dub dub dub, localism and a virtual new dawn of community

Is the web and technology that facilitates the building of networks and virtual communities a fundamental tool in facilitating the growth of grass roots localisation and sustainable living practises? Without these virtual domains, which have the ability to connect individuals and grow ideas virally, how could individuals, with often disparate geographies or communities, be able to connect, swap and transmit ideas driving innovation from grass roots? Is this facilitating a faster growth in localism than would ever have been possible without it?

Conversely are these technologies also driving the fragmentation and erosion of traditional communities? Traditional communities and a reliance on our small localised networks of work colleagues, neighbours, friends and family are fading as we become less and less in touch with our local communities. We no longer know who lives next door, our families are dispersed and our friends often just as dispersed. Our social networks exist not locally but on Facebook, and we communicate via Skype, where our friends and families are often in different towns, countries and continents. Is the only way of getting this sense of community back by finding new ways of interacting at a local level?

I was stimulated to think these questions by an article I recently came across. The article was about locavores. A locavore is a person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food. So what do you do if you have a glut of produce, are not a farmer or are able to, whether through time or accessibility to, sell at a farmers market and don't know your neighbours? All you need is a place in which to connect and to exchange. Well one solution is a virtual place to create new relationships between local growers and consumers: www.locavore365.org. Anybody can be a grower and anybody a consumer regardless of an overabundance of lettuce or a solid crop of carrots from a smallholder.

Other such networks are The freecycle network ( www.freecycle.org) aimed at reducing stuff going to landfill. Individuals in a local area or group are able to give away goods that they no longer need from furniture to rubble and everything in between.

The question is do these new networds actually facilitate new ways of building community or are they just convenient places to trade? How many users of these groups meet and make lasting fuitful relationships?

Just some random musings late in the night.