Well, my hat is off to the global central planners for averting the next stage of the unfolding financial crisis for as long as they have. I guess there’s some solace in having had a nice break between the events of 2008/09 and today, which afforded us all the opportunity to attend to our various preparations and enjoy our lives.

Alas, all good things come to an end, and a crisis rooted in ‘too much debt’ with a nice undercurrent of ‘persistently high and rising energy costs’ was never going to be solved by providing cheap liquidity to the largest and most reckless financial institutions. And it has not.

Forestalled is Not Foregone

The same sorts of signals that we had in 2008 are once again traipsing across my market monitors. Not precisely the same, of course, but with enough similarities that they rhyme loudly. Whereas in 2008 we saw breakdowns in the credit spreads of major financial institutions, this time we are seeing the same dynamic in the sovereign debt of the weaker European nation states.

 read more »

Tens of thousands celebrated the 15M movement's birthday in cities across Spain.

All this week you can win a copy of Share or Die,  the new book from Shareable. In the book, young people tell the story of a new lifestyle based on sharing instead of shopping. New Society Publishers is giving away a copy every day this week as part of their "Book a Day for the Month of May".

Visit New Society for instructions on how to get a chance to win.

UPDATE 5/16/2012: Make sure to follow the instructions by including the #bookaday hashtag, otherwise New Society Publishers will not be able to track your tweet.

While the current narrative of the American economy is far from hopeful, cooperatives are setting a more uplifting tone. According to the National Cooperative Business Association in Washington, D.C., 29,000 cooperatives operate in the nation’s economy, and these democratically governed businesses generate two million jobs each year.

The group’s interim president and chief executive officer, Liz Bailey, steered a delegation of 150 leaders and advocates of cooperatives to the White House on May 4th to spark a dialogue with federal officials about the critical role that cooperatives play in job creation and economic development, and how that role could be expanded to revive economically depressed areas and the middle class.

Bailey said there were representatives from various sectors of the coop economy including food, agricultural, finance, housing and health care, adding that the wide representation was to “give a real flavor of how vast the cooperative model is being used in the economy." Policy makers at all levels of government are generally unaware of the huge scope, power, and promise of the cooperative model at a time when proven economic solutions are needed most. 

Liz Bailey speaks at the White House. Photo courtesy: Liz Bailey, National Cooperative Business Association

I talked to Bailey recently about some of the key issues addressed by the nation’s cooperative leaders and White House officials at the meeting. Following are excerpts from our conversation:

You recently led a delegation of cooperative leaders to Washington D.C. to participate in the White House Community Leaders Briefing Series. What ideas did you and the other leaders bring to the discussion table?

We had the opportunity to both hear from the White House about some of their issues, so it was a dialogue where first they gave us some of their key issues in terms of the economy and jobs. Then we talked to them about four key focal areas … One, cooperatives are a way to help grow the middle class. It really provides individuals with access to affordable housing, fair lending practices, livable wage jobs and all of those kinds of things that allow people to really survive and grow within the middle class, where they feel they have more money to use for other things and disposable income.

Another thing that we were pointing out to them was how cooperatives really provide consumers with more choices and access to essential services. … The third point we were making was that cooperatives can grow sustainable small businesses — that you take that individual entrepreneur and you make them a member of a purchasing or shared services cooperative, and they then have that ability to get the price advantage. They get the backroom support. They get everything that the purchasing cooperative can do for them that by themselves, they would have to front all those costs and compete with the big-box stores, but also just compete in a down economy.

Then the fourth point we were making was how cooperatives really help grow local economies and how they really give back value to the community. … And the fact that the business is a community-based business, so there aren’t investors in some distant location that are reaping the benefits. The dollars stay in the community with the member-ownership, and the fact that the business is sized and structured so that it serves the needs of that community.

What were some of the issues raised by the White House officials?

We had four breakout sessions, which is where we really got into more of the discussion of issues. One was agriculture, and we had senior people from the Department of Agriculture there who were really talking about the funding for cooperative development and the access to those kinds of grant and loan programs that are part of the USDA portfolio. There was a lot of concern about what’s happening in the current budget.

