As of today, the first two sets of bike racks are here!  Here’s the view on North side of the 700 block:

Thanks to the Urban Enterprise Association and Whitewater Construction for making this a reality.  Thanks to Mark Stosberg at Summersault for driving the process forward and presenting such specific, compelling plans and rationale for the racks.  Thanks to everyone who voiced your support for the racks or offered to contribute financially.  And thanks to everyone who carefully considers their choice of transportation and its impact on quality of life in our community and beyond.

Now, get downtown and park your bike here!

Most other communities have recognized the benefits of having bike parking in a central retail and business district like Richmond’s.  They’re good for business (when cyclists feel invited to shop downtown, they tend to spend even more money in a given area than car drivers do), they help prevent damage to benches, trees and lamp posts, they make for a more orderly-looking streetscape, they prevent theft, and they’re relatively cheap to buy and install.

Unfortunately, in all of the time that I’ve worked in downtown Richmond, there hasn’t been any convenient and consistently available bike parking available here.

If Richmond wants to be able to say that it’s a city looking forward, a city that wants to attract and retain the modern worker, a city that cares about issues of sustainability and energy usage, it absolutely needs to have bike racks in its central business district.

Hopefully the current dearth of bike parking is about to change.

For the last few years, we at Summersault (as coordinated by my coworker and local bikes-as-transportation advocate Mark Stosberg) have been asking the City of Richmond and related entities, “What can we do to get bike racks here?“

We’ve pointed out how the City’s own comprehensive planning supports the installation of bike racks, we’ve offered to pay for them (they’re only $65 each), we’ve gotten price quotes and offered to manage relationships with vendors, we’ve presented specific plans and recommendations for where they can go (which have been approved), and we’ve even offered to install them ourselves – hey, I’ve got a wheelbarrow to mix some concrete in.

As you can imagine, sometimes the decision-making processes and bureaucracy in these matters make for slow progress, but we’ve found that people are very receptive to the idea and want to make it happen. Now, it looks like the Urban Enterprise Association (UEA), which has taken up the mantle of getting the racks installed, is approaching the final steps in completing an initial installation.

If bike parking, and having alternative transportation options in general, is important to you, please let the UEA know that you support the installation of bike racks in Richmond’s center city.  You can contact UEA program director Beth Fields at (765) 983-7396 or by e-mail at bfields@richmondindiana.gov.

Hopefully I’ll be updating this post soon with news about the first racks getting installed!

First, the tax is being presented by the Commissioners as a suddenly urgent need for the area, “act before it’s too late,” they say.  I find this characterization troubling given that one of the fundamental truths of life is that roads will deteriorate over time and will require money be spent on them if we want to keep them fixed up.  If our ability to maintain infrastructure comes down to whether or not we can urgently get the public to approve additional taxation once in a while, then we’re doing it wrong. Where was the long-term planning and well-thought-out discussion that would give the community time to react to this significant problem in our county and explore alternatives?

Second, citizens want to believe that public officials are acting with integrity and consistency when it comes to being good stewards of existing tax dollars.  It’s truly cringe-worthy that the County Commissioner who has advanced the proposal for this tax, Ken Paust, stated in no uncertain terms during his campaign for election that he would not advocate for any new taxes if elected.  From his recent interview in the Palladium-Item:

“That was the whole platform for my campaign (last year) — no more taxes,” Paust said.

We know, we know – circumstances change, the economy didn’t recover as fast as we thought it would, yada yada – but…REALLY? I know Ken Paust means well, but couldn’t you find someone else to be the spokesperson for this cause? From a taxpayer and voter perspective, this reversal on Paust’s part just reinforces the all-too-prevalent idea that political candidates can’t be trusted in their commitments and that public officials are out of touch with what their citizens want.

Third, the wheel tax is regressive in that it would create the most hardship (as a percentage of income) for lower-income citizens who likely do the least damage to County roads and be the least inconvenient (as a percentage of income) for individuals and businesses who operate vehicles that do the most damage to those roads (e.g. large trucks, buses, etc).  In this economy, why would anyone propose a tax that further shifts the common financial burdens of maintaining our infrastructure on to those who can least afford it? And that doesn’t even begin to address issues like the fact that someone operating a bus (for example) could be contributing to reducing the number of cars on the road, a behavior that should be rewarded instead of taxed additionally.

The introduction of a proposal for a new tax often comes with the statement (as it does in this case), “if we don’t do this now, we’ll be paying even more later.”  In some cases, that might be true, but the burden of proof should be extraordinarily high to show that it is.  There are all sorts of behaviors we engage in (that don’t even involve outright taxation) that defer the negative consequences of a failure to act and shift the burden onto future generations.  Why is this lack of long-term planning the most pressing to fix?

When we fail to plan the layout of our communities in ways that are bike- and pedestrian-friendly and instead encourage everyone to drive around one person to a car whenever they want to, we tax our citizens of tomorrow with rising road maintenance and healthcare costs.  When we base financial planning on unfounded optimism about the ability of “the market” or “the global economy” to do this or that in a given year, we tax our citizens who depend on a budgeting process that’s grounded in reality.  When as a culture we tell ourselves that we should be able to have all modern conveniences at steadily lowering costs with higher quality and we deserve it RIGHT NOW no matter the environmental or social impact, we tax future generations who will be forced to wake up from that dream more suddenly and inconveniently than we can imagine.

Is there any reason to believe that imposing a wheel tax on the citizens of Wayne County is the best, most well-thought-out solution for the long-term health of transportation in the area?  Or is it just a short-term fix that covers over poor planning and unrealistic fiscal policy?

Most importantly, can we trust our elected officials to slow down the artificial momentum for this tax proposal, and really listen to how this community answers those questions?

In the meantime, as a distraction, here are some things you might want to click on and check out:

1. Is it possible that all this political rage is not actually about healthcare?
2. I enjoyed the documentary “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” which takes a look at the MPAA’s system of assigning maturity ratings to films, and how it affects the production, distribution and success of movies in the U.S.  The themes were that (A) a small group of anonymous and inaccessible people have significant influence in deciding what becomes a part of our culture, (B) anything that depicts the sexual empowerment or fulfillment of women is dangerous or obscene, and (C) anything that isn’t 100% pro-military, pro-war is dangerous or obscene.

   I know these themes will be shocking to you, so just take a minute and catch your breath.

3. There’s a new federal policy that says cycling and other forms of non-motorized transportation should be treated as equal to motorized transportation when we plan our cities and streets.  Yay! But apparently, this is going to lead to economic catastrophe.  RUN FOR–er, uh, I mean DRIVE FOR YOUR LIVES!!
4. Have you tried playing Glenn Beck Bingo?  It’s a great party game.
5. I really hope none of the commenters on my review of Lierre Keith’s “The Vegetarian Myth” were among the militant vegans who assaulted her at a recent speaking engagement.  Um, you’re doing it wrong.

There now, you almost forgot about my blogging transgressions, didn’t you?

Some observations on walking to work:

1. Since walking has become my usual mode of commuting, I’ve found myself noticing even more what complex and sometimes onerous machines automobiles can be.  There a feeling of lightness I have in walking out the door and propelling myself down the street, feeling my muscles working and pace changing, saying hi to people and noticing changes in their moods and dispositions from day to day, just being out in the open air of the world.  This is much different from the protocols for entering, activating and safely operating my internal combustion go-go machine from one place to another; it’s just a much heavier and more isolating experience, and while it still has its place, I’m quite glad to partake in it less often.
2. The walk takes about 15 minutes or less.  My prior residence was less than 2 miles from my office, which took about 30 minutes.  Even though Richmond tends not to be all that pedestrian-friendly, the previous longer route was especially obnoxious in the loud and busy roads I would walk, and so it became a bit of a psychological barrier to wanting to do it every day.  The 30 minute mark was just long enough to create some stress about how much of the day I might “lose” to walking back and forth, even though other calculations show we lose a good part of our day/lives to earning the money to be able to drive in.  In any case, 15 minutes feels like a great number for me right now – just long enough to make the walk enjoyable, and short enough that I feel close  to all the places I want to be able to be quickly.
3. I’ve certainly saved a little money, between several hundred and a thousand dollars in gasoline expenses depending on what past year I compare it to.  The drive to work obviously didn’t use a whole lot of gas in itself, but not driving my car every day also means lower automobile maintenance costs.
4. This winter season found Richmond with more snow on the ground for longer periods of time than it’s had in recent history.  Local residents and businesses are generally not very cognizant of the impact on pedestrians when they leaving their sidewalks unshoveled; it means that people either have to walk in the street, which is dangerous, or take alternate routes, which is inconvenient.  This didn’t stop me from walking, even if I had to transport an extra pair of shoes along with me, but it’s still disappointing to see the significant resources expended on making paths clear for cars and so little attention given to keeping pedestrian walkways usable.
5. I live in an Indiana Enterprise Zone, which means that the local governments have designated it as a “distressed or blighted area” that could benefit from some economic development incentives.  What it really means is that my employer and I both get tax credits for me living there – close to a thousand dollars on my return this year -  the idea being that I’m helping to make the area less distressed and blighted.  What’s that have to do with walking to work? The goal of having a walkable, bike-able city lines up nicely with the goal of having a vibrant downtown business district surrounded by vibrant, well-established residential neighborhoods.  When we remember to plan communities around the needs of people instead of around what’s best for automobiles, we almost always inevitably also build a stronger local economy.
6. I have to recognize the relative ease with which I – a tall white male – can wander out into the streets past dusk on my walk home after a late night at the office, not thinking too much about being vulnerable or unsafe.  I know some of my downtown co-workers wouldn’t find it desirable or even acceptable to put themselves in the same position.  There are things Richmond could do to help with this – e.g. fix the streetlights that don’t work on Main St. – but there are also a broader set of cultural issues that need work before the pedestrian lifestyle is truly “safe” and normal again.  In the meantime, I’m privileged in a way that I’ll keep taking advantage of, but won’t take for granted.
7. I usually listen to music while I walk (and lately I’m listening to courses on learning Spanish).  Sometimes I don’t listen to anything and just enjoy the sounds around me.  The sounds I listen to often set my mood for the day, and can inject a burst of creative energy that stays with me as the melodies or lyrics echo around in my head.  It’s perhaps no different than listening to the stereo in the car, but dancing, tapping your fingers to a beat, absorbing a powerful verse – they’re all a little more fun when you don’t have to keep your eyes on the road.

Those are some of my experiences of getting to work.  Do you have any to share?

So that’s why I chose to walk to and from work today – a “walk to work day” if you will.  I represented one less bike on the road, and it felt good.

Think about all of the ways that bikes are harming our environment, our culture, our communities:

• The raw materials used to produce bikes is significant, and the refining/production process they undergo is full of waste and harmful emissions.  The tire manufacturing process is particularly egregious, and think of the oil required to keep those bike chains moving.  You won’t find anything like that with a trusty pair of sandals on your feet.
• Think about all of the asphalt poured every year to make special bike lanes – and the construction, the traffic hassles, and the destruction of green space that goes along with it.  We need to start organizing the layout of our communities around people, not their modes of transportation.
• As I said above, bike culture is getting out of hand.  Everyone’s obsessed with how sleek and shiny their bikes are, how well accessorized they can be, how much stuff they can haul around, and how fast they can go.  We’ve come to judge each others` success based solely on the model and styling of bikes we ride around, instead of really looking at what’s on the inside, or at our average walking pace – these are the things that really matter.
• When we bike everywhere, we really lose touch with our surroundings and our humanity.  If you’re zooming by your neighborhood park or the community grocery store at 12 miles an hour, how do you expect to stay connected to your fellow humans and what’s going on in their lives?  Walking is the way to really be a part of the community you live in.
• Bike racks are everywhere now, and they’re taking up land that could be used for green areas, community spaces, etc.  We really have paved paradise so that we can put up our precious bike parking lots.

Of course, these are just a few of the ways in which this dominating bike culture is taking over our lives.  We really do have to stand up against it, and find a more just and sustainable way of getting around.  Walking is less wasteful and more fun.

So, the next time someone starts trying to convince you to wrap up your identity and your freedom in some overpriced piece of carbon fiber, say no.  Say, “because of me, there will be one less bike on the road today.”  It’s the right thing to do.

About 45 minutes before I found myself in this situation, we were traveling down I-70 East in the heavily falling wet snow, gusting wind, and crowded highway lanes.  It was the kind of weather that should probably have kept us off the road, but if there’s one thing that car culture teaches you, it’s that nothing should stand in between you and your vehicle’s destination, so there we were.

About six cars up, I saw headlights, and they were in my lane.  “Oh no,” I thought, “not another one of these high speed car chases.”  As I slowed us down, I watched the car spin out of control, cross over the median into the westbound lanes, cross back over the median and do two full spinning rotations, and then come to a stop.  We passed a split second later, and the driver appeared to be slumped over in her seat.

