret actions such as inclusionary
zoning as reactionary and a severe injustice against their own development rights and
financial objectives. Further, some residents may take a NIMBY attitude and
question the logic behind inclusionary zoning and, consequentially, their community’s
fiscal outlook. Interpretations of housing equity therefore depend on where one is
positioned in relation to the actions taken. These objections aside, the PSC response
does strive to ensure that housing equity remains a priority for marginalized segments
of communities since those individuals without affordable housing options – which
consistently plays out along racial, ethnic, and socio-economic lines – are systemically
and perpetually disadvantaged in areas beyond housing such as employment prospects,
health, and mobility (Goering, 2007). In the balance of competing interpretations of
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what is just and fair, systemic marginalization of certain communities carries more
weight and demands action – at least in the PSC discourse – over the objections of
property developers and residents raising NIMBY concerns.
Affordable homes that are healthy to live in, do not cost disproportionate sums
of money to maintain and operate, and are located within reasonable proximity of
basic amenities and services also promotes equity within the community. It is one
thing to recommend and implement policies that assist families with housing, it is
another to saddle them with homes that are leaky, moldy, have wasteful heating and
cooling systems, are poorly insulated, and lack easy access to public transportation
options and other amenities such as schools. The affordable housing theme goes hand
in hand with a number of other themes offered by the PSC response, especially energy
efficient buildings, mixed-use development, and multi-modal transport choice. At the
nexus of these themes, the equitable outcome becomes affordable housing that is built
to high energy efficiency standards and is located in close proximity to commercial
opportunities (for example stores offering healthy and nutritious food options) and
transit infrastructure. As Condon (2010) argues, a building four or five stories in
height, which is ideal for mixed-uses, is the most energy efficient structural form.
Even the simplest of architectural design considerations, like orientating the building
to maximize solar heating and cooling, is virtually cost-free (Morrissey, Moore, &
Horne, 2011). When this type of mixed-use/energy efficient/affordable housing
hybrid is combined with a transit-oriented development and non-motorized
transportation infrastructure, residents’ disposable income and mobility is enhanced
significantly. The equitable distribution of resources is improved when the PSC
response’s comprehensive approach is compared to past efforts to provide affordable
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housing in energy-hungry high-rise buildings that are poorly served by amenities and
transit options.
The PSC theme to limit Big Box stores and instead make a business
environment amenable to local economic interests can also be analyzed from a
distributive equity perspective. Corporate retail giants, because of their enormous
bulk purchasing power, are able to undercut local businesses on price (Mitchell, 2006).
This leads to a siphoning off of economic value within a community. While retail
giants ultimately tilt the playing field away from Main Street, there is a secondary,
perhaps more consequential impact on communities beyond the loss of local
businesses. The fiercely competitive economic climate between Big Box stores leads
to economic inequities such as wage repression. Wages at many Big Box retailers are
so low that many full time workers seek public assistance such as food stamps,
housing subsidies, and Medicaid, all of which create inner-communities tensions as
they strain local resources and service providers. Taken together, these public
assistance programs provide, in effect, a significant subsidy from taxpayers to Big Box
stores. US taxpayers provide a $6.2 billion annual public assistance subsidy to
Walmart for its low wage model (Americans for Tax Fairness, 2014). If practical
planning limitations like maximum floor areas placed on Big Box retailers effectively
disincentivizes construction of these stores, this would help circulate and maintain a
broader and more evenly distributed base of local economic activity (Williamson et
al., 2002). The same economic equity argument can be made for the local agriculture
theme, and consequentially the PSC response’s efforts to enhance local food
production and distribution practices.
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Through the public participation theme, the PSC response intentionally and
self-reflexively tempers its own latent powers in community development which leads
to a more equitable distribution of epistemological space. Lewis Mumford (1964,
1970) argued that an overemphasis on hyper specialized knowledge systems for
valuing, prioritizing, and performing social action is inherently inequitable. The PSC
response is willing to share epistemological space with community members in the
interests of improved outcomes. Expert, specialized, and highly technical knowledge
of the planner does not set the terms of social, environmental, and technical relations
by default. Non-technical community knowledge and values are prioritized in the
planning process when design charrettes, task forces, surveys, and various alternative
methods of soliciting input are incorporated into the initial planning stages. It is the
collective participation and knowledge of community members – through direct
interactions and engagement with the process made possible by the public
participation theme – that defines the planning goals and drives them forward. A
planner in Media spoke about the importance of welcoming the Media community’s
values and knowledge into the epistemological space of planning:
What I always say to communities is that a comprehensive plan is a
statement of community values. That’s really what it is – planning for
the future more than anything. You can boil everything down, but what
are the community values in terms of moving ahead? ... We can
introduce ideas but if the community is not interested, they don’t fly
very far. So you really need the ideas to flow from the community. As
a planner, you can only do so much to introduce new ideas but if they
don’t have any resonance in the community they’re not going to go
anywhere.... But it really flows from the community and especially in
the comprehensive plan process.
This comment demonstrates that the knowledge and values of the community (or
“ideas”) are prioritized above those of the planner. The public participation theme
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subordinates the specialized knowledge and values of the professional planner to those
of the community, thus creating a more equitable planning process.
With the public participation theme, the distribution of the costs and benefits of
planning outcomes also becomes more equitable. Sharing epistemological space with
the community during the planning process means that local citizens will be invested
in the plan and will be motivated to monitor and push for its successful
implementation. Plans that are drafted after soliciting community input – even those
plans steeped in in the scientific side of sustainability principles – are less likely to be
based on and influenced by technocratic knowledge and therefore better understood by
local citizens (Kettle et al., 2014). Furthermore, when they are involved early on in
the planning process, the community has greater buy-in and is more motivated and
capable of overseeing implementation (Burby, 2003).
If the public participation theme is executed poorly and without forethought, it
can become an exclusive platform and lead to inequitable outcomes. According to
elite theories of policy development, one cannot assume that simply providing the
wider community with a microphone will magnify a diverse plurality of voices
because there is no guarantee that those who choose to speak during planning events
will represent the community in the broadest terms. Conceivably, only wealthy, white
men will attend meetings and design charrettes, serve on task forces, submit
comments, and otherwise advocate for a narrow position. Since a diverse, pluralistic,
and statistically representative community sample cannot be taken as self-evident, it is
possible that the public participation theme further entrenches community
development inequities because the participation process is dominated by influential
local elite interests that operate for private benefit rather than for the public good. In
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other words, participatory planning could be used as a means to “preserve the quality
of life for affluent and powerful citizens than to fight poverty and environmental
racism” (Hester, 1996 quoted in Berke, 2002).
Paradoxically, the equity sought by affordable housing theme can be
undermined by a combination of other themes. The PSC response can become a
victim of its own success, and there is evidence to suggest that it can lead to more
inequitable outcomes. Basic market-based economic theory states that when a good or
service is highly desirable, it attracts a price premium. The PSC response produces
highly desirable and hence valuable goods, especially housing. Mixed-use buildings
where home, work, and commercial opportunities are in close proximity to each other
are valued by consumers which increases property values (Koster & Rouwendal,
2012; Song & Knaap, 2004; Sturtevant & McClain, 2010). LEED and other ecocertified buildings are also positively correlated with higher property values (Fuerst &
McAllister, 2011). The same close relationship exists between property price
premiums and energy efficiency (Dinan & Miranowski, 1989), buildings located close
to amenities and within transit oriented development districts (Bartholomew & Ewing,
2011), walkable commercial districts (Pivo & Fisher, 2011), and historic preservation
districts (Leichenko, Coulson, & Listokin, 2001).
In a sense, the PSC response delivers the type of community that people want
and are willing to pay more for. An energy efficient home in a mixed-use
development area, close to a transit stop, within walking or biking distance to work,
and near or in a historic preservation district is, for many people, an ideal living
situation. All of these themes of the PSC response combine to drive up property
values, making it harder for the community to offer quality affordable housing
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options. By delivering on the environmental and economic components of the Three
E framework, the PSC response actually makes it hard to achieve equitable outcomes
with respect to low-income residents. This fact is certainly not lost on the
interviewees who worked on the Media comprehensive plan update. When asked if an
environmentally and economically vibrant community can deliver on the equity
component of sustainability, one interviewee stated that:
It could be a little like a double edged sword. Say a place has
amenities, it’s designed in a certain way, it attracts new residents,
developers want to build there, and then you get rising prices.... And
some people are priced out a little bit. So yeah, it could affect a portion
of its sustainability, or a segment of its sustainability. In this case the
equity aspect.... It seems like for one you might have to sacrifice others.
In the past decade or so, Media has become a desirable community because of
its small town charm, walkability, proximity to SEPTA regional rail, and local
economic atmosphere. The impacts of this success on property values are already
being felt as home prices have been rising steadily for many years, even before the
implementation of the recommendations in the most recent comprehensive plan.
Average income levels in Media have increased along with property values and as
noted in Chapter 5, the borough is concerned about the impact this will have on its
volunteer fire fighting service. One planner noted that the issue extends well beyond
the fire department:
Right now Media has a volunteer fire fighting corps. People have
represented to us that the more affluent a community becomes, the
more difficult it becomes to get volunteers to the fire company. And
that may be true. Also, as you get more affluent people living in a
community, it becomes harder, more difficult, to fill jobs that are not as
high paying as others. I don’t mean sustenance wages. I mean jobs
that are more blue collar than white collar. Part of sustainability is
having a community that is diverse, in my view, socially and
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economically. Because otherwise you can’t provide all the services and
you cannot fill the jobs locally.
The interviewee was then asked if the increasing wealth of a community like Media
becomes, at a certain point, not a catalyst but a barrier to sustainability. The reply
given was:
What happens is that when stuff becomes too high priced in Media,
people will – young professionals, artists, kids starting out – will move
somewhere else... That’s a dilemma of the old community. So if you
make the argument, and it’s a valid one, that as Media becomes more
successful it becomes less sustainable.
These interviewees are aware that when Media – or any other community – succeeds
in delivering on its themes and creating a healthy and clean environment, particularly
one with economic vibrancy and other desirable characteristics, this success tends to
impact the equitable distribution of resources.
Distributive inequities can also arise if a community is successfully able to
attract green businesses. Much of the work, particularly on the front-end innovation
side of the process, is highly technical, specialized, and extremely well paid, which
can directly lead to rapidly rising and concentrated levels of wealth. This creates the
undesirable and inequitable conditions just described, but without any of the
advantages of transit options or energy efficient housing. For example, the cost of
living in the San Francisco Bay and Silicon Valley area is unbearable for those
residents not fortunate enough to possess tech sector jobs (Donato-Weinstein, 2014).
The hourly wage needed to afford the fair market rent for a one bedroom apartment in
San Francisco and San Jose, CA is $29.83 and $24.94 respectively (Arnold, Crowley,
Bravve, Brundage, & Biddlecombe, 2014). Furthermore, there are devastating
environmental legacies of supposedly high-tech, green sector manufacturing and the
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costs of poor environmental quality disproportionately impact low-income
communities (Winner, 1992).
8.4
Analysis of the PSC Response
The PSC response, based on the balance of strengths and weaknesses, offers an
improved, viable approach to community development when compared to the
traditional approach of accommodating global complexity and contributing to its
growth. The positive outcomes at the local level – when evaluated for technological
independence, self-governance, and distributive equity – outweigh the potential
negative consequences. The negative impacts can be minimized through a series of
actions outlined below, further tipping the balance of strengths in weaknesses in the
response’s favor. With respect to its ability to confront and mitigate global
complexity, the response’s effectiveness is less certain as there are aspects which
create simpler arrangements, while others have the potential to contribute to more
complex patterns.
8.4.1
Addressing Community Impacts of Complexity
In terms of technological independence, the PSC response moves communities
toward an improved level of technological autonomy, particularly with respect to the
transportation emphasis shifting from the personal automobile to the simpler and less
costly bicycle and pedestrian. Promoting local food projects, improving the energy
and resource efficiency of housing and building stocks, and using simple solutions like
permeable paving to resolve stormwater runoff issues all achieve identical outcomes.
Self-governance is greatly enhanced by providing community members with a
platform to voice their perspectives on where and how limited public resources are
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saved or spent. A more equitable distribution of housing can be achieved by the use of
inclusionary zoning and community members’ influence over development directions
is enhanced when planners share epistemological space. Each of these themes, and
others outlined in the preceding discussion, directly and positively address the impacts
of global complexity experienced by communities.
There are however three main areas of concern, which to varying degrees can
be addressed simply and directly. First, the green collar jobs theme should be
reconsidered and modified to avoid the potentially unsustainable situation where a
community becomes dependent upon and dominated by a specific sector of
employment. It is understandable and reasonable that communities seek to attract
employment opportunities, but the allure of jobs should not obscure long-term
thinking demanded by the sustainability framework. As noted in Section 8.3.1, for
communities to be sustainable over the long term, they cannot be captured by a
singular industry or technology, no matter the green credentials. It is vital that any
community attracting green collar jobs keeps the industry small relative to the size of
the local community to avoid a short-term employment bubble. A concrete example is
instructive. The “Eds and Meds” sector is a low-impact and environmentally sensitive
source of jobs but in one sense, it is also a short-sighted and uncritical economic
development program that fails to appreciate the long-term consequences of a local
economy’s over-dependency on any single technology or industry. There is evidence
that the Eds and Meds economic development fad is straining under its own weight.
In recent years, health care and higher education costs have risen sharply, as have
household and sovereign debt levels, so it is possible that a consumer and government
Eds and Meds bubble is set to burst. These systemic interactions and changes have led
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the popular urban commentator Richard Florida (2013) to write that for certain
communities like Ithaca, NY – where approximately 30% of local jobs are in the Eds
and Meds sector – the development agenda has fundamentally morphed from
economic opportunity into a serious liability.
Yet green collar industries manufacture items – for instance photovoltaic
panels or wind turbine components – that must be widely and rapidly adopted by
communities in the very near future. This puts communities and the PSC response in
a double bind. By accepting and inviting high-tech green collar industries,
communities may very well become dependent on a green-tech system. However, if
they reject green industries because of a concern over long-term economic
sustainability, then where will their environmentally-friendly infrastructure come
from? Purchasing solar panels from Chinese manufacturers, for instance, is not a
long-term strategy for successful development. A more pragmatic development
strategy is to initially engage in demand-side management to temper local energy and
resource consumption levels while procuring indispensable goods from external
producers.
A second area of concern is the inequitable processes and outcomes that could
very well arise during the public participation theme. To achieve distributive equity in
the costs and benefits of the PSC response, it is imperative that a representative sample
of the community offer their input on the development trajectory of the community.
To mollify this concern, the PSC response can proactively solicit traditionally
underrepresented publics – for instance minorities, low-income residents, women, and
the disabled. This process, developed in the 1960’s by Paul Davidoff (1965), is
referred to as advocacy planning and it demands that planners become direct
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advocates for those marginalized and underrepresented populations. Consequentially,
advocacy planning requires planners to go well beyond their professional
advisory/consulting roles and directly engage in contentious politics.
The third area of concern is the situation where the PSC response delivers the
type of clean, healthy, and efficient community it promises, thus increasing price
premiums and driving out low-income residents who cannot afford to live in wealthy
neighborhoods and environments. This outcome is highly inequitable and,
consequently, antithetical to the equity component of the sustainability framework.