We also had a breakout session that was more on the consumer finance area. We had the treasurer of the United States moderating that group, and there they were really talking about the credit union lending issues. … We also had a breakout session on SBA lending practices, and there we had some concerns that cooperatives are not deemed eligible — not all of them — for SBA lending.

In particular, food coops are historically not allowed to qualify for SBA lending. Historically, they believe that a food coop is more like a buying coop and that there isn’t any value that is in the business itself that would be collateral for a loan. So there was a good deal of discussion about that, and how you break down some of that barrier and get the redefinition of what is a valid lending opportunity for a cooperative. We’ve been working on the Hill on that particular issue, too. I think we’re hopeful that this year we can really get some of that barriers to lending within that SBA system removed either through internal or through legislative interest.

The fourth breakout session was with the Domestic Policy Council staff. There, it was really kind of a sharing of information back and forth with looking at the whole domestic policy area and trying to gain some traction with them as to how coops are an additional tool that they can be looking to for a lot of economic development. There was also a fair amount of discussion from our group to them asking for more understanding — as they talk about small business that they add in cooperatives, so we would get more of that kind of visibility and traction for coops when we are somewhat invisible on that whole radar screen.

So basically what it did was, it laid the groundwork for a lot. Every time a question came up in either the small group or in the plenary sessions, the White House response was, in addition to talking about it, to volunteer that they wanted to continue to work with us. They suggested we work with them to set up regional meetings around the federal government to have listening sessions and town halls meetings with federal agency people around the country. We’re already starting to work on that.

What is unique about the cooperative business model that makes it conducive to generating secure and fair wage jobs?

I think that part of it is that it is so local and member-driven. It’s created for a purpose. With democratic governance, it has members' interest at the heart of the enterprise. It’s efficient because those who do the work are involved in deciding what to work on and how to work on it. You don’t have somebody at a distance making decisions about what the business is about. Members and workers control the enterprise democratically.

What are some channels of funding that are available for cooperative enterprises?

That’s one of the biggest challenges for coops, because to be a coop, your equity is from your members. You can’t have angel investors come in and own the business. At least 50 percent of the coop needs to be owned by its members. So the big problem for many coops is that the only money they’ve got for expansion, if they really want to grow the business in any substantial way or even start a coop, that member equity has to be your primary source of funding, so then finding other sources of funding is always a challenge.

There are some funds out there in the private sector, but most people want more of a return than what you can get from a coop startup or expansion, because you aren’t going to generate that same return as you would from investing in a traditional business where you’re doing it to make the money quickly. Money for cooperative development, the real technical assistance, boots-on-the-ground work — that is hard to come by.

One thing we’re hoping to learn from this work with the White House is finding where there are dollars for workforce development or the training of members of worker coops or the home care world or finding where rural health dollars could be available for coops as part of a rural health network.  

Are cooperatives better suited to weather fluctuations in the economy?

There’s research that indicates that difficult times are good time for coops because people are looking for how to make do with less. I've heard from some of the large food cooperatives, “we don’t let our member stores go under.” For one thing, they may have had a better business model in the first place by virtue of being a member of the purchasing cooperative, because they were able to get price breaks that came with that group buying power. But then they say, “It’s to our advantage to keep them viable, so we don’t let our stores go under unless we’ve tried everything, and it doesn’t work.” So that the coop, especially in that small business world, their approach is — we need to work this out, we need to make sure that we can all be whole at the end of the day.

Get your pedals turning – May is National Bike Month. Not only that, but this week is Bike to Work Week with Friday, May 18, singled out as Bike to Work Day for those who can't commit to the whole five-day spread. The League of America Bicyclists has listings for bike events happening all over the country this month, along with commuter data, bike maintenance information, and safety rules.

At Shareable, biking is a hot topic every month. Here are some of our best bike-related articles:

The Precariat's Guide to Biking Across Europe
Feeling adventurous in honor of National Bike Month? Take to the roads of Europe – or any other unknown land – with this helpful guide to bike trips. The subjects of the article road some 3,500 miles across five countries. Perhaps you'll want to start smaller.

Bicycling as a Way of Life
For many people, every month is bike month. The practice has become more than just a practical matter or a money-saver or a fitness option. It has, truly, become a way of life. To embrace biking in this way changes everything about you.

