New section dedicated to 'smart' localism, Translocalism, Multi-Local Societies

Introduction

• Ezio Manzini: Small, Local, Open and Connected As Way of the Future
• Reasoned Localization and Selective Deglobalization. Discussion excerpted from Christian Arnsperger.
• Four Stages of Temporal-Spatial Organization in Human History. Jason F. McLennan. [1]

See also:

• Re-localisation, as Alternative Globalisation ; 'p2p' discussion by Jose Ramos and Michel Bauwens
• Phyles, a globa-local mutualist association for business, centered around a commons

Visualizations

This graphic from John Robb shows the evolution of manufacturing from mass manufacturing to globa-local distributed custom manufacturing, giving a timeline for its realization as well.

• 

  Location of production

Related Wiki sections

• Global Villages
• P2P Urbanism
• Globalocal food developments

Key Quotes

With the advent of the P2P Mode of Production, the community and its common is now the appropriate scale

"We’re seeing something that is historically shocking—the reduction to zero of the cost of an especially valuable part of capital, which materializes directly knowledge (free software, free designs, etc.). And above all we see, almost day by day, how the optimum size of production, sector by sector, approaches or reaches the community dimension.

The possibility for the real community, the one based on interpersonal relationships and affections, to be an efficient productive unit is something radically new, and its potential to empower is far from having been developed. This means that we are lucky enough to live in a historical moment when it would seem that the whole history of technology, with all its social and political challenges, has coalesced to put us within reach of the possibility of developing ourselves in a new way and contributing autonomy to our community.

Today we have an opportunity that previous generations did not: to transform production into something done, and enjoyed, among peers. We can make work a time that is not walled off from life itself, which capitalism revealingly calls “time off.” That’s the ultimate meaning of producing in common today. That’s the immediate course of every emancipatory action. The starting point."

- David de Ugarte [2]

The Local, indispensable holon of the Commons

"There is a rising restoration of the idea of location being important. Where you see this happening, you see commons forming. I've spent a bit of time thinking about why. Karl pointed out that our current era since the Enlightenment has increasingly applied the principle of "nowhere" to try to reduce things to abstract principles, rules, laws, facts, etc. It was powerful and much needed to push us along the way. However, it removes necessary context and dynamics both within and between systems. Localism counters that by restoring context and recognizing that the observers can't be disentangled from the system. Culture is a key part of a working commons, since culture is one of the key ways we store accumulated community knowledge and changing culture means that new knowledge is being stored, or at the very least a recognition that the system is changing and parts of the old culture don't fit. Commons & culture aren't "nowhere". They require place. A truly global commons isn't one thing. It is a billions interlocking, intersecting, and scaled commons all working together as an environment. A commons is a holon. Each holonarchic level of a global commons has a sense of place. People + Place = Community & shared culture. "

- Tim Morgan [3]

Key Resources

Key Articles

• Why Localization is Inevitable in a Resource-Scarce World. By Fred Curtis, David Ehrenfeld. Solutions Journal, Jan 2012 [4]

Key Educational Resources

Localization Seminar. A syllabus for a course or reading group on the topic of localization.

Key Policy Resources

• Great Localization: Policy recommendations from the New Economics Institute: