Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Local businesses as alternatives to commuting

[William Thornton (William_Thornton]

Thanks to John Gear <catalyst [at] pacifier.com> for a thought-provoking and
thoughtful response.   I write instructional materials for high-tech
companies and have worked at home since 1985.  We are managing with a new
baby and a single car, because I only go to work twice a week.  The point
about people dodging rush hour frustrating mass transit, is true, though. 
That is clearly what I do, and, yes, I'm alone in my car when I do go.

What I'm thinking of is designing businesses from the start with a major goal
of getting out of automobiles and staying at home.  A pop-economics book
called Megatrends by Naisbitt got me thinking a long time ago that as the
value of information as a commodity increases, the potential of making a
living through online transactions grows.  Naisbitt wrote a long time before
anyone thought of cyberspace, but the trend seems inevitable.  With the
opportunities in online education,  financial services, mailorder, and
entertainment, what real economic need is there to get in a car?  Why not
combine the high-tech with high-touch, as Naisbitt suggested?  Liberal
shitkickers in cyberspace unite!  There are many business opportunities just
in organic agriculture for applying networking technology to coordinating
sources of growing stock, technological information, organic pest control
(hurray for nematode spray!), markets and products, with emerging specialty
crops like margosa, herbs, bamboo, or whatever (legalize hemp!).  I'm not
very well informed in current developments, but you get the idea.  (I'm new
to the netas a userand I still need to get on econet and the other sources
that I know that exist to inform me better. )  

What I'm describing is the kind of economic activity that I'd like to see
provide the economic basis for cohousing, rather than suburban commuter
lifestyles.   I'm suggesting that we shouldn't be in a hurry to site
cohousing communities, when in the long run it might be easier on us and the
environment to get our economic act together first.  Personally, I hesitate
to get locked into a long-term loan propping up high property values based on
commuter culture.  That is why I'm a lurker, and I bet there are many lurkers
out there in similar circumstances. Ultimately, land is worth the food (or
other renewable resources) that you can get off it.   Why pay more when there
are so many online ways to supplement  income from the land?  (Certainly, I'm
not ready for a return to subsistence agriculture).

Of course in realtime, I still have to meet my clients, but that is because
I'm sucking hard on the corporate teat (yum, yum!).  If I can get my
educational business into cyberspace and broaden my clientele so I don't have
to suck so hard in one place, I think the need for warm and fuzzy meetings
will be reduced (with what they're paying me, I don't blame them if they want
to see my face now and then!).  But getting out of my car isn't enough if my
little family is all alone in our little house in Castro Valley.  My inner
child (and my 4-month outer child) needs a cooperative farm and
flesh-and-blood playmates, not computer games.  Of course, my wife hates
computers!   Which is why I'm on the COHOUSING-L list and she's playing with
the baby!

Regards,  William