Unfortunately, there is little that the PSC response can do to directly address or
minimize this concern. An effective solution to this problem would likely involve
fiscal and social welfare policy change and a substantial redistribution of financial
resources; action that is outside the purview and authority of the PSC response.
However, at a minimum, the PSC response can advocate and communicate to policymakers and administrators that inequitable outcomes are possible and local governing
institutions should prepare to ameliorate and mitigate the negative impacts.
Interestingly, the PSC advocates interviewed for this research were well aware, and
more articulate than the books, about the dialectic relationship between environmental
and economic success and inequitable conditions in the community. The books used
to distill the PSC themes make little to no mention of this unwanted outcome.
8.4.2
Mitigating Growth in Global Complexity
While the PSC response is an effective and viable development alternative to
address the impacts of complexity at the community level, its ability to effectively
confront and mitigate complexity at the global level is less certain. On the one hand,
the response has the potential to stem the growth in global complexity by creating
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simpler socio-economic and technological arrangements. On the other hand, the PSC
response could contribute to growth in global complexity by facilitating and enabling
more intense socio-economic activity.
The PSC response’s choices regarding community transportation illustrates the
dialectic. The de-emphasis of the automobile certainly gives communities the
opportunity to disengage from complex global networks of energy and resource
consumption. Concentrating populations and creating bicycle and pedestrian
infrastructure is a much simpler approach to transportation than encouraging the
personal automobile and is less costly in energy and resource terms (Dempsey, Brown,
& Bramley, 2012). The range of social activities that are enabled through bicycles and
pedestrians – as well as public transportation systems – is far smaller and more limited
than what automobiles enable. Yet there are unintended, countervailing effects on
complexity that arise from the combination of themes that de-emphasize the
automobile. Concentrating populations in dense patterns is less effective at lowering a
community’s carbon output than anticipated. This is due to the intensification of land
use and the increased interactions with external communities that dense settlement
patterns enable (Clark, 2013; Elliott & Clement, 2014; Melia, Parkhurst, & Barton,
2011). Carbon emissions are not equivalent to complexity, but the two are related
through energy utilization. The analysis indicates that there are trade-offs between the
PSC response’s local community development propositions and the overall effect on
mitigating global complexity.
Similarly, the approach taken by the PSC response to promote local economic
activity could confront and mitigate global complexity, or it could exacerbate it.
Limiting Big Box stores that sell goods produced and delivered through complex
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global economic networks effectively withdraws community support for those
networks and opens space for local economic interests. This has a positive impact on
global complexity. On the other hand, extra-communal interests may fill the
commercial void left by Big Box stores. When dense, mixed-use developments are
constructed, the commercial space could conceivably be occupied by businesses
selling goods produced through global economic networks. Walmart, for example, is
currently experimenting with smaller, more neighborly stores in dense urban
environments (Wahba, 2014). Furthermore, dense, mixed-use developments could
actually increase retail opportunities to communities, easing access to spaces of
consumption and catalyzing further growth in complexity.
The PSC response merits both commendation and criticism for its choice of
technologies to solve problems. Simple, low-tech solutions such as planting trees are
proposed for dealing with the challenges of heating and cooling homes. Similarly,
rainwater barrels, permeable paving, and green roofs are simpler solutions to
stormwater runoff than gutter and sewer systems. Yet the PSC response is also liable
to attempt to solve problems through more advanced, techno-fix solutions, further
contributing to growth in complexity and energy and resource utilization. In Media,
for example, the planning consultant’s proposal for a real-time app for locating open
parking spaces is the type of advanced enabling technology that can further entrench
the automobile into the transportation system. It is a techno-fix solution that removes
limits and bestows convenience to the user, and in a Jevon’s Paradox manner, could
conceivably increase automobile transportation and energy utilization because
motorists are no longer deterred from driving by the difficulty of finding a parking
space.
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Despite the uncertainty regarding the PSC response’s ability to effectively
confront global complexity in certain areas of development, there are other areas
where the results are unambiguously positive. Local agriculture creates a more selfreliant community, one that avoids unnecessary levels of complexity and energy
utilization characteristic of industrialized global food production and distribution
(McClintock, 2010). The use of locally sourced natural building materials achieves a
similar effect on community networks of consumption and global complexity (Rees,
2009).
The analysis offered above indicates a high level of uncertainty over the
cumulative impact of the PSC response on global complexity. Like the process of
urbanization, which proponents argue reduces aggregate energy and resource
consumption even though these claims are contradicted by research, the PSC response
can be criticized for facilitating and ultimately increasing energy and resource
consumption through the design of more efficient and globally integrated socioeconomic systems (York, Rosa, & Dietz, 2003). There are PSC development
proposals that mitigate growth in complexity by withdrawing support for the activities
that contribute to its maintenance. There are also PSC proposals that could exacerbate
growth in complexity. The net impact is undoubtedly a function of land use and
spatial design, but also a function of choices regarding important areas such as support
for self-reliant local economies, confronting high levels of material consumption, and
the use of simple technologies to resolve public problems. This critique is consistent
with past analyses of urbanization and sustainability planning (Neuman, 2005). The
implication is that global complexity is unlikely to be reversed through planning
alone; reformist planning must be accompanied by a parallel transformation in
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community values and choices such as the prioritization of local foodsheds. Absent
this transformation in the community, the PSC response can conceivably be
interpreted as a facilitator of global complexity.
8.5
Evaluating the Transition Movement Response
When the themes comprising the Transition Movement response are analyzed
according to the criteria of technological independence and self-governance, they
deliver positive and encouraging results, although self-governance is somewhat
limited. However, there is very little in the Transition Movement response that
addresses the challenge of distributive equity and this is a major concern. The
evaluation that follows offers deeper insights into these claims.
8.5.1
Technological Independence
The Transition Movement response contains a number of themes that have a
direct impact on a community’s level and intensity of technological independence.
The most important and consequential is reskilling. In Chapter 2 technology was
reconceptualized as pedagogical practice to enable productive, social activity (Section
2.5.1). Viewing technology through this lens reveals an extremely close relationship
between technology and the Transition Movement’s reskilling process. Reskilling
involves individuals sharing their productive knowledge, crafts, and skills with other
community members. It transpires through speeches, workshops, demonstrations, and
other educational methods. Many of the skills that are shared are put into practice
with the intent of producing something useful. For example, gardening skills are
shared to build a community’s food production capacity. Food preservation skills are
shared to achieve similar results. It would be incorrect to declare an equivalence
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between technology and reskilling and one must acknowledge that there are nontechnical skills that Transition groups share with each other – conflict resolution and
various cultural skills, for example. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the two concepts
– technology and reskilling – are intimately related and the reskilling process can be
reasonably reframed as technological practice.
This connection between reskilling and technology is relevant to a community
technological independence. There is technology and technological know-how
involved in each of the skills shared in Transition communities (Section 6.4.3.2), and
there is a distinct qualitative characteristic to the types of technologies expressed and
employed in the reskilling process. Examples include mason jars, bicycles, spinning
wheels, rainwater barrels, solar ovens, raised beds, scythes, rocket stoves, and knitting
needles. The distinct characteristic to the technologies involved in the reskilling
process is that mostly technologies are of the “small is beautiful” type (Schumacher,
1973). They are low-energy, decentralized, appropriate technologies that allow for
personal creative expression to produce useful goods. The technologies are simple
and effective. They enable the consumer to double as the empowered producer and
are a practical response to Ivan Illich’s (1973) plea for communities to employ
“convivial tools” and break through the radical monopoly of industrial mass
production. With reskilling, Transition communities build homegrown technological
capacity and enable themselves to become more self-reliant by using appropriate
technologies, thus increasing their independence from advanced technologies and
technological systems.
The Transition Movement response is not an anti-technology approach to
development. Initiatives make technological decisions that they believe will enhance
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their economic development objectives. Technologies that are human-powered, or
require small amounts of external energy inputs, are preferred. Additional
characteristics of the types of technologies that are attractive for the Transition
Movement response are those that can be manufactured and repaired locally, those that
are simple, and those than enhance local self-reliance (Hopkins, 2011a). Far from
being a neo-Luddite development strategy, the Transition Movement response
exercises careful technological choice and agency.
The energy descent and energy transformation theme can also strengthen
technological independence. The fossil fuel energy that is used in communities is
delivered to them through an exceptionally complicated technological system of
production and distribution. Fossil fuel energy extraction technologies remove the
resources from the land, international shipping and transportation technologies move
the energy around the planet, industrial oil refineries process crude oil, centralized
power plants convert fossil fuels into electricity which is then transmitted through a
vast network of wires, cables, and transformers. Independence from each of these
technological systems is increased as the community takes concrete steps to diminish
its overall consumption of energy. Independence from energy-related technologies is
never eliminated entirely however even though the Transition Movement response
seeks to shift to a renewable energy system. After a Transition community takes steps
and exhausts its efforts to energy descend, the remainder of the energy demanded will
ideally be met by solar panels, wind turbines, battery, and electric grid infrastructure.
As with the PSC response, it must be noted that each of these advanced green energy
technologies are produced and delivered through complex global relationships and
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even those communities fully satisfying their energy needs via renewable systems
remain dependent upon these advanced technologies.
In much the same way that energy descent improves conditions of
technological independence, so too does the theme of economic localization. In
Media, for example, projects such as the FreeStore, FreeMarket, and Share/Swap
Facebook page help the community maintain a functioning local economy without
having to engage in external production networks (Friedman, 2005; Harvey, 1989).
Similarly, local agriculture in the Transition Movement achieves an identical effect on
technological independence as it does in the PSC movement (Section 8.3.1).
Producing food locally using organic and permacultural techniques substitutes for the
advanced technologies and technological systems that the global agriculture industry
employs to produce, prepare, package, deliver, store, and sell food to consumers.
8.5.2
Self-Governance
In terms of self-governance, much of what the Transition Movement theorizes
and practices is intended to strengthen a community’s ability to self-govern its own
affairs, energies, and resources. There are Transition Movement themes that support
this position, but only at the margins of social and human resources rather than
physical energies and resources. For example, the economic localization strategy is
designed to move the community into a stronger, more autonomous position with
respect to developing home-grown and self-administered goods and services.
Community members can visit FreeStores, patronize Farmers Markets, swap material
goods, or exchange services through platforms such as local Time Banks. Each of
these economic localization programs allows the community to exert some level of
control over how local energy and resources are spent or consumed, especially human
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and social resources. These sorts of collaborative consumption and economic
localization projects, programs, and events are created, organized, and managed by
Transition initiatives and their activists. This gives the community more power to set
goals and modify how the programs are run in order to achieve desired outcomes, all
of which suggests that the Transition Movement’s development theory and practice
enhances community self-governance. It is worth repeating, however, that the scope
of governing local resources is mainly limited to human and social resources such as
labor rather than physical energy and resources such as land and water; hence the
claim that the Transition Movement response enhances community self-governance
but only at the margins.
Similarly, the community building theme complements the economic
localization theme as it relates to local self-governance. Open Space Technology
events and strategic planning meetings are informal forums where Transition members
create a space for debate and dialogue on how best to manage, appropriate, and spend
local energy and resources. In Open Space Technology events – which contrary to the
title employs virtually no technology – attendees self-organize into groups, discuss
topics important to then, move about freely to other groups to listen to what others are
talking about, engage in dialogue, and repeat the process multiple times (Hopkins,
2008; Owen, 2008). During the Open Space event, people will naturally and
organically gravitate towards the groups that are discussing and debating the most
important and relevant issues. The Open Space process, like the strategic planning
meetings held annually in Media, allows all interested individuals to assemble and
debate the course of action for the group. These are established methods for selfgoverning and determining how locally available energy and resources should be
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spent. Again, it must be noted that it is primarily human and social resources, not the
physical resources such as land and water that might be present in the community.
Similar to what was noted above about economic localization programs, the Transition
Movement’s Open Space and strategic planning processes only moves communities
towards self-governance at the margins, rather than comprehensively through
administrative control of publicly owned and managed resources.
The major reason why Transition initiatives can only operate on the fringes of
self-governance and why they fail to penetrate into a deeper level of control is because
the movement intentionally self-limits through its theme of maintaining a politically
neutral relationship with local governments. By making the conscious decision to
avoid contentious or divisive politics, the Transition Movement allows local and
institutional policy-making and implementation to proceed according to the status quo.
Importantly, major policy areas operating through the local scale cover critical selfgovernance dimensions such as natural resource management and control, land use,
and development planning. The opportunity is there to exert stronger demands for
self-governance yet action is not taken because of the political limitation that
Transition imposes on its development response.
8.5.3
Distributive Equity
The themes of the Transition Movement response could combine together in
ways that produce inequitable outcomes. This is a serious danger that the movement
has yet to confront or recognize as a possibility. Specifically, the combination of the
economic localization, energy descent, and reskilling themes can lead to a skewing of
costs and benefits for certain development activities and create an inequitable division
of skills and labor. Elements of the community building theme are also susceptible to
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generating inequitable development processes and outcomes because power relations
can become biased in favor of certain powerful groups. The Transition Movement
response can also create inequities between communities by interpreting the economic
localization and resilience building themes as permission to disengage from wider
society and sever ties with other communities, including those that are supported by
and dependent upon close economic relations with Transitioning communities.
In an economically localized, reskilled, and low-carbon community, the skills
and labor to perform certain tasks could fall on specific groups or classes of
individuals within the community. This directly raises concerns over division of skills
and labor outcomes that individuals living in socially liberal democracies would
consider inappropriate and inequitable. For example, local food production is a major
component of Transition’s development strategy yet the simple and time consuming
work associated with animal husbandry could fall to young adults and children, as it
does in many parts of the world where animal husbandry is common. This may limit
school attendance (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013). Similarly, sexual
division of manual skills, technology use, and physical labor could become more
pronounced in a low-carbon, low-energy future where local economic activity and
cottage industries satisfy community needs. In many parts of the developing world
that lack access to high quality energy supplies, cooking, cleaning, and childrearing is
almost exclusively performed by women. Men are merchants, functionaries, and
business owners. It should therefore be acknowledged that modern conceptions and
the practices of socially liberal arrangements, which are highly valued ways of life in
the parts of the world where the Transition Movement is popular, are at risk of
reorganization in a powered down, low-carbon, reskilled, and economically localized
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future (Quilley, 2013). A quote from an interviewee offered in Section 6.4.2 can be
reassessed in light of this critique:
It’s easy to distance yourself from what happens with production and
consumption. The end consumer doesn’t see the process, doesn’t
necessarily see the despoiled land where the raw stuff is harvested, or
the sweatshops where child labor is treated abysmally making products
that we are consuming. By keeping production more local, and
consumption, there’s less of a psychological distancing of the cause and
effect of what your choices are as a consumer and how you live your
life... [You] wouldn’t allow somebody to abuse and take advantage of
the labor because again, it’s not far away. It’s your neighbor that this is
happening to.
The second half of this quote – the idea that inequalities and injustices will not be
tolerated by community members simply because economic activity is localized –
cannot be taken as self-evident.
Second, the potential exists for distributive inequities to surface during the
deliberative processes organized around the community building theme. To build
community while simultaneously making decisions on development plans and
directions, Transition proposes events like Open Space Technology and strategic
planning meetings. Yet inequitable practices and outcomes in these community
building events can occur when powerful individuals are able to bend, coerce, or
otherwise unreasonably influence others to follow their preferred course of action.