I pulled onto the shoulder and as I was calling 911 to give them the milepost marker, Anna Lisa got out to go check on her.  We were parked a little too close to the highway lane but we wanted to get some emergency personnel headed that way and check on the driver.  A few other folks were pulling off too, one to help out, another to recover from being so shaken up by seeing the spin-out.

With the 911 operator on the line, I ran back to the car and confirmed with Anna Lisa and another passer-by that the driver was okay, just shaken up.  It was her birthday, and she was on her way to the celebration.  Her vehicle even seemed to be just fine, and I started to let the operator know that there were no injuries and just some possible towing to do.

And that’s when the black pickup truck heading east side-swiped one of the vehicles that had stopped to help.  The impact dented the car, pulled off its front fender, and dislodged the wheel, while sending other debris flying.  On the truck, its front left wheel also appeared to be dislodged, and the driver barely controlled the vehicle as it passed within inches of our car and slid to a stop.  I told the 911 operator that we now had ourselves more of a situation, and that there might be an injury.  I heard her escalate it a bit and she said the state police would be there soon.  I went to wave traffic off to the far lane, hoping to avoid a repeat.

Everyone ended up being fine.  Several troopers arrived and inspected the situation.  They took our statements and contact information.  The original spin-out car was able to pull away on its own, and the two impacted vehicles were getting tow-trucks.  Anna Lisa and I pulled out and drove (more slowly, more cautiously) to our destination.

We already know this, right?  Split seconds of attention span and inches of maneuverability make all the difference in life and death when you’re propelling these machines along at 70 miles/hour.  And yet we still chat on our phones, feel around in the back seat, fiddle with the radio, drive too close in bad weather. I’ll probably do so again.

Today, I’m thankful.

The Quaker college has tried for decades to get a traffic signal at its entrance, an effort that began soon after Earlham student David Rantanen was killed crossing the highway in 1962. Since then, two more people have died and several more were hit and injured by vehicles on the four-lane highway near the school’s main drive.

While the decision isn’t official, the concession on the part of state highway planners that a signal is needed is a major one.  I cringe when I’m in a car or walking as a pedestrian in that area, as it really is a game of “look both ways about 10 times and then cross your fingers and run for it” for pedestrians.  And while I ascribe no general ill will toward Earlham students on the part of Richmond drivers, it does seem to be a section of road that highlights the inherent disdain that some drivers have for pedestrians in this town.  Sometimes they even speed up a little when students are crossing, instead of slowing down.

The usual criticisms are already resurfacing: why should taxpayers pay for a crossing between two parts of a private campus, why didn’t Earlham just build a pedestrian bridge with its vast vaults of extra cash, etc.  (And as usual, critics are posting their demands for answers in the Pal-Item’s online comment section instead of taking them to the people who can actually answer them, which in my mind means they don’t really want an answer, they just want to complain.)

But I think we can generally address those concerns by remembering that all of us pay for infrastructure like roads, sidewalks, crossing signals, traffic lights, etc. that may or may not directly benefit our own daily commute – it’s nothing new to ask the entities that are responsible for managing that infrastructure to build some new ones in places that are needed.  The lives of pedestrians are no less worth protecting as they cross a public road, just because there happens to be privately owned land on either side…that’s pretty much how every residential street works.

Congratulations to Earlham for creatively staying on this and to the INDOT folks for (finally) taking heed.

It started with Mark and I barreling through the snow on I-70 toward the Dayton airport, wondering if planes would even be taking off at all today. But, my handy dandy text message updates from Delta.com declared the flight was on time, so we pressed on.

I should have known we were in for a special time when the guy at the ticket check-in counter (which has largely been replaced by self check-in kiosks) was delighted to point out how much cost cutting Delta has done. Me: “Do you have one of those little folders for these boarding passes?” Him: “No, they did away with those some time ago. Heck, all we’ve got left now are the airplanes! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Right.

Then the security checkpoint for, as Bruce Schneier accurately calls it, “Security Theatre.” But, I’d done my homework and had minimized my liquids, left all but my car key in the car, worn socks without holes in them for the taking off of the shoes, etc. And that went fine.

So we get on the plane and we go out to the de-icing area where they pour two different chemicals on the wings, one pink and one green, over a 15 minute period. Then we taxi out to runway 26L, rev up the engines, and start rolling. And then the engines are revved down, and back up again, and then down, and we start taxiing off the runway.

“Ladies and Gentleman, this is your captain from the flight deck. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we got a little message on the error display here right before takeoff, and we decided not to take a chance. I’ll get on the phone with maintenance in Atlanta and keep you posted.”

