Re: Extended sense of The Commons

Posted by Steve Smith on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/11-American-Nations-tp7584250p7584778.html

Marcus -

It *was* city funds, specifically for this purpose that brought in the huge yellow machines for a week to rip out the pavement, pour curbs and sidewalks and dump a hundred tons of soil and maybe even lay the sod. 

But it wasn't the Berkeley City council deciding that this particular parking lot would be better off being a park... how could they know that, really?  They knew it when a critical mass (5%, 10%?) of the locals to that neighborhood decided to apply to their program for doing precisely this kind of project. 

Then I'd say that's an example of government working.   It's control mechanism involved tapping the people that knew it best.  Good.   But for goodness sake tap the city infrastructure in making it so.   It's not that that leadership hijacked the resource from the public funds, it's that they didn't waste it.

They not only didn't waste it, they leveraged it well... I'd never seen anything quite as "organic" of a success.  

The commons need not *always* be tragic.  And well intentioned, top down, fascist approaches to "the public good" needn't always inhibit the bottom up, engaged spirit of being human within a community of humans.

It was a rare moment, in my experience and I'm glad you enjoyed my sharing it with you!

- Steve


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