The climate is changing faster than society is ready or willing to change.
Extreme Community is the extraordinary adoption of new local politics, industry and collaboration that define accelerated adaptation to changing realities.
Extreme Community (XC) is practiced where new local communities are formed, where communities form in new social environments, and where disasters or wars have upset normal living practices and relationships.
Today, XC is anticipated and recommended proactively, before the impacts of climate change throw society into chaos. Through adopting XC practices, local communities can establish resilience in advance of the impacts of climate change.
This will require deliberate changes in local government, the relationship of citizens with that government, and the involvement of local businesses, schools and non-profits.
XC changes civic consciousness, localized collaboration and interdependence. XC 3.0 combines face-to-face and neighbor-to-neighbor relationship with internet-based communications at both the local and global levels. XC 3.0 learns from history and leverages online social networking.
Local transformation
Every local community must find its own unique way to resilience and sustainability under the conditions of shifting economics, climate, energy costs, demographics and resource limits. Much of what we take for granted locally may disappear next year and over following decades. Local government will be called on to fill new roles. Citizen groups will need to take more responsibility. Disruption of many complex systems will require mitigation.
Communities at the hyperlocal level must become more self-aware and better networked. A much higher percentage of residents must engage in and communicate about projects and issues that affect the local capacity to withstand shock and rebound effectively.
The Extreme Community
Purpose of the Practice
To help local communities learn to think, plan and act resiliently by using social media to communicate, teach, discuss and organize.
To host an ongoing global conversation among local stakeholders, activists and leaders that explores working models and gaps that current models don’t fill.
To collect and curate an online library of links, articles, documents to support research into the field of local planning, sustainability and organizing.
Elements of the discipline
Knowledge sharing, networking, collaboration, transparency, creative use of social media, localized innovation and solutions, consciousness raising.
Forms of practice
In person, on the ground – XC 1.0
- Meetings with presentations and discussion that don’t put attendees to sleep.
- Neighborhood events that build trust and accomplish something tangible.
- Demonstrations of technology and group collaborative projects that educate and inspire.
Virtual, through the Net – XC 2.0
- New communications channels between local government and citizens.
- Localized networks that empower citizen groups and route around government where necessary.
- The creation and maintenance of local databases and real time feeds that keep citizens informed and rely on citizens for updates.
- Extra-local networks for interchange of ideas and cooperation between local communities around the world.
Why extreme?
- Because recent and current changes have been and are extreme.
- Aftermath of 9-11
- Social service neglect of Bush years
- Economic crash
- Housing foreclosures
- Specter of pandemics
- Species extinction
- Drought, wildfires, flooding, water scarcity
- Fuel price spikes
- Because future changes are forecast to be extreme
- The era of limits – impacting resources, jobs, housing
- Infrastructure deterioration – bridges, roads, dams, sewer mains
- Energy crisis – oil shortages, higher prices
- Climate change impacts – water rationing,
- Demographic shifts – more seniors, more migration, climate refugees
- Economic shifts – trade, draining of SS, Medicare, pensions
- Increased income disparity – more poor, less middle class
What does extreme community mean?
- Reducing gaps of knowledge and action between citizens and their local government
- Focus on sustainability: social, economic, educational, environmental
- The emergence of new styles and roles of leadership and collaboration
- The assumption of greater hyperlocal responsibility for planning and action
- The development of effective networking and project management tools for intra-local and inter-local work
- New descriptions for democracy and collectivity that transcend gridlock and defuse extreme conflict
- A recognition that we are, as societies living in local settlements, facing emergencies that must be addressed at home
- A greater tribal sense of shared fortune