How to Be a Carfree Family
Because cars have become integral parts of our individual – and collective – existences, getting to the point of embracing biking as a way of life may or may not require baby steps, even if you don't have children. However, there are a lot of reasons to make the switch, even part-time.

The Boom in Biking Benefits Everyone, Not Just Bicyclists
In metropolitan areas the world over, biking has become something of an imperative because it solves numerous problems in one fell swoop. Traffic congestion ... check. Carbon emissions ... check. Parking problems ... check. Public health ... check. Economic issues ... check. It's all in there, and more.

Bicycling magazine's map of the top 50 biking cities.

The Most Bike-Friendly Cities
Many cities are recognizing all of that inherent goodness. At the head of the class stands Minneapolis, a surprising lead, no doubt, considering the climate. Nevertheless, Minneapolis continues to pursue ways of maintaining their standing with off-road bike trails, a bike-sharing program, nearly 200 miles of bikeways, a bike and foot bridge, and more.

How to Boost Biking and Walking Even Further in Your City
Because biking – and its natural companion, walking – are so multi-functional in urban centers, cities other than Minneapolis are doing everything they can to create infrastructure improvements and other resources that support and further the move toward these people-powered transportation options. Citizens, too, can help the process along.

How to Create a Bike Corridor
One specific way residents can speed bike-friendly policies along is to get involved with the planning of safe bike corridors in their city. That's what a group of folks have done in Los Angeles as a way to show municipal planners exactly what is possible and practical.

A protected bike lane on Dunsmuir St. in Vancouver shows the street of the  future.  Photo credit:  Photo by Paul Kruger. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Feds Vote To Defund Bike & Pedestrian Programs
All of this local activism is critical at this juncture in our collective bike-geared future because officials at the federal level have decided recently to pick a fight with cyclists and pedestrians by defunding programs which support these alternative transportation modalities. With all of the benefits known to be associated with biking and walking, the move makes no common sense.

Five Things Every Mayor Should Know Before Starting a Bike-Sharing Program
Still, the people have the power. And some of the people with the most power are mayors. Implementing bike-sharing programs in cities brings along all of the myriad goodness already mentioned as well as one more factor – tourism. Though boosts in visitors and their accompanying revenues are important to any city, bike-sharing programs aren't cheap so the potential for offsets is key.

Study: Bike Sharing Can Save Your Life
Above and beyond the financial savings that bike sharing can provide, the saving of lives can't be counted in dollars. A study of Barcelona's biking program suggests that 12 lives are spared annually due to a decrease in car accidents on the road.

So, hop on a bike this month for National Bike Month. And, then, keep the wheels spinning for the rest of the year!

It's not a stretch to say the tweet is a new poetic form, I would go so far as to say it's the dominant form of contemporary poetry. A writer can go from unknown to internet-famous with a handful of precisely chosen words. Fan communities can burst out of nowhere, creating poets out of robots or musing atheletes. But there's a structural problem: when poets sell books or get commissioned for readings, they (in theory) get material support in exchange for their work. In other words: even pro poets get paid. Tweeters, on the other hand, are making money for the blue bird alone. Twitter may be a compelling forum for poetry, but can it support its poets?

Perhaps no self-described poet has taken to the form as well as Patricia Lockwood. Though she's been published in some top-level mainstream outlets, Lockwood has received the most notice for her 140-character work. Her "sexts" drew the attention of the Huffington Post (not known for its poetry coverage), and HTML Giant called her the "Poet Laureate of Twitter." With over 10,000 unusually devoted followers reading her work every day (plus copious retweets), Lockwood might just be the most popular poet in the United States. But when crisis hit, it wasn't clear if she could turn that admiration into the support she needed.

Last week, Lockwood's husband was diagnosed with a rare form of cataracts and was going blind at 30. He would need a full lens replacement on both eyes, and fast. The cost: $10,000. Emergency medical expenses like this are a leading cause of bankruptcy in the US, and it's easy to see why: Who has 10 grand sitting around? Yesterday, Lockwood took to her blog with an appeal to her fans and a donate button:

"I posted about it on Twitter because I was basically losing my mind with worry and the outpouring of support was astonishing; people suggested that I do this so I am doing this because they wanted to help, which made me cry, and some quote about the color purple, if you walk past the color purple in a field and do not make it donate money to you so your husband can stop going blind, then you are being pretty mean to God.