Transition’s embrace of Open Space Technology, as a communal method for enabling
civic dialogue leading to decision-making and action, is vulnerable to these types of
inequitable inner-group dynamics. One of the rules of Open Space Technology is that
“whatever happens is the only thing that could have” (Owen, 2008). Transition
idealizes a frictionless processes of civic dialogue which prevents the movement from
seeing the power imbalances that can arise in these discursive environments (Fraser,
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1990). Those with power (social, monetary, material, epistemological, etc.) and
rhetorical skills could slant decisions and outcomes to their advantage. This is a
feature of any deliberative decision-making process, but at least in modern democratic
institutions, there is a formal system of checks and balances to ensure that these power
relations do not generate excessive inequalities. The Transition Movement response
does not have an equivalent system. Faith is placed in precarious and passive
approaches such as Owen’s rule that “whatever happens is the only thing that could
have” and Hopkins’ (2008, p. 172) recommendation that each Transition group should
“let [their initiative] go where it wants to go.”
This approach to decision-making opens the potential for deliberative
processes and the costs and benefits of development outcomes to become inequitably
distributed. Observational evidence gathered during this research identified the
presence of power relations in Transition Town Media’s planning processes. At an
annual strategic planning meeting, a small percentage of the most active and
prominent attendees tended to manage the entire discussion while others who were
less well known were more passive. The few vocal attendees set the agenda,
determined the terms of the deliberative process, and disproportionately contributed to
and influenced the strategies for community development and use of the initiatives’
limited resources. Many attendees barely contributed to the collective discussion, and
those that controlled the proceedings did little to actively solicit their perspective.
Thus where the Media initiative “wants to go” is not necessarily a natural, organic,
free-floating direction devoid of personal values and power relations.
Distributive equity is further complicated by the fact that the Transition
Movement response itself is demographically isolated. The movement has been
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criticized as an exclusive development space for white, affluent communities (Alloun
& Alexander, 2014; Chatterton & Cutler, 2008; Seyfang, 2009). Observations taken
during this inquiry strongly support the claim that the Transition Movement response
is populated with white, highly educated, upper-middle class individuals. The
critiques by Chatterton and Cutler (2008), Seyfang (2009), and Alloun and Alexander
(2014) further argue that Transition initiatives and the privileged demographics that
participate within them are taking an advanced position for a post-carbon future while
the less well-off struggle with systemic marginalization and unhealthy environments.
This critique aligns with a parallel criticism of the ecological modernization
development theory which argues that only affluent populations who endure a period
of dirty and inequitable development are able to accumulate the necessary wealth to
afford clean environmental conditions, while the systemically marginalized are
excluded from participation (Harvey, 1996, Chapter 13). One must therefore take
seriously the possibility that the Transition Movement response, with themes like
economic localization, resilience building, energy transformation, and reskilling, could
further entrench present inequities if it remains a movement of and for the privileged,
white, upper-middle class.
Achieving equitable access to power and decision-making across racial
demographics is also a challenge. As noted above, the vast majority of Transition
activists are white, and this lack of racial diversity in the movement is not lost on those
who participate. At the 2012 annual strategic planning meeting in Media, a participant
commented to the thirty attendees that everyone present was white and that he felt
very uncomfortable planning for the future with such a racially homogeneous group
when over 10% of the wider Media community is non-white. The other attendees
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agreed and several of them commented that achieving racial diversity was critical to
bringing about an equitable transition. Yet despite the unanimous agreement that
racial homogeneity was a problem for Transition in general and for Transition Town
Media in particular, no strategies were offered for how to resolve the problem.
In addition to the distributive inequities that can arise within Transitioning
communities, inequity between communities is also a concern. Mason and Whitehead
(2012) write that given the current embeddedness of global economic relations, the
economic localization theme severs ties with spatially distant communities, for
example those in the developing world that rely upon international exports, and risks
further impoverishment of those communities. Porter and Davoudi (2012) criticize a
resilience-centered strategy for community development by arguing that like
sustainability, a depoliticized expression of resilience can be employed to justify any
end point depending on how it is interpreted within development logic. They write
that building resilience in practice, especially when it is aligned with an economic
localization program, is a “slippery slope to a neoliberal discourse of ‘self-reliance’”
and can be used to justify “directions that demonize those people and places who are
deemed to be ‘just not resilient enough’” (Porter & Davoudi, 2012, p. 331). One
Transition activist who was not formally interviewed for this research made a
comment during a meeting that Transition communities should consider constructing
fortress-like structures around a central gardening area. As this activist’s views
demonstrate, the self-reliance themes of economic localization and resilience building,
if they are interpreted in the absence of broadly understood equity principles, can be
twisted to rationalize a lifeboat ethic (Hardin, 1974).
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Lastly, Transition’s theme of political neutrality can be interpreted as a barrier
to achieving equitable development outcomes. Equity is not a condition that can be
achieved simply through passive concern, theorizing, and lip service (Agyeman, 2005;
Barry, 2012; Harvey, 2012). Achieving an equitable distribution of costs and benefits
requires advocacy and the willingness to struggle in the search for fairness. This
demands, at some level, contentious political engagement and debate. It also requires
an acceptance that what is considered equitable, not to mention the strategies to
achieve these outcomes, are contestable and potentially divisive. Assuming a neutral
and non-confrontational attitude toward political debates limits the ability of the
Transition Movement response to achieve a fairer distribution of resources as well as
the costs and benefits of its development activities.
8.6
Analysis of the Transition Movement Response
When viewed holistically, and when the balance of strengths and weaknesses
is measured, the Transition Movement response is a viable and effective strategy for
community development. The themes in the response are motivated by the triple
threat of peak oil, climate change, and macroeconomic instability – all problems that
are fundamentally linked to and exacerbated by the consequences of global
complexity. The Transition Movement response therefore addresses complexityrelated impacts at the community-scale, although there is room for improvement. In
addition, the response is an effective and viable community development strategy for
confronting and mitigating the growth in complexity at the global level.
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8.6.1
Addressing Community Impacts of Complexity
Significant improvements are made in the areas of technological independence
and self-governance. Specifically, the reskilling theme is an immensely powerful and
direct method for liberating communities from advanced technologies. Likewise, the
energy descent and economic localization are themes strengthen technological
independence. The analysis shows that community-building is integral to the
Transition Movement response’s process of self-governance, especially in terms of
decision-making, although the theme of political neutrality limits Transition’s
prospects for governing public resources. However, like the PSC response, the
dialectic qualities of the Transition Movement’s themes measure poorly when
evaluated for improvements in distributive equity outcomes. To avoid this latent
potentiality, the Transition Movement must first acknowledge the potential for
inequitable outcomes so that a conversation can begin on incorporating corrective
measures into the response.
In terms of equitable development processes and outcomes, the Transition
Movement fails to incorporate measures to ensure a fairer distribution of resources,
costs, and benefits. The argument that communities should avoid complete
disengagement from society because inequities occur, applies to the Transition
Movement response (Mason & Whitehead, 2012; Porter & Davoudi, 2012). There is
undoubtedly a discourse and practice of self-reliance permeating the Transition
Movement response’s community development efforts and the following statement
from an interviewee identifies the tension between self-reliance and equity:
It’s a double edged sword because once you’re able to do things, it can
be permission to be isolating, or isolated. Like, “I don’t need anyone to
help me because I can do everything.” I think it’s very important that
we not swing in that direction.
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In the eight years since its emergence, the Transition Movement response has
yet to engage in an internal, reflexive, and broad-based dialogue about the distributive
equity implications of its community development themes (Jonet & Servigne, 2013).
Transition can therefore be criticized for privileging an optimistic and utopian vision
of a local and resilient community at the expense of a nuanced understanding of the
potential inequitable consequences. Aside from the interviewee’s statement above
which identifies the dialectic between equity and the combination of themes that foster
self-reliance, the wider movement has yet to fully acknowledge the potential for
inequitable outcomes. The Transition Companion, the follow up to The Transition
Handbook, does make a number of references to the importance of thinking about
social justice, although the comments are cursory and they provide very little
substantive content as to what equity means or how it is practiced (Hopkins, 2011a).
It is therefore vital that the Transition Movement response initiate a self-reflexive
dialogue about the fair distribution of the costs and benefits of its community
development strategy. Acknowledging and discussing this potential problem is the
first step towards its resolution. The Inner Transition (or Heart & Soul) aspect of
Transition included in the community building theme is a logical and appropriate
place for initiating this conversation.
The Transition Movement response should also reevaluate its theme of
political neutrality. The equitable distribution of resource access and the costs and
benefits of development are not naturally occurring outcomes of development. Active
political struggle and advocacy in the search for fairness is essential to achieving more
equitable conditions. The Transition Movement response, by assuming a non-
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confrontational position of political neutrality, erects an ideological barrier to
engaging in debates and actions that could enhance equity.
Despite the equity-focused critique offered above, empirical evidence suggests
that the beneficial outcomes of Transition-related development activities can be
equitably distributed. The most active and engaged participants in Transition Town
Media are middle to upper-middle class residents so the equity-focused critique would
posit that these residents will disproportionately receive the benefits of the initiative’s
actions while the costs are borne by lower-class and minority residents. Observational
evidence obtained during this research offers a contradictory account. In Media, the
economic localization theme is manifested in programs such as the FreeMarket and
FreeStore. Observations indicate that like Goodwill and Salvation Army thrift stores,
these Transition Town Media programs are a significant benefit to low-income
community members who may not have disposable income to spend on basic material
goods. This is not an unintended effect of the FreeMarket and FreeStore projects
because they were consciously designed from the beginning to benefit all members of
the community, but especially the low-income residents of Media. While one main
objective for the FreeStore and FreeMarket projects is to create a cleaner environment
by recycling and reusing consumer goods, these programs were also created with the
explicit objective of achieving a more equitable distribution of those same goods.
Another example of how the Transition Movement response’s programs can achieve
equitable outcomes is seen in the Delaware Hour Exchange. The Delaware Hour
Exchange is a Time Bank created by the Transition initiative in Wilmington, DE and
the organizers waive the $30 subscription fee for any individual that cannot afford to
pay but who still wishes to participate. This evidence demonstrates that the Transition
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Movement response can achieve equitable outcomes across economic classes if
programs, projects, and activities are initially designed and implemented with an
equity-centered focus.
8.6.2
Mitigating Growth in Global Complexity
The Transition Movement response is an effective approach to confronting and
mitigating global complexity. The response aims to create more self-reliant
communities where local systems of production substitute for goods and services
delivered through global economic networks. In addition, the response is mindful of
the consequences of solving problems through advanced, techno-fix solutions and
chooses simpler, more appropriate technologies instead.
By aiming to become more self-reliant in the production and consumption of
goods and services, the Transition Movement response withholds community
contributions to global complexity. Economic localization programs, for instance the
Media FreeStore and FreeMarket, directly confront global complexity by giving
communities the opportunity to disconnect from global economic networks. As with
the PSC response, the promotion of local food systems helps communities avoid
unnecessary levels of complexity and energy utilization by eliminating connections to
expansive food production and distribution regimes. The response encourages
communities to reduce consumption of energy by engaging in energy descent action
planning and implementation, thus diminishing the amount of energy available to
maintain global complexity. The Transition Movement response therefore confronts
global complexity directly and mitigates its continued growth.
The Transition Movement response, through reskilling, makes technological
choices that have a positive impact on global complexity. Reskilling and employing
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appropriate technology is a problem-solving strategy. When Hopkins (2008, p. 167)
discusses reskilling he frames the practice in explicit problem solving terms by writing
that reskilling should “give people a sense of the power of solving problems, of
practically doing things rather than just talking about them.” Hopkins goes on to
discuss the qualitative aspects of technology will help Transition communities best
resolve the problems they face. He begins by posing the following question: “When
choosing technologies to underpin Transition, how can we best avoid those that result
in more dependency on distant supply chains and unnecessary levels of complexity?”
(Hopkins, 2011a, p. 262). He answers his question by stating:
As far as possible, keep it simple. Choose technologies that can be
made or repaired locally, which you understand, and where you can see
the supply chain for parts; ensuring that they bring social, economic,
and community benefits to the area.
Appropriate technologies, coupled with the skills necessary to use them, are able to
satisfy this criteria for technological choice. Transition initiatives are able to
“avoid...unnecessary levels of complexity,” and by extension unnecessary
consumption of energy and resources, by solving problems with reskilling and
appropriate technology.
This is a vital counter-example to a key element of Tainter’s theory of
complexity (Barnes & Alexander, 2015). Tainter argues that when problems are
faced, the typical and deterministic problem-solving strategy is for societies to
increase in complexity (Tainter, 1996). Transition’s problem-solving-throughsimplification strategy therefore represents a Popperian (2002) falsification of this
deterministic component of Tainter’s theory. The implications of this counterexample
are profound because the response demonstrates that groups of individuals can
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collectively exercise agency and solve the problems they face without pursuing a path
of ever increasing complexity.
There is a self-limiting characteristic to appropriate technologies as well.
Viewing technology as an enabler illuminates a clear difference between appropriate
technologies made useful through skilled labor and advanced technologies
representative of global complexity. Unlike advanced technologies that enable
humans to exceed and transcend a wide range of physical and mental limitations,
appropriate technologies enable a much narrower course of social action. Appropriate
technologies set limits on what the community can accomplish, especially in terms of
energy and resource production and consumption. Unlike advanced technologies that
enable the transcendence of limits and growth in complexity, appropriate technologies,
which are integral to voluntary simplicity, are a major barrier to increasing complexity
(Elgin, 1981; Gregg, 1936).
8.7
Conclusion
This chapter explored the PSC and Transition Movement responses for their
ability to effectively address the local community impacts of global complexity, as
well as their ability to confront and mitigate complexity at the global scale. Themes in
each response were analyzed for their ability to enhance technological independence
for communities, increase their ability to self-govern and make autonomous decisions
about their development trajectories, and foster equitable distributions of resources,
costs, and benefits. The analysis demonstrates that the two responses offer mixed and
sometimes conflicting outcomes, but overall both responses lead to improved
conditions for communities. With respect to the responses’ effectiveness in
confronting and mitigating complexity, the PSC response is not as viable as the
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Transition Movement response because the former’s countervailing impacts are more
dialectical in nature.
The PSC response takes steps to improve technological independence in
communities. It does this with themes of mixed-use and transit oriented development,
local agricultural promotion, and suggestions for constructing a built environment
using locally available materials while designing simple solutions to man-made
problems such as stormwater runoff. However, there are themes like green collar jobs
and technological solutions like a real-time parking app that could, in the end,
exacerbate a community’s dependency on advanced technological systems. Selfgovernance is strengthened because the PSC response solicits community input and
knowledge during the planning process to determine the most appropriate
development trajectory. To a lesser extent, the themes of local agriculture, limits on
Big Box retail store development, reform of building codes to allow sustainable
materials and renewable energy development, and historic preservation also give
communities a platform to self-govern. For distributive equity, the PSC response
emphasizes the importance of offering all community members access to healthy and
affordable housing and maintaining a strong, local economic base against the power of
Big Box and extra-local business interests. During the planning process, equity is
enhanced when the response allows the collective voice of the community to influence
the direction for development. Yet this opens a window for powerful groups to
dominate planning proceedings, and inequities can occur if the public participation
process is conducted passively and no effort is made to incorporate the diversity of
voices in the community. Furthermore, when the PSC response succeeds in delivering
a clean, transit-friendly, mixed-use environment, market forces create price premiums
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on housing and other basic goods which negatively impact the equitable distribution of
those same goods.
