Page 16 RAIN Oct./Nov. 1983 400-page book called People Power described the spectrum of economic development projects that had sprung up across the country. Virtually every one received federal, local, or private grants. When the grants disappeared, so did the enterprises. Unlike many of our ilk (including many recipients), I was never philosophically opposed to grant funding. Being of the “all money is blood money and all money with strings hangs you” school, I encouraged and participated in the quest for riches. My widely shared error was a failure to distinguish between funding and financing. Grants kept us in the redistributional stream, while we wanted to become part of the productive sector. Financing demands a different "head set," one that tells in hiring, accounting, and planning functions. I would still seek a grant, but think that development means working toward independence, and would organize the enterprise accordingly. Working Together, published by the recently exterminated California Office of Appropriate Technology, tells the happy tale of numerous economic development successes in the Golden State. Some of the projects will undoubtedly suffer from the changed political climate, but those that survive will do so because they underpin their social concern with business acumen. The folks at Seattle Recycling, Inc. (SRI), started out as naive and inexperienced as the rest of us. They graduated from their learning period and reshaped their environmental service group into a highly successful recycling business. It provides jobs to low-income residents and recycles income within the community. SRI's founders capitalized the business with their own savings and with financing from private investors. That kind of achievement should be applauded. But the rumblings continue. If a profit is made, is the cause furthered? We can point to businesses that are models of "appropriateness." The Smith and Hawken Tool Company in California, Travis Price's solar firm in Maryland, and Garden Way Books in Vermont should reassure us that right livelihood can include profit. The challenge of economic development is to wed the people who have built value-based businesses with the resources of the community. They have the skills to make things happen. If we learn the business of doing business, we will still have to do the work to translate that achievement into structural economic change. I confess, I cannot let go of the vision of a transformed society. Grey hair and all, I still want to help make it happen. I've come to the conclusion after these 10 years of effort that without a broad-based political constituency to establish an ideology of equity, democracy, and stewardship, economic development cannot amount to more than a hill of shekels. Another confession: Tm discouraged by the unaligned nature of our work to date. Our failure to respect the role of capital, our mistrust of others' experience in the business/labor sectors, and our disdain for mass efforts—all have weakened our ability to introduce our values into the world in which we live. Maybe it's a function of that wild individualism that got us into this work in the first place. Rather than evaluating our record on the basis of total acreage in land trust or number of alternative businesses in the black, let's judge ourselves by our commitment to lending our knowledge and talents to the total stream of progressive energy in our society. Appropriate economic development will follow. Harriet Barlow is director of the Blue Mountain Center, a working community of writers and artists in Blue Mountain Lake, New York. She previously was administrative director of the Institutefor Local Self-Reliance in Washington, D.C. Shelter by Tom Bender Some beautiful examples ofsimpler living patterns have emerged, but they have generally been overshadowed by publicity given to gargantuan eight- bedroom Iquad-garageIhydro-spa palaces. Exactly 10 years ago, I handed out to my architecture design students a paper I had written called "Living Lightly: Energy Conservation in Housing." It made outlandish claims—that we could easily reduce our energy use in housing and connected activities by more than 90 percent, that we could cut our water use by 75 percent, reduce economic costs, solve other sewage and solid waste problems, and end up healthier, happier, and saner. "Living Lightly" chronicled an experimental solar/ conservation house our students had built the year before, documented research already done by many other people, and pulled together a picture of what was truly possible. At that fime (back before the first "oil crisis"), the most favorable energy projects still seemed to show the only reductions possible in energy use were reductions in the rate ofincreasel Almost everyone thought we were crazy. Ten years has left all that in the dust. All we predicted has been accomplished, and more. Houses are now
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