(As I understand it.)"

The numbers make it sound easy, that's only a buck a follower! And people love her stuff! I sent $2 this morning, honestly more out of appreciation for her work than sympathy. But the conventional wisdom is that the sort of conversion of internet affection into cash, even for a good cause, is really difficult.

Well, the conventional wisdom should probably change:

The outpour was dramatic. Within 12 hours Lockwood had to shut down the button so as not to pull in more in donations than she asked for. This being Twitter, then came the jokes:

Of course I'm happy for Lockwood and her husband, but what interests me even more is the precedent this sets. How far are we from independent, reader-sponsored, professional tweeters? What if tweet-crews thought ahead and built emergency funds for situations like this one? Or even strike funds? We've just started exploring what's possible with this network beyond its code.

Many people consider the throes of May to be a great time to do their annual spring cleaning. This year, why not add a healthy dose of sharing to the mix? As you clean out your closets, prep your garden, and plan your summer activities, consider doing it all shareable-style. Here are Shareable.net's most helpful guides to doing just that:

Swappers show off their finds at Eat, Drink, and Be Mary. Photo credit: SharonaGott. Used under Creative Commons license.

How to Throw a Toy Exchange

Kids tire of toys almost as fast as they outgrow their shoes. By culling through and trading their play things with other families, you can extend the life of the toys you paid good money for while also harvesting a fresh batch of fun for your kids.

Hot tip: “It's easier to exchange without kids, but it's likely some children will be there, so have something for them to do elsewhere so their parents can "shop" more easily.”

How to Stage a Clothes Swap

Now that the kids' closets are taken care of, how about rummaging through your own and discarding all those clothes you haven't worn for six months or more? Encourage all of your stylish friends to do the same, plan a clothes swap, and, in the end, come away with a new wardrobe.

Hot tip: “Either establish a one-bag of discards to one-bag of discoveries policy or let people bring what they have and take what they like, with no maximum or minimum.”

Ingredients for a Successful Urban Kitchen Garden

If the local community garden is full up, but you have a patch of dirt and want to grow some food for yourself and your neighbors, then get to it! Even in the city, a little space can go a long way with proper planning and commitment.

Hot tip: “Growing food can require a good chunk of time and energy investment; it's always more fun and inspiring to dig in and work toward a common vision together. With very little money, a few friends, shared resources, and a potluck lunch, a kitchen garden can be born.”

Work gets underway at the Sunshine Castle garden. Photo credit: Kitchen Garden SF. Used with permission.

How to Start a Nature Group for City Kids

Keeping kids occupied during the summer months can be a challenging task. In urban centers, getting kids out into nature is an excellent way to keep their brains and bodies busy. It might even be fun for the parents, too.

Hot tip: “Choose your friends wisely: Maybe it seems backwards to pick the members of your group after forming the group, but there is good reason. Most likely you’ll start off with a core group of families ... 'New people keep the group fresh and make it about something more than just hanging out with friends,' says Jessica.”

How to Throw a Succesful Yard Sale

With a variety of things to get rid of, a yard sale is always a solid choice. In this day and age, though, there are a lot of extra technological tools at your disposal to make your sale stand head and shoulders above others in your neighborhood.

Hot tip: “Create a web presence: This step makes all the difference, but it doesn't need to be complicated! The easiest method is to create a Facebook event. It's quick to set up, and you can invite most of your friends and neighbors.”

How to Grow a Garden on Your Balcony

Some urban dwellers don't have a space where or even neighbors with whom they can plant a garden. They are left to their own creative devices when it comes to growing some food. Not to worry. Balcony gardening is all the rage!

Hot tip: “Don't worry about having the perfect place or the perfect time or the perfect whatever the excuse is. The only perfect thing is right now, so work with that and just do it. Another piece of advice that I'd give is to stick with it. You aren't going to be 100% successful. No one is. The most important thing is that you learn from your mistakes and continue to improve ... and have fun.”

How to Build a Better Block

In days gone by, hanging out on the front porch or outside the sidewalk cafe were the norm in urban neighborhoods. These days, many areas need a helping hand to become conducive to that sort of community-minded behavior.