For the Transition Movement response, the themes were evaluated favorably
for their enhancement of community technological independence. The economic
localization, community building, reskilling, and energy descent and transformation
themes all have positive consequences for community embeddedness in advanced
technologies and technological systems. By producing and consuming locally, the
Transition Movement response disentangles communities from the fragile networks
they currently rely on for their livelihoods. There are themes within the Transition
Movement response that promote community self-governance of local resources –
such as the community building theme and its process of civic dialogue through Open
Space Technology events. Economic localization and programs like Time Banking
also offer a platform for communities to self-govern their resources. However, the
resources that are governed are mainly social and human resources such as labor rather
than physical resources. The theme of political neutrality is a limitation to selfgovernance, thus the Transition Movement response succeeds in enhancing
community self-governance but only to an extent and only at the margins. Finally,
Transition has not acknowledged the possible inequities that can occur in communities
that successfully adopt and implement its development strategy. One inequity that is
prevalent in economically localized, reskilled, and low-energy communities involves
divisions of labor between age groups and sexes. Further inequities can arise through
the community building theme when initiatives engage in deliberative planning
processes. Power relations between community members or between groups in the
community can become skewed and coercive, particularly in discursive environments
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like Open Space Technology events and strategic planning sessions, thus leading to
inequitable outcomes. Finally, communities that are “just not resilient enough” can
experience hardships if Transitioning communities sever ties – particularly
economically vital ties – in their quest for economic localization and resilience
building. However, the Transition Town Media initiative demonstrates that equitable
distributions of resources can occur when projects like the FreeStore are designed with
equity in mind.
The analysis shows that there are elements of both responses that are laudable
while others warrant criticism. Both responses improve community conditions when
evaluated against the criteria of technological independence and self-governance. Yet
with respect to an equitable distribution of resources, costs, and benefits, the responses
leave open the possibility for nominal improvements and perhaps even digression. In
terms of the balance of strengths and weaknesses, each response offers a marked
improvement over the status quo.
With respect to their effectiveness in confronting and mitigating global
complexity directly, the Transition Movement response offers greater promise than the
PSC response. On the one hand, the PSC response proposes development actions that
could positively impact global complexity – dense, bicycle and pedestrian-friendly,
mixed-use structures and living conditions for example. On the other hand, these
proposals could exacerbate global complexity depending on how they are interpreted
and implemented. Furthermore, when problems are encountered in the PSC response,
both advanced and appropriate technologies are offered as solutions. These dialectic,
conflicting relationships within the PSC response generate uncertainty about its
ultimate ability to confront and mitigate global complexity.
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The Transition Movement response offers a much clearer and direct challenge
to global complexity by emphasizing community self-reliance. Unambiguous
emphasis is placed on the importance of creating local systems of production and
consumption so that communities can begin to disentangle themselves from global
economic networks. In addition, the response explicitly encourages communities to
solve problems with appropriate technologies; avoiding advanced techno-fixes and
further limiting growth in global complexity. A summary of the analysis is presented
in Table 8.1.
Table 8.1:
Analysis outcome matrix
PSC
Response
Transition
Movement
Response
Improve
Technological
Independence
Countervailing
outcomes, but
net positive
Highly
positive
outcomes
Strengthen
SelfGovernance
Highly positive
outcomes
Enhance
Distributive
Equity
Countervailing
outcomes, with
high risk of
deepening
inequities
Positive
Theoretical
outcomes, but
potential for
severely limited negative
in scope
outcomes, but
highly positive
in practice
Mitigate
Global
Complexity
Countervailing
outcomes, net
effect
uncertain
Highly positive
outcomes
In the concluding chapter, this inquiry evaluates the capacities of each
response to achieve their desired outcomes, particularly with respect to local politics
and policy-making authority. The analysis explores whether or not the PSC and
Transition Movement responses can actually deliver the improvements identified in
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this chapter or whether they are merely quaint, idyllic models of community
development with very little capacity to effect real change. The chapter also discusses
the recommendations for how the two responses can collaborate to achieve mutually
desired outcomes.
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Chapter 9
CHANGING DIRECTIONS
9.1
Introduction
This inquiry proposes the thesis that community development, as it is currently
conceived and implemented, poses significant challenges to social and environmental
systems at both the local and global scales. Accommodating global complexity and its
forces no longer justifies the costs incurred. New, alternative development strategies
are needed to address worsening conditions. Two alternatives – the Planning
Sustainable Communities and Transition Movement development responses – were
identified and analyzed as potential options for meeting the challenge. After weighing
their respective strengths and weaknesses, the analysis demonstrates that both
responses offer effective and viable strategies to confront the community-level
impacts of global complexity. Furthermore, the Transition Movement response gives
communities the opportunity to mitigate growth in global complexity.
Yet while PSC and the Transition Movement can potentially offer net positive
benefits to communities, they must be capable of materializing the expected outcomes
through successful implementation. This chapter analyzes the capacity of the two
responses to effect change and it highlights areas where they can work together to
achieve shared goals. A point of tension within the Transition Movement – the desire
for political neutrality versus real policy barriers to achieving desired outcomes – is
explored. The chapter also discusses areas where the PSC and Transition Movement
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responses overlap and it articulates strategies for working together to achieve shared
goals through public policy and administrative efforts.
9.2
Capacity for Change
Unless the responses are able to effect meaningful change in real-world
communities, the positive outcomes would remain unfulfilled potentialities. The
ability to create concrete results by transforming those potentialities into reality is
vital. It is therefore essential to determine whether the responses can deliver their
predicted outcomes. Can the PSC and Transition Movement responses translate their
promised benefits into real-world action and create the expected outcomes?
Each response’s capacity to effect change at the community level is
investigated and analyzed. To determine whether the responses possess the capacity
to deliver the predicted outcomes, the avenues through which they initiate and
implement their recommendations, programs, and activities are examined. The
analysis demonstrates that for the PSC response, the capacity for change is high
because the response is often initiated and implemented through local governments
who hold tremendous authority to shift public policy directions. For the Transition
Movement response, the theoretical capacity for change is low because it is exercised
and implemented through bottom-up committed action of community members who
have limited time and resources to spend on volunteer efforts. The Transition
Movement response’s theme of political neutrality is a significant barrier to increasing
its capacity.
In reality, however, the level of political activity exhibited by the Transition
Movement response is much higher than expected for a supposedly politically neutral
movement. Evidence collected during this inquiry shows that some Transition
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initiatives are pushing the boundaries of the political neutrality theme, to the point that
certain groups are discarding the theme altogether. Many Transition activists around
the United States are deeply involved in policy advocacy in their communities, with
some individuals running for and winning seats in local council elections. This
suggests that the Transition Movement response is itself in transition; shifting its
tactics for implementing change through do-it-ourselves, politically neutral action into
direct political engagement with local governing institutions. It also suggests that the
Transition Movement response’s capacity to effect change and deliver positive
outcomes – at least for politically active initiatives – is greater than previously
assumed.
9.2.1
Capacity of the PSC Response
The PSC response enjoys capacity to effect change because the channel
through which the response is initiated and implemented is local institutional
governing bodies; local councils, administrators, and managers. Local municipal
governments possess the authority – and in certain cases a mandate – to solicit,
legislate, and execute the recommendations offered by planners and advocates of the
PSC response. Local governments have the tremendously powerful ability to shift
policy directions, mobilize public resources, and make large financial investments in
community development efforts. Quite simply, local governments are integral
components of the PSC response because they are the bodies that generate its capacity
to effect change (Hoch, 1995).
It was argued in Section 4.3.3 that professional practicing planners are the core
of the PSC response because they possess the essential expertise and skills to craft
sustainability-oriented plans. Planners drive the PSC response forward, but their
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authority can be limited to the front end of the process and can ebb considerably when
conceptual plans, like comprehensive plans, are completed. For instance, a consultant
from Simone Collins stated during an interview that the borough council should look
to create an independent task force to oversee the plan’s implementation. Professional
planning consultants are advisory only and while they work closely with decisionmakers in government, they have no legal authority to transform their plans into
reality. They provide guidance and recommendations, and it is the responsibility of
local governing institutions to mobilize the resources to implement whatever
recommendations are ultimately proposed (Cullingworth & Caves, 2014).
For example, land acquisition for public use, which is a recommendation
frequently offered by the PSC response, requires local governments to spend the
public’s financial resources to purchase, secure, and maintain the land (Beatley &
Manning, 1997). A consultant on the Media plan stated:
We are planners. We are policymakers but we are not legislators. If
you really want to change things, run for public office. They really
have power.
Local governments are the heart of the PSC response’s capacity to effect change, and
it possible that they fail to act and implement a plan. On the one hand, the execution
of any community development plan, like a comprehensive plan, can be blocked from
implementation if local governing institutions ask for and receive a plan created by the
PSC response but, for whatever reason, fail to take further action. On the other hand,
attentive and motivated governments can initiate the drafting of a PSC response plan
and use their authority to adopt it, pool resources, and transform the plan’s ideas,
designs, and concepts into reality.
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The 2014 comprehensive plan update in Media is representative of the manner
in which local governments give transformative capacity to the PSC response; how
governments ask for and receive the input of planners on the trajectory of community
development and, importantly, seek to implement the PSC response’s
recommendations. Section 301(c) of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code
requires all municipalities in the state to update their comprehensive plans at least
once every ten years (State of Pennsylvania, 1968). To satisfy the state-level mandate,
in 2013 the Media borough government hired Simone Collins planning consultants
who have a reputation for incorporating sustainability principles into their work
(Simone Collins, n.d.). The borough council and administration solicited the planning
expertise and skills of Simone Collins to map out a progressive community
development direction – the end result is a comprehensive plan that is clearly
representative of the PSC response (Chapter 5).
While there was a public consultation process that took the pulse of the
community on where and how development in Media should occur, Simone Collins’s
consultants influenced the recommendations contained in the plan. The consultants
synthesized the community vision that emerged during the public participation period
and proposed policy changes the borough government should make to achieve that
vision. But the proposals are only recommendations and represent the extent of
Simone Collins’ authority. The Media comprehensive plan is completed and
scheduled to be adopted by borough council in May, 2015. The work of Simone
Collins is essentially complete and the responsibility to implement the policy changes
will rest with Media’s formal governing institutions. At the time of writing in
February, 2015, it is impossible to empirically confirm or disconfirm the plan’s
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successful implementation, but there is a high level of confidence that the borough
government will follow through. When asked whether or not he believed Media’s
government will implement the plan, a consultant stated confidently that:
I think the people that run this town, either in the administration or the
elected officials, are both very active. The administration has a grants
administrator. They actively go out and do things. I think in Media, of
any place, they take this very seriously and they’ll look to implement it.
They’re not going to find excuses for this or that. There might be
discussion and partisan wrangling in some manner. But I think they
take it very seriously.
The capacity of the PSC response to achieve positive outcomes for
communities exists because local governments, along with their power and authority
to mobilize resources, are the implementation vehicles (Cullingworth & Caves, 2014;
Hoch, 1995). With respect to the PSC response in Media, that capacity to catalyze
socially and environmentally appropriate change now rests with the borough council
and administration. Fortunately for the Media community, if the prediction contained
in the quote above is correct, steps will be taken to exercise that capacity.
9.2.2
Capacity of Transition Movement Response
Unlike the PSC response that operates through local governing institutions, the
Transition Movement response utilizes a different strategy to effect change in
communities. The response takes a bottom-up and do-it-ourselves approach to
development. Community members and active citizens operate as a cohesive unit by
volunteering their time, and they remain functionally independent of outside
institutions and influences. Engaged community members are the preferred catalysts
for change (Aiken, 2012). This approach to effecting community change aligns with,
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and is motivated by, the theme of maintaining a politically neutral relationship with
local governments (Section 6.4.4).
There are two rather significant consequences to the Transition Movement’s
do-it-ourselves strategy for community development. The first consequence is the
scope of what can be accomplished, namely that Transition initiatives, as a simple
collection of citizens, are somewhat powerless to facilitate major transformations in
important community development areas. For instance, initiatives cannot mobilize
and expend the enormous sums of resources required to invest in local low-carbon
transportation, housing, or renewable energy infrastructure. They are also limited in
their ability to approve, reject, or otherwise influence local development proposals if
they are simply operating on an independent, do-it-ourselves basis. The second
consequence is reach. In terms of membership, the sizes of Transition initiatives in
the United States are small relative to the total populations of the communities in
which they operate. In the 2014 Transition US survey, 46% of respondents reported
that their initiative’s greatest challenge was simply attracting new members and
maintaining what few members they had. Because initiatives experience difficulty
recruiting community members to participate in their programs, the actual impact of
their do-it-ourselves action only reaches a small percentage of the total community.
Taken together, these two consequences illuminate a major weakness of the Transition
Movement’s bottom-up approach to community development: it is severely limited in
its capacity to effect change and deliver positive outcomes.
There is additional data from the 2014 Transition US survey to support the
assertion that the Transition Movement response has limited capacity to effect change
in their communities. Answers to the open-ended question, “What is your initiative’s
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greatest success?” include monthly potluck meals, the creation of a seed library, and
raising awareness about the triple threat. Each of these successes are very low impact,
although they could be due to a variety of factors such as poor leadership, volatile
inner-group dynamics, or the possibility that the initiatives are newly formed and it is
still too early to expect major successes.
Compared to most of the Transition initiatives that responded to the 2014
Transition US survey, Transition Town Media is more successful at creating and
implementing projects that advance the response’s community development agenda.
For instance, the FreeStore and FreeMarket are remarkably successful endeavors. And
according to TTM members, the Happiness Week events organized during the summer
of 2014 were greeted with much appreciation by the wider Media community. Their
success indicates that, when compared to other Transition initiatives, TTM enjoys
greater capacity to effect change and deliver positive benefits to the community.
The source of TTM’s capacity partially resides in the passion and commitment
of the initiative’s activists and the amicable, working, and cooperative relationship that
they share with each other. Media itself is a progressive community – one with active
organizations such as Quaker Meeting Houses, a Fair Trade Committee and the Media
Arts Council – and this atmosphere and culture is attractive to individuals who are
drawn to an eco-social movement like Transition. Two active members of TTM
moved to Media specifically because the borough has a thriving Transition initiative
and they wished to become involved in TTM’s efforts. Another factor that contributes
to the capacity of TTM is the relative affluence of the borough in general and TTM
members in particular. Observations made during this research indicate that many
active members of the group are financially secure and retired, meaning they can
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afford to spend more of their time advancing TTM’s development goals rather than
working to earn income for themselves and their families.