Great. Safety first, well done, etc.

“Ladies and Gentleman, that issue has cleared itself up, and we’re all set to take off again.”

So we get deiced again, and we’re now about 50 minutes past our scheduled takeoff time, making Mark and I a little nervous about our connecting flight. We taxi to the runway, rev up the engines, and start rolling. And then the engines rev down, and we taxi off the runway again.

“Well, apparently that issue wasn’t cleared up, and we got the error message again, so we’re going to go back to the terminal. Something about a problem with the left engine.”

Thank goodness for some engineer somewhere who built an error message system that didn’t just flake out and report a problem one minute and then not step up to report it the next.

About an hour and a half past our original departure time, we’re getting back off the plane, and then standing in line at the gate ticket counter to see about a rebooking of our connecting flight. Delta.com texts me to say that the flight’s new departure time is 3 PM. Then they text me to say that it’s canceled. And then the pilot announces that the flight is canceled.

Right. I asked MattJ in my office to call Delta and find some alternatives while we stood in line. Just after that, the Delta person said “we’ve checked with all of the other airlines, and they have no seats available. Oh, and also, there’s a bunch more snow coming, so if you don’t get out of here today, it will probably be tomorrow afternoon before flights will go again.”

Great.

It turns out, then, that the best possible solution for getting to San Francisco today was for Mark and I to drive to the Cincinnati airport about 1.5 hours away, and fly directly from there. So we rounded up our bags, walked out to the parking lot in the snow, and…found that my car key was no longer where it was supposed to be in my pocket. Gone. We looked in the snow that had accumulated around the car, nothing. Locked out, cold, bags getting soaked, I mentioned that maybe it fell out in the security line.

Mark was off and running back into the airport to look for the key there (glad that he’d brought his running shoes), while I navigated the 37 phone menu options for the Dayton airport to see about a locksmith of some sort. After taking approximately zero measures to insure Mark was the rightful owner of the key, the TSA handed it over to him, it apparently having fallen out when I disrobed while being scanned.

So then we drive to Cincinnati in the blustery snow, and finally get on another plane. I couldn’t believe that a few hours earlier we’d been on a runway, ROLLING DOWN IT, and still hadn’t been airborne. Twice. Oy.

It was a long flight, and the apparent “innovation” of each person getting a touch-screen television system on the headrest in front of them didn’t make it any better…the glow of passive entertainment engulfed us all as we traveled across the country together. At least there was someone a few seats back clipping their nails at various points throughout the flight, that was REALLY pleasant.

Okay, enough ranting. I’m happily on the ground in San Francisco now, with a place to sleep, a delicious PLANT burger in my belly, and an exciting couple of days ahead. Here’s hoping that all of the ridiculous travel adventure was front-stacked, and that the rest of this trip is boring in that sense.

[W]here does this drive for relocalizing come from? Perhaps it has to do with a vague sense of ethical rightness more than anything scientifically verifiable. University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt classifies such efforts as attempts to attain (and potentially guilt others into) a sense of moral purity. “Food,” he says, “is becoming extremely moralized these days.”

The problem, of course, is that purity is hard to come by in a world as complex as ours, and simplistic answers often have consequences that their proponents do not intend. Consumers should think twice before jumping on the localvore bandwagon.

I’m all for thinking twice before jumping on any sort of wagon, but I think Mr. Hisrich’s logic is flawed in a number of places. Read on for my point-by-point analysis of his column:

In April, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University published a study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology that all of the transportation associated with the American food supply chain accounts for only 11 percent of foods’ climate impact.

You can view the full study online. The basic conclusion that they make is that the transportation of food isn’t as big a factor in carbon footprint as the production and other factors, and so that we might be able to reduce our footprint more by changing our diet — eating less meat and dairy, which create the most pollution — than we will by changing where it comes from.

This study seems well done, and convincing in its assertion that food miles are only one part of overall considerations when it comes to the environmental impact of food choices. Of course, carbon footprint is not the only reason many people like to eat local; there are lots of other benefits, including the relationships that come with knowing who is growing your food and how, and the proud self-reliance that comes from being able to eat off of the land we live on.

And, “It’s still useful to think about transport,” says David Pimentel of Cornell University, an ecologist who has conducted life-cycle analyses of food’s energy use. He recently calculated that if a typical American drives home with a 1 pound can of corn, 311 calories of fossil fuel energy are used to transport the 375-calorie corn in the can.