Hot tip: “Remember that people want a reason to stay and be a part of the environment. Be sure to provide plenty of seating, things to read (maps, build simple kiosks to use as community boards, food/drink), chess boards, et cetera. Print out and post the story of the block (its history, its present, its future as a neighborhood place).”

How to Plant a Habitat Garden at the Local Playground

Another way to get kids outside and active is to cordone off a space at the local playground and plant a habitat garden. It combines fun and education with nature. And that's always a winning formula.

Hot tip: “Once you plant the garden, your circle of families is responsible for maintaining it...for the rest of its natural life. In some ways, committing to the year-round growth of the garden should be step one ... think first about your goals and long-range commitment to the project. A habitat garden is actually an excellent choice for this kind of activity.”

How to Share a Vegetable Garden

Following up on that point ... when entering into a sharing arrangement of any kind with neighbors or friends, plotting out expectations and exit strategies are very important. That rule – and others – holds true for the sharing of a vegetable garden, particularly because physical labor is involved. Whether you are on the side of the homeowner or the side of the neighbor, you'll want to talk through all of the possibilities.

Hot tip: “Many homeowners worry about liability when they invite others onto their property. That’s why it’s critical for you and your neighbor to discuss how you can reduce the risk that someone will be injured.”

"A paper can change the present if it allows people to see a new world at hand" says Natalia Fernández.

The paper she talks about is the core of a campaign and a blog post entitled "Against the Crisis: P2P Industrial Revolution!" which is being discussed right now across dozens of towns and communities around Spain and Portugal. Its English translation is also quickly spreading around the world.

Natalia is probably the best known member of Las Indias, a transnational community that organizes its economy through a workers' cooperative group. Indianos, as members of Las Indias are called, believe that the neoliberal policies that lead the world to its biggest crisis in history, and the financial crisis itself, originated in the inadequacy of financial capital to the reduction of optimal scale of production fueled by new technologies of the last decades of the 20th century. According to indianos' theory, the future will not be made of big industries and large supply chains, but based on commons and small scale community-developed production.

"Against the Crisis: P2P Industrial Revolution!" describes what to do today in order to start small local P2P industries based on commons, an increasingly attractive proposal in Southern Europe, where the crisis is destroying small firms that used to employ a 70% of the working population.

By any relevant metric, Chicago is an immense metropolis with tremendous global influence. Claiming 227 square miles of Illinois prairie land, Chicago was ranked the third most populous city in the United States in the 2010 U.S. Census, boasting a highly diverse, though segregated, population. The nation’s pulsating heart of culture and commerce, Chicago was named the sixth Most Influential City in the World in the 2010 A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index, (PDF) based upon business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement, ahead of long-heralded cultural epicenters Los Angeles (ranked seventh) and San Francisco (twelth).

Most Influential Cities infographic from the December 2011 issue of National Geographic. Scan from Built in Chicago. 

Exercising outsized influence on the global stage, Chicago hosts the 2012 NATO Summit this Sunday, May 20th and Monday, May 21st, hailed by NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu as “the biggest NATO Summit in history.” As Occupy and other Chicago activist movements prepare protests, Chicago Police and US troops offering “logistical support” are gearing up to respond, threatening a new chapter in the city’s long (and at times brutal) history of civil disobedience.

An intense, often tempestuous, passion for civic participation is shared by Chicago’s citizens and politicians alike. The city’s notoriously aggressive political style, seemingly borrowed from the Bears’ playbook, was presided over for four (nonconsecutive) decades by the mayoral dynasty of Richard M. Daley and his son Richard J.. Daley was succeeded last year by Rahm Emanuel, the former White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama, whose path to the presidency began in the mid-’80s when he served as a community organizer on the city’s hyper-segregated South Side.

Chicago race/ethnicity 2010 visualization by Radical Cartography, data from 2010 U.S. Census. View larger version.

Though the city’s political and economic power is widely acknowledged, Chicago has yet to receive its due as a vibrant center of tech innovation. Over the past decade, the city has produced a number of successful web companies, including Groupon, Orbitz, Careerbuilder, Basecamp developers 37 Signals, Threadless, and Everyblock. Accelerators such as 1871, Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, Excelerate Labs, and Technexus are kickstarting the emerging startup community, while collaborative consumption companies OhSoWe and iGo are evangelizing for the sharing economy. The open source web application frameworks Ruby on Rails (powering the likes of Twitter, Github and Hulu) and Django (Pinterest, Instagram, and the Guardian UK) hail from the city.