Another key factor in TTM’s capacity is the close relationship the group
cultivates with the borough government. Happiness Week was so successful in part
because of the $800 in financial assistance provided by the borough to TTM. Other
examples of where the borough government helped increase TTM’s capacity to effect
change include the borough’s decision to wave the fee when TTM uses the
Community Center, their granting permission to TTM to install a permaculture garden
on public land, and their solicitation of TTM’s conceptual ideas for the redesign of the
Verizon Building (Section 7.3.4). In each of these instances, TTM remained
committed to the theme of maintaining a non-confrontational and non-political
relationship with local governments while ensuring the group does not become coopted. The only time that TTM expressly lobbied the borough council to adopt a
policy measure was their support of a resolution banning the nontherapeutic use of
antibiotics in animal feed, which, in an urban environment such as Media, is largely a
symbolic move and therefore unlikely to stir political controversy.
The experience of the TTM group demonstrates the increased capacity that
initiatives can enjoy when they push against boundary of the political neutrality theme
and work closely with local governments. This is a fine line for the Transition
Movement response. The rationale for assuming a politically neutral posture is the
belief that institutional politics are viewed as messy and unproductive grounding for
social action. Overt political activity is seen by some individuals and potential allies
as a turn off, while others interpret it as a direct attack on their beliefs and values. The
Transition Movement response maintains that political neutrality is essential to avoid
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alienating supporters. Transition’s logic is that everyone will be impacted by climate
change, peak oil, and economic instability, so it is vitally important to be as inclusive
as possible. Political activism draws ideological boundaries and excludes, ultimately
leading to reduced capacity to effect change. Rob Hopkins, stated this position very
clearly when he remarked during an interview that, “Transition is more powerful for
not being explicitly political” (Hopkins, 2011b).
This claim warrants investigation because it heavily influences the Transition
Movement response’s capacity to effect change and deliver its positive community
development outcomes. As noted above, 46% of the Transition US survey
respondents remarked that their initiative’s greatest challenge was recruiting and
keeping new members and volunteers. The rationale that political activism drives
away supporters appears misguided since even politically neutral initiatives struggle to
attract volunteers. Second, some of the survey respondent’s greatest successes such as
raising awareness, seed libraries, and potluck meals are important and should not be
minimized, yet they only effect nominal change in local communities.
9.3
The Transition Movement Response in Transition
As noted above, the two major consequences to the Transition Movement
response’s bottom-up, do-it-ourselves approach to effecting change – small scope and
short reach – severely restricts its capacity to deliver positive outcomes to
communities. This limitation could be partially overcome if the movement reevaluates its non-political relationship with local government and instead directly
advocates for institutional policy making and implementation powers to advance the
response’s community development strategy. In terms of scope, important public
administration and policy areas that the Transition Movement would like to see
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reformed and that are, at least to some extent, the purview of local governments
include public transportation, food, housing, waste collection, and utilities. In terms of
reach, all community members are subject to particular local regulations such as those
dealing with waste collection and utility fees. The Transition Movement response’s
capacity to effect change could therefore improve dramatically if it discards its nonpolitical stance and instead lobbies local governing institutions.
Evidence collected during interviews shows that initiatives are increasingly
involved in local policy change, blurring and in some cases surpassing the fine line
between do-it-ourselves action and political activism. This is contrary to the
Transition Movement’s original rhetoric of the importance of do-it-ourselves action
and the theme of politically neutral relationships with local governments. One
interviewee noted that her initiative was able to mobilize its members to the voting
booth and successfully propel a sympathetic ally into a seat in the local governing
council. An interviewee in another initiative was nominated for, and participated in, a
local food policy council. Yet another commented that his initiative successfully
lobbied the government to amend the local zoning ordinance to allow the raising of
backyard chickens in the municipality, a practice that was previously prohibited by
law. Even more directly, one interviewee successfully ran for and won a seat on his
local government council in 2012. He explained that he chose to pursue an official
position because:
A lot of things are done at the local level. For example, if you’re a
Transition group, you don’t want to see a lot more unsustainable
development done in your city. You can have all the beautiful
community gardens you want, but if somebody is building a new mall
out by the freeway, that’s going to dwarf your global warming and
carbon sequestration by the amount of traffic they bring in. You could
stop, or try to stop that from happening if you were active in local
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government. But if you’re not active in local government, then you’re
leaving that to the developers and the entrenched special interests and
maybe the few citizens who are fighting it for aesthetic reasons. And
you’re not helping them. So you’re leaving a lot of power on the table
if you’re not participating in local government.
The responses to the 2014 Transition US survey offer clear evidence the
interviewee quoted above is not the only active Transition member to seek a position
in local office. Of the sixty one initiatives that responded to the survey, eleven groups
reported that at least one member occupies a seat on the local governing council. In
addition, there were three mayors and one state-level senator who participate in their
local initiative. The respondents also indicated that twenty four initiatives have
activists that volunteer on formal, local government public service bodies such as peak
oil task forces, climate action committees and coalitions, transportation commissions,
planning commissions, water boards, neighborhood councils, environmental task
forces, shade tree commissions, environmental advisory councils, sustainability
committees, citizen’s advisory councils for regional development projects, composting
working groups, complete streets coalitions, energy conservation commissions,
community services commissions, transit working groups, and food policy councils.
Some Transition initiatives successfully advocate for local policy changes.
The Charlottesville-Albemarle initiative (Charlottesville and Albemarle, VA)
successfully petitioned against the local water board’s proposal to add chloramine to
the drinking water supply; carbon filtration was used instead. In two separate cases,
initiatives successfully lobbied for support from local governing bodies to
municipalize their area’s electric utility and place it into public stewardship. Members
of Transition Sebastopol (Sebastopol, CA) joined other initiatives in Sonoma County,
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CA to develop a community choice aggregation scheme in their area.10 In another
case, Sustainable Berea (Berea, KY) successfully petitioned the existing municipallyowned utility to install a 246-panel solar array in the town, portions of which were
leased to community residents who wished to green their electricity supply. Transition
Sarasota (Sarasota, FL) partnered with a local backyard chicken advocacy group to
successfully overturn the local government’s ban on raising chickens in the city.
Transition Culver City (Culver, CA) is working with their local council to rewrite the
regulations governing parkways, particularly the space between the curb and the
sidewalk. They are asking for permission to grow edible plants in the parkways,
install small structures like free libraries, and make curb cuts to allow for direct
infiltration of water into the ground, thus preventing stormwater from running off into
the sewer and local water treatment system.
This evidence highlights a transformation in the Transition Movement
response’s strategy and capacity to effect change. The response is moving from a doit-ourselves and politically neutral stance to one where initiatives seek direct access to
policy levers and advocate for policy change (Barnes, 2015). Contrary to the original,
cautious position that local governments should “support, not drive” an initiative, the
desire by some groups to access formal, institutionalized policy making and advocacy
authority is a role reversal situation where initiatives drive local governments
(Hopkins, 2008, p. 144). The response’s inroad to local policy making and advocacy
10 A community choice aggregator is a publicly-owned utility that affords
communities participating in the system the right to collectively negotiate electricity
rates and the percentage of renewable energy in the electricity mix.
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is an indication that the original approach to effecting community change through
political neutrality and inclusiveness is confronting its limitations.
When the theme of political neutrality is discarded, the capacity to effect
positive change at the community level increases significantly. The magnitudes of the
successes highlighted above are especially noteworthy. The analysis of the Transition
Movement’s capacity to effect change demonstrates that Hopkins’s claim that
Transition is more powerful when it is politically neutral is based more on personal
belief than it is on evidence. Political neutrality is low risk but also low reward.
Those initiatives that directly engage in local politics and policy advocacy can point to
greater, more impactful successes than those that remain politically inactive. Effecting
change through political action carries higher risk, but it also offers a higher reward.
Yet the shift in the Transition Movement’s strategy to effect change creates
two points of tension between the response’s newfound policy making and advocacy
ambitions and its ideal of a non-political social movement that desires community
building, inclusiveness and avoids divisive conflict. First, the response must
undoubtedly discard its theme of political neutrality. Public policy development and
implementation is an inherently contested process where individual and community
values require prioritization and where multiple interpretations of what ought to be are
articulated and evaluated against each other (Stone, 2012). In this process, political
disputes arise. It is unreasonable to expect that initiatives actively striving to change
policies can maintain a non-political identity, especially when they are driving local
governments from the inside. The Transition Movement began as an explicitly nonpolitical movement, but it will need to be politically explicit if it continues to influence
local policy making and advocacy.
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As its political values and goals become more explicit and transparent, a
cornerstone of the Transition Movement’s political agenda must be distributive equity.
This would close a significant gap in the response’s discourse and give it a platform to
generate new themes and create more equitable conditions in development practice.
Also, should the Transition Movement response engage in advocacy on behalf of the
PSC response – as recommended in the following section on collaboration – a political
effort motivated by equity would mitigate the latent inequities that can arise through
the PSC response. If it continues to influence policy and local government decisionmaking, it is vital for the Transition Movement response to explicitly insert equity as a
prominent component of its political platform. This is unlikely to be a controversial
position for Transition activists. The movement’s philosophical foundation of
permaculture espouses the moral precepts of “People Care” and “Fair Share”
(Holmgren, 2002).
Second, the Transition Movement response must accept that community
building with full inclusivity is unattainable. Perspectives on the appropriate quantity
and quality of local community development, as well as the public policies required to
attain desired outcomes, will diverge from those of Transition activists and community
members. Even in seemingly straightforward policy areas such as food localization,
the absence of conflict and social inclusiveness are unattainable standards (Hinrichs,
2003).
While the Transition Movement response will need to compromise on its
values that underpin the political neutrality and community building theme, it need not
fear that embracing politics and the contentious and sometimes divisive nature of
community life that accompanies it will necessarily impede progress toward the goal
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of achieving low-energy, economically localized, and resilient communities. On the
contrary, community resilience can be enhanced. Successfully working through and
navigating political conflict is essential for strengthening the bonds that keep stable,
democratic communities together (Hirschman, 1994).
9.4
Recommendations for Collaborative Efforts
There are many important local community development areas were the PSC
and Transition Movement responses align. This indicates that potential exists for the
two responses to collaborate with each other to achieve shared goals and development
outcomes. The responses offer each other co-benefits and are not mutually exclusive.
This section investigates and recommends the areas where the responses overlap and
where there is potential for fruitful collaboration to improve local communities.
9.4.1
Input during Public Consultation Stages
When the PSC response begins the process of planning, it solicits input from
individuals and various community stakeholder groups about the future development
direction for the community. During this initial visioning stage, if an active Transition
initiative is present in the community, it should seize the window of opportunity to
offer their perspectives and goals for the community. The initiative could recommend
that its members engage in the planning process through the avenues created by the
PSC response, for example by responding to surveys, attending visioning sessions,
participating in design charrettes, and participating in focus groups. If a Transition
initiative were able to mobilize its members and engage at these early stages, they
could conceivably have a tremendous effect on the recommendations offered in the
plan.
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In Media, Transition Town Media activists attended the public consultation
and visioning sessions organized by Simone Collins at the beginning of the
comprehensive plan process. The TTM members emphasized a number of goals for
the community such as increasing local food production and low-carbon transportation
options in the borough. These goals were eventually translated into the plan’s
recommendations for a community garden on public land and the construction of
bicycle lanes and trails (Simone Collins, 2014). This demonstrates that Transition
initiatives, with effort and input, can have a sizable influence on the proposals offered
by the PSC response. TTM is not the only Transition initiative to engage in the
planning process according to the 2014 Transition US survey. Initiatives in
Greenfield, MA, Longfellow, MN, Venice, FL, Ashville, NC, Mankato, MN, and
Anacortes, WA actively offered a vision for their communities during local
comprehensive and sustainability planning efforts.
There are numerous aspects of community development that are of mutual
interest to both responses. In addition to low-carbon transportation infrastructure and
local food, the areas include ecologically sound development such as open space
preservation, hydrologically-focused development, resurgence of local businesses,
historic preservation and strengthening community identity, energy efficient and green
building construction, and renewable, low-carbon energy systems. Transition
initiatives can advocate for inclusion of these planning components during public
consultation periods and will find a receptive audience in the PSC response.
9.4.2
Transition Initiative Planning Efforts
In the rare instances where Transition initiatives have written an Energy
Descent Action Plan or an equivalent sustainability/resilience-focused plan for their
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community (Section 6.4.3.1), the PSC response can incorporate the group’s research
and vision into their own plans. Some initiatives have demonstrated a tremendous
ability to pull together resources and produce documents that parallel PSC response
output. Activists in Transition Fidalgo and Friends, the initiative in Anacortes, WA,
created a remarkable community development plan entitled Vision 2030: Our Vibrant,
Sustainable Community that, in terms of quality and comprehensiveness, compares
favorably to the Media Comprehensive Plan which was written by professional,
licensed planners (Transition Fidalgo & Friends, 2014). Vision 2030 covers topics
such as economic localization, renewable energy, local food, affordable housing,
preservation of local natural resources, and low-carbon transportation. In an email
exchange, a main author of the plan noted that one year prior to the release of Vision
2030, the community’s municipal government announced that they would undertake
comprehensive planning efforts. The individual, who had no prior planning
experience, wrote:
That was something that certainly spurred us forward on this project, so
that we could use it to help inform the comp plan process. We shared
the document with our city council and new mayor, as well as with the
planning commission and department. In fact, when one of us went to
the planning department to deliver a print copy, he found that they had
already downloaded it from the website, which we took as a very good
sign!
When the PSC response begins planning efforts in a community where a
Transition initiative exists, it should reach out to the initiative to determine what
planning-related work, if any, the group has completed. It is possible that the initiative
has undertaken its own efforts, thus presenting the PSC response with one stakeholder
group’s ready-made vision and set of recommendations. The PSC response might also
discover that the local Transition initiative has collected useful data and conducted
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research on key aspects of the community. For instance, Greening Greenfield, the
Transition initiative in Greenfield, MA, conducted a community-wide energy and
carbon emissions audit in 2009 (Greening Greenfield, 2009). That research now
serves as a benchmark for energy and carbon reduction efforts contained in the
municipality’s 2014 Sustainability Master Plan and the mayor’s goal of an 80%
reduction in community carbon emissions by 2050 (Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, 2014).
9.4.3
Program Design and Implementation Services
The Transition Movement response and its initiatives can perform public
service by designing and implementing various PSC response projects that ultimately
add value to communities. The PSC response can therefore take advantage of local
Transition groups and tap their knowledge and skills. The Transition Movement
response is deeply rooted in the principles and practice of permaculture, and many
activists are experienced permaculturalists. Permaculture a zero-waste ecological and
horticultural design framework where human activity is integrated into mutually
beneficial relationships to nature (Holmgren, 2002; Mollison, 1988). Permaculture,
and the numerous permaculturalists active in Transition initiatives, can serve as a
valuable resource for the design aspect of the PSC response.
The conceptual revisioning of the stormwater and aesthetic challenges at the
“Verizon Building” in Media shows how a Transition initiative can lend design skills
to a PSC project (Section 7.3.4). The borough government solicited a redesign from
TTM for the flood-prone area. The group returned with a proposal to remove the
impervious surface, build berms and swales (a common design feature in permaculture
gardens) to collect stormwater and allow it to infiltrate directly into the ground, and
plant edible espalier plants to cover the façade of the building while adding a local
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food benefit. This example demonstrates that Transition groups, like the PSC
response, are conscious of stormwater management problems and can design simple,
low-tech solutions.
