Progress Report

It's the economy that must change. Where Living Communities differs.
Isn’t it funny that at various times in history it just seems like the perfect moment for certain things to happen, no matter what? If you look throughout history and wonder, what would life had been like if Lenin hadn’t led the Russian revolution or if Stephenson hadn’t invented the locomotive or Henry Ford just remained happy tinkering in his shed or indeed, Adolf Hitler had been killed in a first world war battle…   No matter who is born into this world, I believe circumstances make certain solutions inevitable

Exploring the local food landscape
We’ve been in our new home in Toodyay now for a week and haven’t been in a position to really get organised as yet. We’ve still got packing boxes everywhere, had to run back to Perth for birthdays, build bunk beds for our kids and now I’m sitting on a bus typing this on my way to Esperance to take the next few steps to getting our Living Communities Esperance pilot project off the ground. So this post is an admission that our eating local challenge hasn’t quite started.   I’m excited about helping Mary get stuck into the new veggie patch that will

Where did all your money go?
  Many people I have been talking to lately are interested in finding out more about what sort of leaks can occur in a local economy. Of course, every local economy is different but there are some common leaks too. The most visible ones are of course, when an out of town retail business sets up in your community. Apart from the wages it pays to local employees, it sends local dollars out of town when it buys out of town goods and services. Examples of

Walking the Talk
I'm a city boy. More accurately, I'm a product of the suburbs. My wife, is a product of a town of about 4000. We currently live in Perth, Western Australia, city of about 1.5 million.I find myself obsessed with helping to facilitate real change in local economies and primarily, at the moment, that means rural and regional local economies. This world is somewhat different to the suburbs I grew up in and have lived in for most of my 40 years.I spend many days now in that other world now but I have never really experienced it. So, we've decided to move. And for me, it means I'll be walking the talk!Next month my wife and I and my three kids are movin

The myths of big box advantage
One thing I was reminded about recently was that the people with all the answers are the people who live in the communities we are dealing with. During a recent radio interview, the host asked me if I knew how a town could stop people leaving to shop 'elsewhere' when 'elsewhere' is cheaper. After giving a very disjointed answer covering everything from buy local campaigns to better local business marketing efforts (clearly rambling) I was saved by the person with whom I was being interviewed, Kathleen Vincent, the Post Office owner in Goomalling, one