Recognizing Chicago’s wealth of civic-minded developers, hackers, data scientists, and journalists, Emanuel has prioritized open data and gov 2.0 initiatives since taking office. Under the leadership of Chief Technology Officer John Tolva, the city is aggressively pursuing gov 2.0 projects including the City of Chicago Data Portal, the Apps for Metro Chicago competition, and Open311, which it is developing with Code for America’s 2012 Chicago fellows.

With its diverse population, global economic and political influence, top-ranked higher education and research institutions, intense levels of civic engagement, and wide race and class disparities, Chicago is an immense laboratory for innovation, civic app development, deep data analysis, and replicable models of building community resilience. Shareable Chicago will explore the city’s significant contributions to the emerging sharing economy, and how it could serve as a model for the peer-to-peer cities of tomorrow.

Most informed people are familiar with the concept of Peak Oil, but fewer are aware that we’re also entering the era of Peak Government. The central misconception of Peak Oil -- that it’s not about “running out of oil,” it’s about running out of cheap, easy-to-access oil -- can also be applied to Peak Government: It’s not about government disappearing, it’s about government shrinking.

Central government -- the Central State -- has been in the expansion mode for so long that the process of contracting government is completely alien to the nation, to those who work for the State, and to those who are dependent on the State. Thus we have little recent historical experience of Peak Government and few if any conceptual guideposts to help us understand this contraction.

Peak Government is not a reflection of government services or the millions of individuals who work in government; it is a reflection of four key systemic forces that drove State expansion are now either declining or reversing.

 read more »

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking at the re:publica event (http://re-publica.de/12/). The frame of the event was action.

This presentation was designed to inspire action.

No matter how insurmountable the problems we apparently face. I urge you to start something small today. This presentation should hopefully highlight for you how simple it can be, and what big things from small and playful experiments emerge.

When we look back we see complexity, we see the outcome and assume a plan, it's our nature. But in truth things never go to plan, one action triggers another which snowballs into a powerful movement. Waves resonate together and amplify.

Do something positive today, and see where it leads you.

Enjoy!

All too many of us are ever-eager to upgrade to the latest and greatest whatever. Whether they be computers, washing machines, or clothes, if something goes wrong or next next arrives, we're on to the next purchase.

Part of it, too, is that we don't actually know how to repair our stuff. And our world is set up so it's dramatically easier to cut and run than sit and fix. And so our landfills overflow with slightly damaged goods...a less-than-convenient truth that threatens our economic and environmental health.

This maybe changing. In The Netherlands, mom and former journalist Martine Postma stumbled onto an idea that tacks the word "repair" onto the familiar green mantra, "reduce, re-use, recycle". The result is community-based Repair Cafes where folks come together to fix their broken items. What started as a few neighbors in Amsterdam helping each other out has, two years later, become a much bigger deal with 30 groups springing up around the country.

Young girls mend items at a Repair Cafe, proving that anyone and everyone can participate. Photo credit: Repair Cafe. 

To support the regular gatherings, the Repair Cafe Foundation was established and has raised around $525,000 from the Dutch government, foundations, and individual donors. That sum covers the Foundation's staffing, marketing, and a mobile Repair Cafe. As Postma surmised, “Sustainability discussions are often about ideals, about what could be. After a certain number of workshops on how to grow your own mushrooms, people get tired. This is very hands on, very concrete. It’s about doing something together, in the here and now.”

Cradle-to-cradle architect William McDonough, whose work also inspired Postma, observed, “What happened with planned obsolescence is that it became mindless — just throw it away and don’t think about it. The value of the Repair Cafe is that people are going back into a relationship with the material things around them.”

Sharing their fixer wisdom with the community, two older gentlemen work on a lamp fixture at a Repair Cafe. Photo credit: Repair Cafe. 