Media provides another example that highlights the value of Transition
initiatives design services and concepts that are amenable to the PSC response.
During an interview, the TTM member commented that the group, with the Media
Arts Council, was working with the borough on a grant application to the National
Endowment for the Arts where:
The community and the arts community collaborate on a place-making
project. We’ve been talking about the possibility of doing something in
Plum Street Mall. We’ve been pushing for incorporating ideas that will
also help with stormwater management, like make sure that anything
that we put in has some plants and other kinds of things that will
mitigate water movement.
This project achieves two PSC response goals: stormwater management and
community place-making. These examples demonstrate that the PSC response can
approach Transition initiatives and request their design services and skills.
Transition initiatives are also willing and able to implement certain community
development programs and projects proposed by the PSC response. Transition
initiatives, as non-profit groups, can be public service providers if they have the
necessary volunteer capacity and skills, something that is not assured given how many
groups struggle to attract and retain members. There are, however, some initiatives in
the United States that do offer public services to their communities. For instance, the
Woodstock, NY initiative provides organic waste composting services in the
municipality and the Fairfax, CA initiative contracts with their city to implement a
zero waste ordinance which has a goal of 94% waste diversion from landfills by 2020.
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The Fairfax group conducts outreach efforts to inform the wider community about best
practices in waste reduction and recycling processes.
9.4.4
Recommended Changes to Local Zoning Ordinances, Regulations, and
Codes
There are a variety of local government policies, ordinances, regulations, and
laws that effectively prevent the Transition Movement response from fully realizing its
goals and objectives. For instance, in terms of local food production, a number of
respondents to the survey wrote that their municipality, town, or city places a full ban
on the raising of backyard chickens. Others reported similar restrictions against
beekeeping, agricultural and gardening practices in residential areas, and the planting
of edibles, such as fruit and nut trees, on public property and easements. As for the
consumption of local food, several survey respondents noted that they wished to serve
locally grown produce at public events but were prevented from doing so because food
service and safety laws were too burdensome.
Survey respondents also remarked that local building codes and zoning
ordinances can be major obstacles to achieving the positive outcomes that Transition
initiatives can deliver. Two respondents wrote that their local code places a minimum
limit on the amount of habitable floor space in residences which makes it impossible
to get permission to construct small dwellings such as Tiny Houses.11 There are also
11 Tiny Houses are dwellings that have less than 200 square feet of habitable floor
space. In Media, the borough code places a 150 square foot minimum for the first
person plus 100 square feet for each additional person occupying a residence –
effectively eliminating the possibility of building tiny houses in the borough (§ 18712). Tiny Houses are increasingly being viewed as an way to provide affordable
housing to homeless populations, with some projects requiring the individual to assist
in the construction of their Tiny House (Gaskill, 2014; Kliese, 2014).
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requirements for minimum plumbing and waste treatment standards which force
homeowners to install standard flush toilets instead of choosing composting toilets.
One respondent noted that greywater systems that recycle and reuse non-potable water
were prohibited in their community and another wrote that their municipality’s zoning
ordinance forbids co-housing practices.
Table 9.1:
Proposed local policy changes to facilitate the Transition Movement
response (Calfee & Weissman, 2012)
Area
Local Food
Housing
Rooftop
Utilization
Recommended Policy Changes
Amend municipal zoning codes to define and permit categories
of urban agriculture by adding urban agriculture uses as
permitted uses in existing zones, or creating new zones for
specific types of urban agriculture
Simplify permitting procedures to facilitate the sale of local food
Establish reasonable policies around urban livestock
Establish tax incentives to encourage the use of vacant lots for
urban agriculture
Allow vegetable planting in sidewalk strips and front yards
Permit Accessory Use Dwellings to allow additional housing
units on parcels located in single-family residential zones
Identify small, Tiny House structures as legally habitable
Grant permits for amenities like composting toilets, greywater
systems, and local power generation
Advance cohousing by not distinguishing between related and
unrelated individuals or repealing numerical limits on the number
of un-related people who may live together
Establish new zoning code for co-housing and eco-villages
Streamline permitting requirements for rooftops that will be
accessible by people
Facilitate rooftop agriculture by ensuring that structural green
roofs are neither prohibited nor discouraged by existing zoning
and building codes
Protecting solar access rights through setbacks that prevent
neighbors from shading existing solar panels
Streamline the permitting and inspection process for solar
installations and train code officials
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A commentary by Corinne Calfee and Eve Weismann (2012) highlights the
zoning and regulatory barriers that impede the Transition Movement response in
communities and they recommend policy and planning changes to reduce or eliminate
the barriers. Relevant policy recommendations from Calfee and Weismann are
reproduced in Table 9.1 above. The PSC response should consider the placed-based
appropriateness of these proposed changes and encourage local policy-makers and
public administrators to adopt them. For example, these proposed changes can be
included as recommendations in community comprehensive plans.
9.4.5
Tool Library
One of the strengths of the Transition Movement response is its emphasis on
reskilling, appropriate technology, and local economic production. But local
production can only occur when the community has access to the appropriate
technologies, some of which are expensive and specialized. This challenge to access
appropriate technologies can be partly overcome if there is a tool library in the
community.
The tool library model varies, but there are some commonalities between
libraries. Members pay an annual fee, late fees for not returning a tool by the due
date, and replacement fees for lost or damaged tools. Members also sign a waiver of
liability. Memberships and fees rarely cover costs, and most libraries rely on
additional outside funding. The Station North Tool Library in Baltimore is supported
by Fusion Partnerships, a Baltimore-based fiscal sponsorship organization while the
West Philly Tool Library is financially supported by the Urban Affairs Coalition, a
Philadelphia-based fiscal sponsorship organization and by crowdfunding campaigns
(Arvedlund, 2014). Tool libraries typically have workspaces staffed by a knowledge
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crew and they offer reskilling-style workshops to community members. For example,
the West Philly Tool Library has offered individual classes on the use of basic power
tools, introductory plumbing, basic electricity, and introduction to carpentry.
When the PSC response makes recommendations for strategies to improve
local economies, they should include tool libraries in the list of options. The response
can propose that the library is housed in a municipally-owned building and that rent is
subsidized. Another proposal the PSC response can offer is to fund a local tool library
through fiscal policy change.
9.4.6
Transition Movement Advocacy for PSC Efforts
Section 9.2.1 discussed the limits of the PSC response’s capacity to effect
change because the influence of planners declines significantly when plans are written.
To become a reality and deliver positive outcomes, plans must be adopted and
implemented by local governing councils and administrators. For Transition
initiatives that are politically active and willing to lobby local officials, they can assist
the PSC response tremendously by advocating for a community sustainability plan’s
adoption and implementation. A planning consultant was asked during an interview
what role Transition initiatives could play in supporting sustainable planning efforts.
The response was:
Someone from Transition could go to a planning commission and
comment on a development that is coming in. Say somebody is
building a new shopping center and it’s near a park. And they have this
10% open space requirement, then maybe Transition Town could lobby
or advocate for that 10% open space to be allocated to the township and
open up community agriculture.... So that would probably be the
biggest way. In planning, there’s always opportunities and
requirements for you to involve the public and let the public comment,
whether it’s at a planning commission meeting or what-have-you. So
there’s opportunities to make your voice known.
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Transition activists can attend public meetings and submit comments to the
public record. Planning commission meetings, where plans are discussed and debated,
offer a public comment period. Local governing councils also hold open debates on
plans and invite comments from community members. The Transition Movement
response can play a vital role by advocating for adoption and implementation of PSC
response efforts; compensating for the latter response’s capacity limitations. To have
an even greater impact, Transition Movement activists should seriously consider
volunteering to serve directly on local planning commissions.
In Media, TTM activists did not attend any of the planning commission
meetings where the comprehensive plan update was discussed and debated, thus
missing an opportunity to advocate on behalf of the PSC response. The borough
council and administrators held an open meeting to debate the comprehensive plan on
July 17th, 2014. Before the meeting, one member of TTM sent an email to 34 core
group members encouraging them to attend and offer their support for adoption and
implementation of the plan. At this meeting, four members of the wider community
commented on various aspects of the comprehensive plan. One commenter was a
member of TTM – the only group member to attend – and said:
I just wanted to say that I think it is a great plan. I’m really impressed
with the level of detail and the great suggestions that were made in the
plan. I’m very pleased that a lot of the values that Transition Town
Media shares were invited in the plan, particularly around
transportation, energy use and conservation, green spaces, and land use.
So I’m looking forward – and I’m speaking for the organization – I’m
really looking forward to working with borough council to see these
initiatives go forward.
The Transition Movement response should provide support to the PSC response by
making public comments and advocating in this manner. It increases the chances of
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successful adoption of PSC efforts and announces that plan implementation will also
be supported by Transition initiatives.
The Transition Movement response’s advocacy role for the PSC response
should not end when plans are formally adopted by local governing councils.
Transition initiatives should also continue to advocate and lobby throughout the plan
implementation phase. Plan implementation, like any other process where collective
decisions are made regarding investment of finite public resources, is inherently
political. In all, there are several dozen recommendations contained in the 2014
comprehensive plan update. Determining which recommendations to implement first
requires the arrangement and prioritization of the plan’s proposals. This prioritization
occurs through political debate and it provides an opportunity for politically active
Transition initiatives to influence planning results and outcomes.
In 1968, Media embarked on its first comprehensive community planning
effort (Delaware County Planning Commission, 1968). The plan states:
There is a practical limitation [to implementation] which is based upon
what will be accepted by the public and the various power blocks with
which the municipality must deal. On this basis certain proposed
changes or alterations are opposed or favored depending on how their
effect will be interpreted by these groups. Often decisions are made in
advance by elected officials on their belief of public reaction.
The Transition Movement response, and by extension its initiatives, should become
one of these groups by inserting itself into political debates surrounding plan
implementation. Initiatives can offer their services and skills to carry out public
service delivery programs (Section 9.4.3) and lobby decision-makers to prioritize
components of the plan that align with Transition’s core values and goals. A member
of the Media borough council recommends that Transition activists should, “come to
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as many [borough council] meetings as possible” and push projects forward.
Implementation of the PSC response presents the Transition Movement response with
an incredible opportunity to effect positive change in local communities, but only if
Transition initiatives are willing to become politically active.
9.5
Conclusion
In order to realize the positive benefits of their community development
strategies, the PSC and Transition Movement responses must be capable translating
their visions into reality. This chapter assessed both responses for their theoretical and
practical capacity to effect community change. The analysis demonstrated that the
PSC response enjoys greater capacity than the Transition Movement response because
the PSC response operates through local governments which have tremendous power
and authority to mobilize public resources. The capacity of the Transition Movement
is limited because of its theme of political neutrality.
However, in practice, some Transition initiatives are rejecting the theme of
political neutrality and directly engaging with local politics and policy making. The
research uncovered a politically active subset of the wider movement that is running
for seats in local governments and councils, as well as advocating for changes to
policies that limit their development goals. While this newfound political activity will
undoubtedly create tension with the movement’s desire to be open and nonconfrontational, this shift in Transition Movement politics is encouraging, particularly
from the PSC response’s point of view, because it frees Transition initiatives to
become involved in and advocate for more sustainable community development
efforts.
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There are a number of areas where the two responses can and should
collaborate. Transition initiatives can offer a comprehensive and progressive vision
during planning consultation periods. If resources are available, Transition initiatives
can also implement relevant policy recommendations made by the PSC response, and
they can advocate local governing councils to adopt policy proposals made by
sustainability-minded planners. The PSC response, for their part, can recommend
local policy changes that remove barriers to the Transition Movement’s efforts (Table
9.1). Progressive planners can also add tool libraries to their list of local economic
development projects, something that Transition initiatives would surely welcome. In
summary, it is apparent that the two responses overlap and can easily become partners,
and they can achieve more by working together than they would if they were operating
in isolation.
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Chapter 10
CONCLUSION
10.1 Research Summary
This dissertation investigated the emerging, complexity-driven process that is
now a major force in community development. The research began with an
elaboration of Joseph Tainter’s theory of complexity and how society is experiencing
a historically unprecedented level of global complexity. Given that increased
complexity requires increased energy and resource utilization, Tainter’s theory
explains why aggregate production and consumption of these inputs has never been
greater. The research demonstrated that problems are generated when energy and
resources are utilized, and to resolve those problems, advanced techno-fix
interventions are developed. Techno-fixes enable greater social action, which leads to
eventual increases in complexity and, consequently, greater energy and resource
utilization. The result is a socially and environmentally harmful cycle that cannot be
maintained.
The research further demonstrated that communities contribute to and
perpetuate this cycle when they accommodate global complexity. While there are
benefits that communities receive from engaging with complexity – especially
security, material comfort, and convenience – there are also localized costs such as
dependence on advanced technologies, loss of self-governing ability and authority,
and inequitable distributions of resources. Tainter’s theory, which posits that
complexity eventually reaches a point of declining marginal returns where the costs
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outweigh the benefits, was applied to examine the impact of the standard community
development strategy of accommodation. The research established that global
complexity has indeed reached a point of diminishing marginal returns and by
contributing to complexity, communities are bearing increased costs with minimal
benefits. Accommodating global complexity is, fundamentally, a self-defeating and
flawed community development strategy.
The dissertation then identified and investigated two community development
responses to determine whether or not they are effective and viable alternatives to the
standard approach to accommodating global complexity. One response, termed
Planning Sustainable Communities, is an urban planning reform effort that seeks to
align the theory and practice of planning with the sustainable development framework.
The other response, the Transition Movement, is an all-volunteer eco-social movement
that aims to prepare communities for the inevitable consequences of peak oil, climate
change, and macroeconomic dysfunction.
Thematic analysis was employed as a research method to deconstruct the
Planning Sustainable Communities and Transition Movement responses into units for
further analysis. The themes of the PSC response were identified through the relevant
planning literature, and were given further shape and context through interviews and
field observations. For the Transition Movement response, themes were identified
through interviews with Transition activists as well as a literature review and
participant observation.12 The municipality of Media, Pennsylvania was used to
12
The PSC response is broken down into five meta-themes: smart growth land use,
multi-modal transit-oriented development, housing and economic opportunities,
energy and natural resource development, and public participation. Likewise, the
Transition Movement response is broken down into meta-themes: economic
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articulate how the two responses are expressed in practice and to add depth of
understanding. Media’s comprehensive plan update represents an expression of the
PSC response and the Transition Town Media group practices the Transition
Movement response. To evaluate the two responses, the deconstructed themes were
assessed for their impact on the causes (mitigating global complexity) and
consequences (improving technological independence, strengthening self-governance,
and enhancing distributive equity) of the community development challenge.
The analysis demonstrates that both responses are well constructed and can
offer positive outcomes for communities in the areas of technological independence
and self-governance. Positive impacts on distributive equity, on the other hand,
cannot be taken as self-evident or guaranteed. Indeed there is a possibility that for
both responses, equitable distributions of benefits and costs could become skewed
across demographic categories. The analysis showed that with respect to mitigating
global complexity, the Transition Movement response shows greater promise than the
PSC response because the former unambiguously proposes simpler, more localized
development activities while the latter offers community development strategies that
are dialectical in nature, thus leading to greater uncertainty about the ultimate impact
on global complexity.
