Building Activities

Building/growing new capacities & institutions and all kinds of generative work are important. Wouldn't it be great if there were a website that covered news about the following activities? (always accompanied by information on how you could contribute to and benefit from them)

(Local links, and more general links/info toward bottom of page)

Individual and group awareness, development and experimentation, including OpenSpace, leadership, WikiWiki, listening, GroupDynamics?, MediTation, FaciliTation?, unlearning prejudices... Aka ProcessArts

...as one scales up this gets into culture, decision-making (informal, business, legislation, voting, etc.), civic/"governmental" practices, and more - FreeCulture, NoncoerciveLaw?, VictimOffenderMediation, human-readable law (see http://nolo.org/ ), fully informed juries (in the UnitedStates and probably many other countries you have the right to rule against the law - see http://fija.org/ ). There are small changes to political systems such as Citizen Initiative Review and Instant Runoff Voting, but these are just fine-tuning. The meat of this stuff is practices that bring all people/perspectives together in ways that support wholeness and creativity. http://transpartisan.net/ works to connect people across typical political boundaries, but i'm thinking even deeper: EmergentDemocracy?, PublicParticipation?, RadicalInclusion, ConSensus, DeepDemocracy?. TomAtlee of the CoIntelligenceInstitute has a lot of creative ideas listed at http://www.democracyinnovations.org/ and has grouped some particularly hopeful practices (e.g. WisdomCouncil) together as CitizenDeliberativeCouncils); also see the NationalCoalitionForDialogueAndDeliberation, Conversation on Creative Democracy, http://www.deliberative-democracy.net/ (and their weblog).

Donella Meadows' famous Twelve Leverage Points paper puts story and transcending story as the two highest-leverage ways to intervene, and goes on down through other layers of systems. Also see the Story Field Conference, and http://storyfieldteam.pbwiki.com/

education and "upbringing" - alternative/home/de-schooling (bonus - home schooling brings together "left" and "right"), power-with parenting, literacy,

PermaCulture? / appropriate / sustainable / creative / innovative / native technology - LongNow?, http://www.deep-ecology.org/ ), ecopsychology, gaia, GavioTas and other AppropriateTechnologyCommunities, cradle-to-cradle design... Know your local stuff - see http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000957.php (really should be a wiki)

alternative economic/currencies/distribution systems, e.g. MicroCredit?, LETS, Hour currencies, GiftEconomy, ParticipatoryEconomics, no-interest banking, shareholder activism (see http://www.foe.org/international/shareholder/ ). Different conceptions of ownership - community land trusts http://schumachersociety.org/frameset_land.html and CoOperatives?, etc. See http://www.istori.com/cgi-bin/wiki?AlternativeCurrency and the OpenProjectToInvestigateMoneyAndEconomicSystems. Also Extended Producer Responsibility - http://www.informinc.org/epr_00.php

transportation, public transit, zoning, and streeting -- CommunityBike: , http://www.itdp.org/links.html , Berkeley's bicycle boulevards (see BayAreaBuildingActivities), CriticalMassBikeRides, bicycle clubs, PersonalRapidTransit, Car Free cities, Car Sharing services, Eugene biodiesel car share. City Repair is a cool project - see http://www.cityrepair.org/wiki.php/communities - and Andy Singer has some great links http://www.andysinger.com/links.html

community living (e.g. intentional communities, in cultures that lack community; or likely the self-awareness implicit in intentionality is helpful anywhere) See http://www.thefec.org/ and http://www.ic.org/ and http://anarchistcommunitarian.net/otherorgs.shtml#icnet

food/agriculture -- http://www.localharvest.org/ community gardening/urban agriculture (http://communitygarden.org/ ), local - farmers markets (http://www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/ ), community supported agriculture (http://www.csacenter.org/statesfr.htm and http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/csa/ ), eat less/no meat ( Happy Cow shows where), shopping organic & fair trade, composting (http://www.stopwaste.org/fscompost.html and http://www.oldgrowth.org/compost/ more), natural farming (Masanobu Fukuoka, http://newfarm.org/ ), feeding people (http://www.foodnotbombs.net/contacts.html )

open/free/inexpensive network & computer infrastructure -- FreeOpenSoftware, OpenSpectrum, CommunityNetworks

etc.: recycling (http://www.obviously.com/recycle/ ), the SuperheroMovement, sister city programs, book availability (libraries, http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000650 and http://www.archive.org/texts/bookmobile.php ), quality of life indicators - http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-qualtylifeindicators.html

Doing this worldwide, on all these different kinds of building activities, will obviously require incredible resources. How to distribute/scale it? Of course local people will know local stuff the best.

Some local lists:

EugeneBuildingActivities (my own premature start on EugeneOregon)
BayAreaBuildingActivities (from when i lived in the SanFranciscoBayArea)
IndyMedia of Western MassaChusetts had a fantastic article on local resources in Western Massachusetts
Event - http://globalchicago.net/ (see list in left column)

Other relevant lists/organizations/sites that capture some of whatever-this-is in content, but not enough to just point to and say done:

Philadelphia IndyMedia had an "Alternatives to Corporate Globalization" page, which hits the same note as this page - tons of links, some already copied here - http://web.archive.org/web/20050529233614/http://www.phillyimc.org/alternatives/ IndyMedia in general is of special interest because they are so big, and decentralized. If they split their coverage fifty-fifty between resistance and building activities, and were more diverse, that could be perfect. An Indymedia wiki!
http://gen.ecovillage.org/iservices/ (nice list of categories)
YesMagazine - and now they have their own wiki http://www.yesmagazine.org/wiki
World Changing: http://worldchanging.com/
Good News India: http://www.goodnewsindia.com/
Whole Earth Review: http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ - the tools stuff lives on at Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools: http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
Catalytic Communities: http://www.catcomm.org/
Co-op America: http://www.coopamerica.org/
Ecotipping Points (on ecological issues): http://www.ecotippingpoints.org/
CoIntelligenceInstitute
American News Service/Center for Living Democracy -- Defunct but still of interest; In the mid-late 1990s ANS wrote stories on grassroots efforts; distribution was through Knight-Ridder. Try CLD at archive.org to see their old content (ANS told robots to go away alas), or Google:American+News+Service or Google:Center+for+Living+Democracy Undefunct? A few of the ANS people have started up Community Innovations News, but it's very quiet.
http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/ -- Interesting for form more than content

If you know of such a site, or would like to help create one, please leave the relevant information here (that "Edit Text" link at the bottom of the page), or ContactMe.

A list of sectors to perhaps use:

(all? can include products & services)

Process:
Media/Communications
Education and Advocacy
Community Capital - Banking, Credit Unions, Investment
Business Development/Professional Services

Energy

Health Care, Well-Being

Recreation
Arts, Music, Culture
Tourism

Habitat: Landscaping and Forestry

Construction/Housing/Maintenance/Repair/Cleaning

Transportation

Manufacturing goods - including craft and mass production
Food
Clothing
etc.

Retail

Waste/Recycling/Re-use Industries

Also see ResistanceActivities

"Building" doesn't fully capture the systemic nature of what i'm after (combining it with growing as in the first paragraph helps). Something about being pro-active too...