That very tangible satisfaction of repairing a broken item is only one part of what the Repair Cafes offer, though. Of course, there's the environmental benefits accumulated by keeping goods in circulation. But there's also a notable community-building component to the Cafes. The DOEN Foundation contributed over $260,000 to the Repair Cafe project as part of its social cohesion program. Director Nina Tellegen explained why: “What’s interesting for us is that it creates new places for people to meet, not just live next to each other like strangers. That it’s linked to sustainability makes it even more interesting.” Singling out the benefits to elders, Tellegen noted, “They have skills that have been lost. We used to have a lot of people who worked with their hands, but our whole society has developed into something service-based.”

Similar endeavors have begun to crop up in the United States, as well. Sidling up alongside tool-lending libraries in a nice way, groups like the West Seattle Fixers Collective and the Missoula Urban Demonstration Project host DIY fix-it events and classes to help community members make needed repairs on broken items. Back at the Repair Cafe Foundation, Postma has received information requests from folks in France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, South Africa, and Australia on how they, too, can join the fixer movement.

Inside Repair Cafe Maastricht, The Netherlands. In bike friendly Holland, it should be no surprise there' are many bikes in for repair.

The best thing about my childhood was the time I spent with friends outdoors creating our own fun...without parents around!

We waged huge mud ball wars in Summer. We played kick the can at dusk. There was the Big Wheel distance jumping contest that reduced our rides to plastic pulp. The three day Monopoloy tournament with games so long that we had to make up additional money. The fleet of model ships we destroyed in the creek during a mock naval battle. The incredibly realistic miniature village we created on creek's bank with army men, pebbles, slate, and mud. The cookie battle we waged in the parking lot of a bakery after finding a motherload of stale cookies in the dumpster out back. The epic pick up tackle football games we played inspired by NFL films. Dumpster diving for uncancelled stamps at the mail order house. The many fires we started. And the things we broke, collected, and stole.

We created and destroyed with abandon. We skinned knees, burned things, grew gardens, bloodied each others noses, built forts, collected recycled cans and made the newspaper, and created our own memories and myths with a rambunctious group of kids my brothers and I found ourselves among during 70s while living in suburban Northern Virginia.

We owned the neighborhood in one way. We knew every nook and cranny of it, and also what surrounded it. In another way we didn't. There were the older kids, bullies. They did things like make us box each other bare fisted until we bled. But they also beat the crap out of anyone outside the neighborhood that messed with us.

This was no American Academy of Pediatrics approved childhood, but I loved most this aspect of it. My life outdoors with friends was filled with true adventure. There was real discovery and danger, and that was exactly why I relished it. We had our own, separate civilization with factions, heroes, and history. I would hardly be the same person without the freedom I had to explore, screw up, imagine, and play.

I may have learned my most important lessons in that precious crucible of boyhood. I learned how to hold my own among rough and tumble peers. I learned to enlist others in creating our own reality. And I taught myself the value of rules by breaking them.

And for all the depressing turmoil at home and numbing discipline at school, it was perhaps all redeemed by the freedom I had to play in the streets and woods. These experiences are the very model of what being truly alive feels like for me, even today as an adult. 

But something has changed since I was a kid. Childhood has become shrink wrapped. It's increasingly defined by huge amounts of sedentary screen time indoors, scheduled activities controlled by adults, and fearful and competitive parents. Childhood has become a gated, private affair.

Has the play commons been enclosed? Yes, if the stats are any indication. The erosion of communal life and public space is being felt acutely by kids. They're now plagued with obesity and depression. From the new book, Playborhoods: Turn Your Neighborhood into a Place for Play:

Because children are having a lot less fun and are dealing with heightened pressure and fears from parents, far more of them are experiencing serious emotional problems. The first sign, anxiety, appears, on average, at the tender age of six. Behavior disorders start, on average, at 11, and mood disorders (primarily depression) start at 13. An incredible 22.2 percent of teens 13 to 18 suffer from mental disorders grave enough to result in "severe impairment and / or distress".

This controlled and isolated childhood is one I'd hate as a kid. And one I don't want for our two year old son Jake. Plus, I don't want to be driving him to endless scheduled activities spread across town. That's no replacement for the village it takes to raise a child. 

This situation is exactly what brought Playborhoods author and tech entrepreneur Mike Lanza to first create a playborhood for his kids, then take playborhoods to the rest of the world with a blog and book. When he started a family, he saw what was coming for his kids and said to himself, "I can't do this."

Mike then turned his home into a community center for kids and encouraged neighboring parents to do the same. The result is that their home is a magnet for neighborhood kids who are free to play unsupervised in the house or yard.