The analysis then turned to the capacity of both community development
responses to effect change and deliver positive outcomes. The PSC response
maintains a greater capacity to effect change because it is supported and channeled
through institutionalized local governing structures that have authority to assemble
localization, community building, resilience building, and politically neutral
relationships to local governments.
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public resources for large, community development investments. The Transition
Movement response is limited in its capacity to effect change because the catalyst for
implementation is grassroots, community-led action independent of formal governing
structures. The Transition Movement’s politically neutral approach to local
governments is a significant barrier to increasing its capacity, yet the research
highlighted a politically active subset of the movement that is becoming directly
involved in policy advocacy and policy-making. To increase effectiveness, a
recommendation was made to the Transition Movement to reevaluate its theme of
political neutrality and engage in policy advocacy where necessary and appropriate.
This would have the added benefit of freeing up the Transition Movement and
allowing it to work in tandem with the PSC response to achieve progress toward
shared goals.
10.2 Implications of the Research
The research results generate a number of implications for policy practice and
for future research. These implications are discussed below.
10.2.1 Policy Implications
There are a number of municipal government policy changes that local
legislators can use to develop their communities along simpler and more socially and
environmentally appropriate pathways. Food production can be promoted by ensuring
that local laws, codes, and regulations do not prohibit small scale agricultural
practices. The policy recommendations in Table 9.1 by Calfee and Weissman (2012)
and echoed in a local food policy toolkit paper by Emily Broad Leib (2012) from the
Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic create a permissible, enabling environment for
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local food. Important steps that local governments can take in this direction are to
ensure that the zoning code permits urban agriculture uses, ordinances do not restrict
gardens in residents’ yards, and planting edible fruit and nut trees is permitted in
public areas, especially the space between the curb and the sidewalk. Local
governments can also turn publicly-owned and maintained land into community
gardens.
For housing and construction, similar to local food production, local
governments can ensure that their municipal codes do not restrict certain building
practices. Minimum habitable floor space requirements could be eliminated, as could
any restriction on greywater or composting toilet systems. Local governments can
actually incentivize these types of housing practices by waving construction permit
application and inspection fees for homes that reuse water or do not require solid
waste hookup to the municipal sewer system. A similar fee waiver can apply to solar
hot water and photovoltaic systems. To disincentivizes large home construction and
incentivize rainwater barrel use, a stormwater impact fee could be levied in
municipalities in Home Rule states. Subdivision and Land Development Ordinances
(SALDO) can be amended to mandate that new developments have solar hot water
and photovoltaic systems. To further increase renewable energy generation, the local
council could seek to municipalize the electric utility and create a solar lease program.
Coordinating a community choice aggregation scheme with surrounding communities
is an alternative option for boosting renewable energy production.13 Housing equity
13 Community choice aggregation programs are only permitted in California, Georgia,
Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Rhode Island.
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can be achieved through a combination of inclusionary zoning and density bonuses for
developers who build affordable housing units.
When community streets are in need of resurfacing, they could be repaved with
a permeable layer. Bicycle lanes could be added to public streets and clearly
demarcated with paint to alert motorists and improve public safety. Ordinances can be
amended to require installation of vegetated berms and swales for stormwater
collection, especially around parking lots. Mixed-use zoning allows for adaptive reuse
of buildings and transfer of development rights (TDR) could be pursued aggressively
to avoid sprawl while increasing population density. Local government can look to
purchase property or place restrictions on development in ecologically sensitive areas
such as riparian corridors, or partner with land trust organizations such as the Nature
Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land to ensure that local environmental assets
and open spaces are preserved. For those local governments with the authority to
produce and enforce an Official Map, they could take advantage of the opportunity
and require percentages of land use for public space and community gardens.
Local policies can also be used to promote local economic activity. A
prohibitively small maximum floor area on retail space would effectively ban the
construction of Big Box outlets. The ordinance can also be amended to classify
“formula” (chain) restaurants and retailers as conditional uses, thus requiring the local
planning commission to consider a number of factors before they can be approved and
making it more difficult for them to occupy small spaces (Mitchell, 2013). A local
business purchasing preference can be adopted by councils to ensure that procurement
departments spend public dollars locally. The municipal government can advocate for
local non-profit or faith-based groups to set up and run a Time Bank or FreeStore-like
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model. They can also make an effort to secure state, federal, and private community
development grants to set up and sustain local reskilling spaces such as bicycle cooperatives, tool libraries and workshops, and weavers/sewers guilds. Local
governments can organize and hold periodic “Fix-It Fairs” or “Repair Clinics” where
community members bring their broken consumer goods for free diagnosis and repair.
To instill a sense of place and identity in the community, governments can
organize periodic rituals and events, for instance an annual local food Harvest
Festival. Local artisans can be actively consulted on ideas for public infrastructure
projects that include art installations. Historic districts and design guidelines can be
created to regulate development in historically, culturally, and aesthetically significant
areas.
10.2.2 Future Research
Using this dissertation as a starting point, there are several areas of research
that can be pursued to better inform decision-makers and the public. First, it will be
necessary to periodically revisit Media, Pennsylvania to determine the ultimate impact
of the comprehensive plan’s implementation. When it is adopted, the borough council
will begin to put the plan into action. Research can be conducted into the process
through which the borough prioritizes the plan’s policy proposals, implements them,
and the outcomes generated. The influence of Transition Town Media on the plan
implementation process can also be studied. The group is slowly becoming a greater
voice for policy change in the community, and it would be valuable to determine how
a Transition initiative advocates for local policy shifts and possibly volunteers their
skills and resources to assist with implementation efforts.
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Additional research can be conducted on integrating the above policy
recommendations into local community development plans and strategies that extend
beyond dedicated comprehensive or land use planning efforts. For example, many
communities are taking climate change impacts seriously and developing local climate
change mitigation and adaptation strategies and plans. It would be extremely valuable
to examine the extent to which local climate change plans can and should incorporate
the above policy recommendations. Some of the recommendations have the potential
to align smoothly with local climate change mitigation and adaptation plans – policy
and ordinance changes related to local agriculture, renewable energy, and low-carbon
transportation for example.
This inquiry is the first research project to identify and analyze the politically
active subset of the Transition Movement response, and this introduces the possibility
of exploring this topic in greater depth. A more thorough, targeted survey of
Transition initiatives and activists in the United States – and around the world – could
assess the extent to which the movement is forming into a local policy advocacy and
decision-making force. The tension between the response’s political neutrality and
inclusive community building themes and the emerging policy ambitions can be
further investigated and analyzed to determine whether, and how, they are reconciled.
Transition Town Media demonstrated that distributive equities can be
improved at the local level when the projects and programs initiatives design are
conceived within an explicit social justice framework. Nevertheless, the Transition
Movement response was criticized for not paying enough attention to equitable
outcomes generated through its community development strategy. Participatory action
research would be an appropriate research method to begin a self-reflexive dialogue
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on social justice in the Transition Movement and explicate the changes that need to be
made to the movement’s discourse and practice.
The full framework for the research – theory, concepts, and methods – can be
referred to as the Society-Environment-Technology Community Development (SETCD) framework and applied to evaluate other community development models beyond
the PSC and Transition Movement strategies. For instance, eco-villages can be
investigated using this dissertation’s framework, as can more radical lifestyle options
such as Amish, kibbutz, or intentional communities and communes. After some
modification, the SET-CD framework can also be used to evaluate development
critiques and recommendations offered social movements like the environmental
justice movement.
10.3 Contribution to Knowledge
The dissertation builds upon and expands current knowledge of community
development in several key areas. It creates and extends a theoretical framework for
interpreting the cycle of increased complexity that the impact in has on small social
scales. The research highlights a previously hidden subset of the Transition
Movement that is engaging heavily with institutional politics and policy making. The
fully analysis also contributes to, and reinforces, a view that long-term and holistic
thinking must be prioritized to guide policy action and development decisions.
10.3.1 Theoretical Contributions
This research borrowed heavily from Joseph Tainter’s theory of complexity
and energy and resource utilization. It also built upon and adapted Tainter’s theory in
several important ways. First, this inquiry reconceptualized technology as a social
377
enabler, extending Tainter’s theory by incorporating the complexity-related impact of
technological choices. Seen though this refocused lens, globalization appears as a
human-directed, strategic process where enabling technologies are layered together,
mutually reinforcing each other to create an integrated network of social and
environmental systems. The expanded theory also helps to explain global society’s
ever-increasing energy and resource demands, and how efficiency gains are eventually
overwhelmed by increased consumption.
This theoretical insight directly contradicts the long standing logic of classic
economic theory that is based on a theory of resource efficiency – a theory that posits
that scarce resources are put to their highest and best use when market dynamics are
allowed to operate freely with only minimal political interference. Today, with global
complexity, resources are not being allocated efficiently. Instead, they are used to
prop up and maintain an overly-complex global economic system, a system that
imposes increasingly significant costs and declining benefits. Global complexity is
undermining itself.
The theory of complexity is also advanced through this research’s investigation
into the relationships between social scales. Tainter’s primary unit of analysis is the
macro-scale social structure. To ground this inquiry, it was necessary to explore the
dynamic between the macro and the micro, to investigate the impact of global
complexity on the community level. The costs, at the local level, of living in a
complex world are not insignificant and this dissertation highlighted the magnitude of
these tremendous negative consequence. Moreover, the research identified the
reciprocal interplay between scales by highlighting how the process of
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accommodating global complexity further exacerbates the costs on all communities
over long enough timeframes.
10.3.2 Transition Movement Political Activity
This research uncovered the high level of political activity and policy advocacy
exhibited by some Transition initiatives, and it highlighted the tension this creates for
the wider movement (Section 9.3). Many previous research efforts into Transition
Movement politics assumed, incorrectly, that initiatives practice the movement’s
strategy of avoiding political conflict and policy disputes (Chatterton & Cutler, 2008;
Mason & Whitehead, 2012; North, 2010; Smith, 2011). Through interviews with
Transition members and the data collected through the 2014 Transition US survey, this
research discovered that a number of initiatives are rejecting this call to political
neutrality and directly engaging with local governments. Transition initiatives’
engagement with politics involves two main strategies: institutionalization, where
members of an initiative directly occupy a seat in local governing bodies, and policy
advocacy, where initiatives lobby local governing bodies to change policies.
10.3.3 Analytic Insights
This inquiry sought to answer the following two-part question: What are the
causes and consequences of the community development problem, and do the PSC and
Transition Movement responses pose viable, alternative community development
strategies? The answer to the first part of the question is that global complexity is
both a cause and consequence of the current community development challenge.
Global complexity, and the high level of energy and resources required to maintain it,
exert tremendous costs on communities. Community development strategies that
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accommodate global complexity strengthen and reinforce it, accelerating the
deterioration of social and environmental systems.
Joseph Tainter (1988, p. 122) anticipates the second part of the research
question – whether the PSC and Transition Movement responses are viable
alternatives – when he writes:
[When] complex society experiences increased adversity and
dissatisfaction, stress begins to be increasingly perceived. The system
as a whole engages in ‘scanning’ behavior, seeking alternatives that
might provide a preferable adaptation. This scanning may result in the
adoption by segments of the society of a variety of new ideologies and
life-styles.
This inquiry investigated the PSC and Transition Movement community
development responses and determined that they do not accommodate global
complexity, indeed they actively resist it in numerous ways. Even though they contain
weaknesses and risks, both responses are, consequently, viable alternative community
development strategies that hold promise for meeting the current challenge although
they differ in their capacity to effect change. While pursuing one alternative in
isolation from the other generates positive outcomes, placing community resources
behind both simultaneously is an even more effective approach. The two responses
must be encouraged to work together in order to maximize their mutual co-benefits
and generate significant improvements for local communities and global society.
The analysis also revealed that avoiding unnecessary complexity in community
development is a challenging endeavor. Opportunities to accommodate small
increases complexity are everywhere. Over time, and without anyone noticing, they
can slowly accumulate to significant levels. Communities require a vigilant and
comprehensive development strategy that prioritizes simplicity, equity, and qualitative
380
improvement over the endless pursuit of quantitative growth, networking and
connection, and specialization. This is a major challenge, especially considering how
growth, connection, and specialization are prized by contemporary political and
economic cultures. Increases in complexity, it seems, is so pervasive and integral to
standard development strategies that resisting its attraction is viewed as antithetical to
community development orthodoxy. The political and economic cultural norms are
hard to overcome, so much so that typical analytic determinations of success and
failure in community development are warped. Even the PSC response is not immune
from offering incomplete logic when it declares small development victories.
For instance, at a symposium on sustainable transportation planning, a
presenter discussed the public transportation success in Washington DC and how the
district’s Metro system effectively reduced the city’s carbon footprint (Osborne, 2015)
To support this claim, the presenter provided photos taken on Black Friday of a nearly
empty underground parking structure below a Target retail store. The store itself is
located adjacent to a Metro stop, and the presenter argued that the public
transportation system successfully prevented people from using their car to participate
in the popular shopping event. This, according to the planner’s logic, was deemed a
sustainability success story.
But this research and the analysis takes a different perspective. Through a
complexity lens, what this planner sees as success turns into a failure. The
Washington DC metro is viewed as one part of a system that also includes higherorder elements such as the Target store, the store’s staff, the consumer goods for sale,
the foreign factories and labor that produce the goods, the raw materials that constitute
the goods, and the flows of energy that power the production and consumption cycles.
381
What the Metro system does, when coupled with a Target store, is effectively enable
the integration of the community into complex global networks, ultimately
contributing to their maintenance and growth. This is a decidedly negative outcome,
and should not be celebrated as a success story.
This research demonstrates and reinforces the notion that planners, policy
makers, citizens, and businesses must think holistically and consider the global
complexity consequences of local development actions. This imperative applies to the
PSC and Transition Movement responses equally. Both development strategies
remain susceptible to accommodating global complexity through small, incremental
changes. Avoiding unnecessary increases in complexity will require decision makers
and citizens to use global complexity as a criterion for evaluating the strengths and
weaknesses of development actions. This analysis validates the importance of
applying a complexity lens to community development and sets an example that can
be further refined going forward.
10.4 Envisioning a Model Community
It is instructive to anticipate and envision community development strategy
that directly addresses the causes and consequences of the current development
challenge by incorporating this inquiry’s recommendations and insights. This strategy
would aim to accentuate the positive aspects of community development identified in
this research, deliver high-quality outcomes, minimize the costs, and withdraw support
for continuous growth in global complexity. What would such a community look
like?
First, local agriculture and food production is a large component of the
community economy and employment. Instead of manicured and fertilized lawns,
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there are raised beds and rainwater barrel systems to collect stormwater for watering
gardens. For those without a deed or direct access to land, community gardens offer
space to grow food. Market gardens are common, and the community has a thriving
local Farmers Market.
Private residences are significantly smaller than they are today and are
constructed from locally sourced, natural materials. In temperate climates, homes are
well-insulated and are oriented south to take advantage of passive solar heating in the
winter and are cooled in the summer by shade from the leaves of fruit and nut trees.
Dual stream composting toilets are common as are root cellars or cold storage pantries
to keep food from spoiling. Solar hot water heaters and photovoltaic panels line roofs.
Housing construction, maintenance, and operational costs are very low, making homes
affordable in the short and long run. A municipally-owned utility supplies electricity
to the community.
