1. Throughout this documentary, David Brancaccio visits seven different cities/towns:
- Bellingham, Washington
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Berkeley, California
- Austin, Texas
- Fargo, North Dakota
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- Portland, Maine
2. Along with time banks and b-notes, there are many 'main street' economic approaches and options for sustainability that are discussed in the documentary. The first of these is local living economies, where local businesses employ local workers, increasing both their consumer base and consumer awareness. Another highlighted approach is worker-owned cooperatives; worker-owned cooperatives democratize ownership and root it in the local community so local residents can build long-term equity. The documentary also discusses tiny houses/offices as well as sustainable energy sources as options to increase sustainability in local communities. Lastly, David introduces the idea of happiness indicators to measure wellbeing beyond the simple monetary value of goods and services.
3. I really appreciated the segment on salmon fishing around Lummi Island because they spoke on the importance of local living economies in increasing consumer awareness. As one of the fishers said, residents can watch the salmon fishers from the road, so they have a much better idea of where their food comes from. Consumer awareness is important for not only health, but also long-term viability, so this kind of local food sourcing is very beneficial. This made me think of Kara’s post about Growing a Farmer in that his journey from chef to farmer was mainly influenced by his desire to increase his own awareness of where the food he cooked came from. All of this definitely makes me want to look further into where my food comes from and possibly make some changes.
I also found the segment on worker cooperatives in Ohio to be very thought-provoking. It was very interesting to hear Ted Howard talk about how Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Case Western purchase billions of dollars of goods and services, but very little of them are sourced locally which, in turn, does nothing to help the large community of locals living in poverty. I think what he’s doing – advocating for worker cooperatives so that these large corporations can help the community and create more local jobs – is very exciting and inspiring. I’m glad those companies have been so supportive of this strategy because it will be beneficial for everyone in the long term.
The Car2Go service in Austin, Texas was also very interesting. I’ve heard of services like Zipcar and Maven, but I’ve never really looked too much into how they’re operated. I think the concept of using tiny cars is smart because they take up less space and are easy to drop off anywhere. I also did a little bit of searching on Google and I found out that Car2Go charges by the minute, rather than by the hour, so it’s much more reasonable for shorter trips. I did question this system, however, because if it became much more popular and widely used, it would decrease the availability of rideshare jobs, which many people rely on.
Comments
Post a Comment