The Lanza home is quasi-public space for "free play", which psychologist believe is essential for social, cognitive, and emotional development. Free play is unstructured activity that's done for the pleasure of it rather than for reward, and it may help kids find fulfilling work based on intrinsic rewards later in life. The playborhood also brought nearby families together.

I met with Mike at a book event he held on Sunday April 29th at the playborhood he created in Menlo Park, California. Below is an interview where he explains playborhoods and how you can create one yourself.

Our visit to his playborhood left me full of wonder. Mike has radically redefined the suburban home from a display of conspicious consumption to a community center for kids. He's realized his vision to a level of detail that's awe inspiring. His playborhood demonstrates that almost every element of the home is an opportunity to educate and create a fun place for kids to play, even the driveway on which a street map of the neighborhood is painted, perfect for driving matchbox cars on.

The below slides shows the lengths he's gone. I particularly like his use of maps around the house. There's huge maps of the neighborhood, city, country, world, and even the solar system. The smaller scale maps have pictures of friends and family pinned where they live. The maps foster a sense of place and a multi-scale consciousness, which will be important for future adults in a global, networked world.

Mike's Menlo Park playborhood reflects the affluence of the area, but playborhoods are popping up in all kinds of neighborhoods. His book profiles playborhoods in tough South Bronx, the N Street cohousing community in Davis, California, a middle-class Portland neighborhood, and the new urbanism community of Pike Road, Alabama.

Playborhoods may not offer the wild boyhood I had, but perhaps it's a wholesome midpoint between total control and complete freedom. Call me a hypocrite, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of my son Jake burning, stealing, fighting, and trespassing like we did. Maybe playborhoods can give him the freedom create his own fun without the danger? Or are playborhoods just a smarter form of parental control? Whatever the case, I'll take playborhoods over an enclosed childhood any day.

In shareholders’ meetings and in the streets, how 99% Power is taking on Bank of America.

I want to take the lowest risk approach to the future. So much is riding on it.

Personally I feel that the scientific progress we have made over the last few hundred years is astounding. I don’t want to lose that. I think that is a gift to the future and I don’t want to run the risk of a collapse that could destroy all that we have.

Even if you think the collapse is a low probability -- let’s say it's 5%, 10% probability -- it is an asymmetric risk. The downsides of not treating it seriously are huge.

I mean, you buy fire insurance for your house even if it is a 0.1% probability that your house will burn down in your lifetime. But the consequences are so negative that you do it. And when you are talking about the accomplishments of all civilization, you need to buy insurance and treat that with the respect it deserves.

Tom Murphy -- associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego -- has mapped the distance between the earth and the moon to within a millimeter, and built instruments to study colliding galaxies. We feel comfortable saying he's a pretty smart guy, as well as an optimist about what human ingenuity and technology can do for the advancement of society.

In 2004, he became intrigued with the global energy situation and brought his disciplined, empirical approach to bear. He set out to determine which new sources were going to pick up the slack once fossil fuels began becoming scarce. Looking back, he says the theme underlying his findings was "disappointment."

The math showed him that there simply will not be nearly enough BTU yield from alternative energy sources to meet the rising global demand. In fact, if anything, his investigation made him realize how few minds today are truly aware of the extraordinary energy throughput we are getting from fossil fuels.

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For this week's Shareable Friday video, we have our own editor Malcolm Harris on Russia Today's The Alyona Show discussing the Manhattan prosecutor's office's attempts to use his Twitter records in connection with an Occupy Wall Street arrest in October. Last time Malcolm wrote about the case for Shareable, he was fighting to intervene despite the district attorney's claim that he had no rights to his tweets. SInce then, the judge took the prosecution's side. But this week, Twitter Inc. decided to take a stand and back Malcolm's claim. Hear all about it from him below:

Gus Speth imagines a compelling vision of a better, happier country—and how to make it possible.

Still haven’t moved your money out of Wall Street?

Photo Essay: Don’t think you know how to build your own house? Neither did 23-year-old Ella Jenkins before she picked up the tools and started.

Scarcity of certified processing facilities is one reason the meat industry is so consolidated—so farmer Bruce Dunlop invented a mobile slaughterhouse.