In fact, by focusing on local production, emissions may actually rise. This is because growing foods in the conditions best suited to their production can often offset the relatively small impact of transportation. In the United Kingdom, for instance, fewer emissions are released by importing milk and apples from New Zealand and tomatoes from Spain than devoting the energy and resources necessary to produce them locally.

One of the core tenets of the local food movement is not only to eat food that is produced locally, but to avoid foods that can’t be produced locally. Mr. Hisrich is correct that if we try to grow avocados and oranges here in Indiana in the dead of winter, we’ll of course use much more energy to do that than someone growing those foods in a climate naturally suited for it. So while the point is technically correct, it unfairly ignores some of the ethos of the local foods movement – few people are suggesting we try to grow every kind of food here just to satisfy our “exotic” cravings.

[W]hat the growing local advocates encourage often has less to do with an actual weighing of the costs and benefits of local farming than it does with a value judgment about what should be good for rural economies. While one might be able to argue that eating local improves the lot of a particular group, it is more difficult to argue that spending more for local produce improves the economic well-being of either local shoppers or the local economy as a whole.

I’d ask Mr. Hisrich to back that assertion up with some data, the “actual weighing of costs and benefits” of which he speaks. By definition, dollars that are spent on locally produced goods and services, given to vendors that live and work here, are dollars that will tend to stay in the geographical region to be spent again on other locally produced goods and services. This is why every economic development organization in the state works to bring businesses to their towns that will pay good wages to local workers who will then turn around and spend it locally. This is why local currency and time banks are popping up everywhere, and why our own Chamber of Commerce has a “buy local” program. Just because we’re talking about food, the principles don’t become any more mysterious.

What about impoverished farmers in developing countries who merely seek the chance to compete on a level playing field? This movement provides advocates of protectionism another rhetorical tool in their effort to prevent that from happening.

Quite to the contrary, the local food movement is part of a larger cultural perspective that seeks to remove the artificial protections that prevent people from sustaining themselves on their own land-base. If you take into consideration the subsidies, trade tariffs, import/export controls, immigration policies, monopolies and compulsory price controls, and injustices related to wage and labor standards that help create the “impoverished farmer in a developing country” in the first place, it’s clear that the leveling of the playing field needs to happen well before we get to the buying choices of the end consumer.

By encouraging communities to be more self-reliant, we actually help all communities move toward being able to make a sustainable living for themselves.

John Cloud, however, points out that local does not necessarily mean safe. When he asked Joseph Mendelson III, legal director of the Center for Food Safety, a liberal Washington group that supports strong organic standards, whether local food should be favored, Mendelson replied, “I don’t know what local means. Do they use local pesticides? Does that mean the food is better because they produce local cancers?”

This is an unnecessarily flippant remark in a serious conversation, but I’ll address it anyway. Not every local food effort advocates the banning of all pesticides and chemicals from the growing process, and communities can set their own standards as they see fit.

The point is that when you can visit your local grower and see what practices they use to create the food you eat (or perhaps even help yourself!), you have much more control over and knowledge about what you put in your body. We only have to look back to this past summer and remember the food-borne illnesses that came from unsupervised, poorly conducted growing processes in an industrial agriculture setting to see how the safety of our food is improved when we’re more engaged in where it comes from.

So, back to the original suggestion Mr. Hisrich shared:

So where does this drive for relocalizing come from? Perhaps it has to do with a vague sense of ethical rightness more than anything scientifically verifiable.

I’ll promise not to be insulted by the suggestion that people in the relocalization movement only make certain decisions just because it might be the right thing to do, if Mr. Hisrich promises not to be insulted by my suggestion that he doesn’t quite know what he’s talking about here.

All across the country and world, communities are experiencing the forced contraction that comes with rising energy costs, failures of over-dependence on the global economy, and the isolation and disconnection of the culture of “suburbia.” Communities that are working to reclaim their identities and self-reliance are finding positive ways to move past those contractions, taking matters back into their own hands instead of waiting for the next factory closure or government bailout to set the course.

The local food movement is a core part of this, and while participating in it will mean different things for different communities, it deserves a bit more consideration than Mr. Hisrich’s column gives.  I do really appreciate that he’s taken this issue on and generated some conversation around it! I hope he’ll join us at the next 100-Mile Radius Potluck here in Richmond so we can continue that conversation together.