All streets in the community are paved with a permeable surface, painted with
a clearly identifiable bicycle lane, and have wheelchair accessible sidewalks.
Vegetated berms and swales collect and filter stormwater runoff from parking lots.
Infill and retrofit development is common, population densities are moderate yet high
enough to make a public transportation system viable, bicycle paths make connections
to surrounding communities, and people live in close proximity to basic amenities
such as locally owned grocers, general stores, schools, and public parks.
Leapfrogging and greenfield development does not occur, and ecologically sensitive
areas and prime farmland are preserved for agricultural purposes.
The economy of the community is localized to a high degree. Large, multinational corporations and mega-retailers have an extremely small presence in the
383
community, if at all. Businesses are owned and operated by local residents, co-ops are
common, the community operates a consumer goods repository like a FreeStore, and
there is a public service exchange system like a Time Bank. The community has a
blended reskilling/classroom/public shop space with varied appropriate technologies
and machines for making and repairing personal and household items like clothes,
bicycles, furniture, and cabinets. Community members are highly skilled and are
proficient in the creation and use of appropriate technologies. Reuse and upcycling of
consumer goods is common. User fees for the Time Bank and shop space are waived
for low-income community members. The community economy is not isolated,
however, and surplus goods and services are exchanged with surrounding
communities.
The community has a strong sense of identity and place. Community members
know each other personally because they frequently meet face to face. There are
annual festivals and rituals celebrating various aspects of the community and
functional, public art installations are common. Historically, aesthetically, and
culturally significant structures and places are preserved and conserved. The
community is active and engaged in civic affairs and its leaders explicitly promote
equity and justice as cornerstone values and goals. Governance and management of
local resources is retained by the community and the costs and benefits are equitably
distributed. Debates and conflicts arise, but are adequately and transparently resolved
before reaching the point of fracturing the community. When problems are
encountered, as they invariably will, potential solutions are assessed for simplicity and
advanced techno-fix interventions are avoided.
384
Certainly there are governance details absent from this vision, and those details
would need to be articulated to create and maintain such a community. The political
economy of Murray Bookchin’s (1989) libertarian municipalism project certainly
offers a base model for potentially governing this vision of community development,
although Bookchin’s framework would need to be infused with clear equity principles.
Still, even though the governance details have yet to fully emerge, the vision is useful
because it anticipates the form and function of a model community that directly
confronts global complexity and its local impacts.
10.5 The Future of Community in a Complex World
This research investigated the causes and consequences of the community
development challenge, as well as two realistic strategies that communities might take
to pursue alternative paths. But it is also an exploration of the concept and meaning of
community in an incredibly complex world. Global complexity is a tempting,
pervasive, and ultimately destructive force that undermines and dissolves the
foundation of a community’s collective identity and social capital. Community, as an
economically and socially productive institution, is certainly challenged by the
accelerating dynamic of global complexity, environmental exploitation, and advanced
technological development.
Yet at the same time, as this research demonstrates, global complexity is not an
unassailable or autonomous process, nor does it lead to determined outcomes of
decline and decay for communities. Individuals operating as a collective can repel the
forces of global complexity that threaten their productive abilities. Just as complexity
dissolves community as an institution, it simultaneous sows the seeds of a dialectic,
social process of resistance. Sensing a loss of community and the dangers and risks
385
that come with separation, individuals are more willing to reestablish bonds and
connections, to reweave life-sustaining social and ecological networks that are so vital
to human and non-human flourishing (Eisenstein, 2013). Complexity, as it grows and
challenges community, undermines itself and eventually compels intentional action to
reestablish community. Indeed, restoring community is the antidote to continuous
growth in global complexity.
The method of restoring community can progress along any number of
trajectories. One, which is demonstrated in this research, involves direct, physical,
meaningful contact between place-bound community members. Both the PSC and
Transition Movement responses advance this approach and advocate for its
implementation through various local development strategies. Another trajectory,
which is not mutually exclusive to the first, involves geographically dispersed virtual
communities and groups of individuals who share a common vision and identity yet
are connected to each other through advanced telecommunication technologies.
Prioritizing the latter trajectory at the expense of the former would be a mistake, for
reasons outlined in Chapter 3 (and especially Section 3.3.3), but this does not
necessarily commit the former pathway to completely eschewing the value of virtual
communities. Place-bound communities can wisely employ advanced
telecommunication technologies to network and build productive relationships with
other place-bound communities. Ideas and strategies to resist unnecessary increases in
complexity by strengthening the bonds of local communities can and should be shared
across virtual platforms.
As place-bound communities integrate and communicate with other
communities through virtual networks, the traditional concept and meaning of
386
community must to change and adapt. This implies that communities are
fundamentally altered by their interaction with complexity and advanced technologies.
In this new environment, it would be a mistake to idealize the classic vision of a
community and believe that it can be rediscovered and recreated. It is lost, forever.
Communities that exist today and actively resist global complexity are indelibly
changed by their efforts and the development efforts of communities before them. Yet
rather than lamenting this reality, which many romanticists are inclined to do, it should
be embraced and celebrated a unique set of conditions and an opportunity to achieve
something truly remarkable and historic. Negotiating a cultural bargain between
community identity, environmental health, and social progress should be a rewarding,
active, ongoing process that avoids resorting to lazily and uncritically practicing
technological somnambulism (Kraybill, 2001; Winner, 1986).
The preceding discussion of place-bound and virtual communities can be used
to demonstrate one possible negotiation. In place-bound local communities, access to
virtual communities can be a shared experience. For instance, the personalized,
socially-isolating experience representative of smart phones and instant, individualized
internet connectivity is a product of human decisions and structures, and is not a
determined outcome. An alternative to personal internet access in local communities
could be a communal system, through libraries or intranets for example. This would
be a reasonable, pragmatic compromise between the need to connect with virtual
communities to share development and simplification strategies, and the complexity
consequences that arise through such connections.
387
Through such negotiations and cultural bargaining, action must be taken to
redirect local communities and our world toward a more socially and environmentally
sensitive future. Continuing on the current trajectory of ever-increasing complexity,
no matter the temptation of short-term success, is a demonstrably flawed strategy.
Alternative pathways must be sought out and experimented with. It is vitally
important to survey the development options available to communities and determine
which ones present the most viable, long-term strategies going forward. Decision
makers and community members must receive the best available information about
current conditions in order to avoid repeating past mistakes. Community stakeholders
must be fully aware of alternative development options and their effectiveness so they
can make educated choices. The value and concept of community as an institution of
productive social and economic relationships must be reinforced.
This inquiry is an effort to better inform decision-making and a plea to
communities to courageously choose an alternative development path. Communities
are not held captive. They can make momentous choices (Shackle, 1972). They can
exercise agency and make decisions to chart alternative courses that avoid contributing
to global complexity. Alternatives are available – the decision to pursue them rests
with communities.
388
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Appendix A
OFFICIAL TRANSITION INITIATIVES IN THE UNITED STATES
This is the full list of official Transition initiatives in the United States,
retrieved from transitionus.org/initiatives-map on January 23, 2015. They are ordered
according to the date of their founding, earliest first.
Table A.1: List of official Transition initiatives in the United States
Name of Initiative
1. Transition Colorado
2. Sandpoint Transition Initiative
3. Community Rising
4. Transition Cotati
5. Transition Town Lyons
6. Transition Santa Cruz
7. Transition Town Montpelier
8. Transition Initiative Portland
9. Transition Sebastopol
10. Transition Laguna Beach
11. Pine Mountain's Let's Live Local
12. Transition Town Ashland
13. Sustainable Berea
14. Transition Pima
15. Transition Los Angeles
16. Transition Denver
17. Transition Whatcom
18. Transition Mount Shasta
19. Sustainable NE Seattle
20. Transition Louisville
21. Transition Newburyport
22. Transition Paso Robles
Location
Boulder County
Sandpoint
Ketchum
Cotati
Lyons
Santa Cruz
Montpelier
Portland
Sebastopol
Laguna Beach
Pine Mountain
Ashland
Berea
Pima
Los Angeles
Denver
Whatcom
Mount Shasta
NE Seattle
Louisville
Newburyport
Paso Robles
415
State
CO
ID
ID
CA
CO
CA
VT
ME
CA
CA
CA
OR
KY
AZ
CA
CO
WA
CA
WA
CO
MA
CA
Table A.1 continued
Name of Initiative
23. Transition PDX
24. Transition SLO County
25. Transition Town Hohenwald
26. Transition Ann Arbor
27. Transition OKC
28. Transition West Marin
29. Sustainable Tucson
30. Transition Greater New Haven
31. Transition Town Santa Barbara
32. Stelle Transition Initiative
33. Hancock County Towns in Transition
34. Hardwick Area Transition Towns
35. Transition Whidbey
36. Transition Culver City
37. Transition Sunnyside
38. Transition Media
39. Transition Carrboro/Chapel Hill
40. Transition Houston
41. Transition Olympia
42. Transition Town Chelsea
43. Transition Anderson
44. Transition Austin
45. Sustainable Monterey County
46. Transition Northfield
47. Transition Louisville
48. Transition Shelburne
49. Transition Van Buren-Allegan
50. Transition Reno
51. Transition Town Manchester
52. Hay River Transition Initiative
53. Transition
Westminster/Arvada/Broomfield
54. Transition Bloomington
55. Transition San Francisco
56. Transition Keene
57. Richmond Rivets
58. Transition PGH
59. Transition Albany
60. Transition Micanopy
Location
Portland
San Luis Obispo
Hohenwald
Ann Arbor
Oklahoma City
West Marin
Tucson
Greater New Haven
Santa Barbara
Stelle
Ellsworth
Hardwick Area
Southern Whidbey Island
Culver City
Sunnyside, Portland
Media
Carrboro/Chapel Hill
Houston
Olympia
Chelsea
Anderson
Austin
Monterey
Northfield
Louisville
Shelburne
Fennville
Reno
Manchester
Prairie Farm
Westminster
State
OR
CA
TN
MI
OK
CA
AZ
CT
CA
IL
ME
VT
WA
CA
OR
PA
NC
TX
WA
MI
OH
TX
CA
MN
KY
VT
MI
NV
VT
WI
CO
Bloomington
San Francisco
Keene
Richmond
Pittsburgh
Albany
Micanopy
IN
CA
NH
CA
PA
CA
FL
416
Table A.1 continued
Name of Initiative
61. Transition Staunton Augusta
62. Transition Town Putney
63. Transition Town State College
64. Transition Town Bald Eagle Valley
65. Transition Nevada County
66. Transition Montague
67. Transition Silicon Valley
68. Transition San Fernando Valley
69. Transition San Lorenzo Valley
70. Transition Town Charlotte
71. Transition Northfield
72. Pelham Transition
73. Transition Madison Area
74. Transition Northampton
75. Transition Sewickley
76. Transition Palo Alto
77. Transition Newton
78. Transition Cheltenham
79. Transition Fidalgo & Friends
80. Transition Traverse City
81. Transition Vashon
82. Transition Sonoma Valley
83. Transition Chicago
84. Transition Rogers Park
85. Transition South Dakota
86. Greening Greenfield
87. Somerville Climate Action
88. Transition Asheville
89. Transition Centreville-Clifton
90. Transition Snoqualmie Valley
91. Revive the Roots
92. Transition Muskegon County
93. Transition Milwaukee
94. Chuckanut Transition
95. Jamaica Plain New Economy
Transition
96. Transition Joshua Tree
97. Transition Lehigh Valley
98. Transition Omaha
Location
Staunton
Putney
State College
Julian
Nevada City
Montague
Mountain View
North Hills
Ben Lomond
Charlotte
Northfield
Pelham
Madison
Northampton
Sewickley
Palo Alto
Newton
Cheltenham
Anacortes
Traverse City
Vashon
Sonoma
Chicago
Rogers Park
Sioux Falls
Greenfield
Somerville
Asheville
Centreville
Carnation
Smithfield
Muskegon
Milwaukee
Chuckanut
Jamaica Plain
State
VA
VT
PA
PA
CA
MA
CA
CA
CA
VT
MA
MA
WI
MA
PA
CA
NJ
PA
WA
MI
WA
CA
IL
IL
SD
MA
MA
NC
VA
WA
RI
MI
WI
WA
MA
Joshua Tree
Bethlehem
Omaha
CA
PA
NE
417
Table A.1 continued
Name of Initiative
99. Sustainable Fairfax
100. Transition Kaw Valley
101. Transition Port Gardner
102. Transition Amherst
103. Transition Woodinville
104. Corcoran GROWS
105. Transition Sarasota
106. Transition Westchester
107. Transition Tulsa
108. Transition Marbletown
109. Transition Letcher County
110. Berkeley Transition Initiative
111. Local 2020
112. Esalen Beyond Green
113. Transition Litchfield
114. Transition Ourway
115. Woodstock Transition
116. Transition Hastings-on-Hudson
117. Transition Longfellow
118. Transition Town Bedford
119. Belfast Area Transition Initiative
120. Transition Venice
121. Transition Town Payson
122. Transition Wayland
123. Transition Cadillac Area
124. Transition Missoula
125. Two Peaks Transition
126. Transition Tampa
127. Coginchaug Area Transition
128. Transition Loudoun
129. Transition Salt Lake
130. Transition Santa Rosa
131. Transition Port Angeles
132. Transition UNM
133. Mountain Communities of Resilience
134. Transition Goshen
135. Simply Living - Central Ohio
Transition Hub
136. Transition Healdsburg
Location
Fairfax
Lawrence
Everett
Amherst
Woodinville
Minneapolis
Sarasota
Ossining
Tulsa
Stone Ridge
Seco
Berkeley
Port Townsend
Big Sur
Litchfield
Ridgway
Woodstock
Hastings-on-Hudson
Minneapolis
Bedford
Belfast
Venice
Payson
Wayland
Cadillac
Missoula
Two Peaks
Tampa
Middlefield
Loudoun
Salt Lake City
Santa Rosa
Port Angeles
Rio Rancho
Aguanga
Goshen
Columbus
State
CA
KS
WA
MA
WA
MN
FL
NY
OK
NY
KY
CA
WA
CA
CT
CO
NY
NY
MN
MA
ME
FL
AZ
MA
MI
MT
CO
FL
CT
VA
UT
CA
WA
NM
CA
IN
OH
Healdsburg
CA
418
Table A.1 continued
Name of Initiative
137. Hamptons in Transition
138. Transition Ossining
139. Kearsarge Valley Transition
140. Transition Charlottesville-Albemarle
141. Transition Pasadena
142. Transition Longmeadow
143. Transition Livingston
144. Transition Howard County
145. Sustainable Potomac Highlands
146. Transition Tallahassee
147. Transition Aromas
148. Transition Humboldt
149. Transition Mankato
150. Transition Santa Monica
151. Transition Bozeman
152. Transition Lopez Island
153. Transition Manitou Springs
Location
Sag Harbor
Ossining
Kearsarge Valley
CharlottesvilleAbermarle
Pasadena
Longmeadow
Livingston
Howard County
Romney
Tallahassee
Aromas
Humboldt County
Mankato
Santa Monica
Bozeman
Lopez Island
Manitou Springs
419
State
NY
NY
NH
VA
CA
MA
MT
MD
WV
FL
CA
CA
MN
CA
MT
WA
CO
Appendix B
INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD PROJECT APPROVAL
420
421