Recently I've been thinking a lot about neotribalism, about societal collapse, about art and about a lack of frontier. Here's my question; what's keeping people from reclaiming all the areas that -for one reason or another- have been written off?
We have all heard the anecdotes: How you can buy a house in Detroit cheaper then you can buy a car, about the foreclosed suburbs, bankrupt malls, dormant factories or the abandoned warehouses. Why not organize a mass movement of artist, crafters, writers or programmers to take back the 'slums'? Sort of like a preemptive outquisition (
link http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html
link http://outquisition.org/) Besides the societal good of rehabilitating massively depressed economies, the internet workers could enjoy a drastically reduced cost of living coupled with the ability to perform large scale community projects afforded by the cheap property. These associations should focus on creating strong, vibrant communities with an emphasis on as much self sufficiency as possible. I have always felt that doing for yourself and your loved ones (without excluding yourself form the larger world) makes for a more satisfying life. Of course, this has the added benefit of acting as collapse insurance.
Our communication technology has potentially diminished the cost of association and organization to next to nothing. We have yet to figure out exactly what this could mean. An armed artist movement could go a long way to begin exploring that territory.
I don't know how much of this appeal is limited, but I have always believed in generalizing, learning new skills and trades, making for yourself and cross pollination with other creatives could only improve your life/art/work. You could shape all this drive through a light organizational structure. Maybe center the group around a nonprofit complete with a credit union (or utilization of the nascent peer to peer lending infrastructure), home schooling mixed with a rolling apprenticeshipa amongst the fellow small crafters, public recognition of contributions to art, or culture.
Think of all the cool things you've seen online: guerrilla gardening, new and exciting art, makers and crafters of all kind, and programming of all kinds just coordinated and concentrated. Instead of lawns and parking lots everyone can have gardens. Shared cars, shared workspaces, shared whatever none of which would ever lessen the capacity for private or individual ownership. I don't even know. If you had an idea you really thought was cool, something you think society could be doing so much better all you have to do is find a few more families and take over a distressed city block or an abandoned downtown building. What would be gained if you gathered a hundred etsy makers and got them to share work/living space? I don't know. But I would love to find out.
An armed artist movement could range from full on marxist communes to a lose affiliation of people who agree to try and move into a distressed area as close as they can. I think that something in between would be most feasible, some kind of cooperative possibly organized as a nonprofit corporation. Think a super charged home owner association; but instead of trying to maximize home values the cooperative tries to encourage diversity of economy, organize for physical security. Add in a library, a one room credit union, a legal defense and medical insurance fund (or better yet a clinic) and it seems like you've got the basics for a tiny society that creates a better outcomes for its members whether we exist in the boom times of 04 or veer towards a Mad Max sensibility.
Issues. Security, infrastructure, the regulatory regime, practical challenges. The regulatory regime would probably be the most frustrating to try to deal with. I would hope that cities facing budget shortfalls and urban flight would be open to trying something a little different... but that is perhaps overly optimistic. Still, if a place is hurting how many regulations could they actually enforce? The infrastructure would be the next issues: water, power, sewage, roads and internet access. It is possible to be energy independent, but probably cost prohibitive (though the money saved on mortage payments could easily be used for solar panels). Trash can be handled somewhat easily even with a lack of official service. Even sidewalks, streets and streetlights can be repaired/maintained at a reasonable cost (every other house sets out an led floodlight). The main requirements if a community is to function in modern standards is working water and sewage infrastructure. And for these it seems, the diy ethic breaks down a little more. The question is though, what do media theorists and artisans know about running or maintaining a building? These people don't know how to build, farm, put up drywall et al. But we aren't colonizing a new planet, we're not even moving to a developing nation. Fedex still delivers. You can still put up a craigslist add for a gardener. It's just now you have greater opportunity and a ready made community of people who want to be deliberately helpfull.
If security is an issue, then the solution is strong relationships within the community coupled with being armed. And by being armed I do not mean the brandishing of gleaming machettes and anti armor rockets. Being armed means the recognition that the primary responsibility for the your safety and the safety of the people you love is your responsibility (just like healthcare on a physical and emotional level, education and food/shelter). Beyond that, security is primarily an issue of organization, of directing help where it is needed. Our communication infrastructure offers us opportunities to do things radically differently. Imagine geotagged neighborhood watchmen making the rounds, twittering the drafted message 'Alls well' every 15 minutes. Hell, you could even invite the 'real superheroes.' (
link http://www.oddee.com/item_87762.aspx) You don't necessarily need guns to protect yourself, community and instant communication can do much to mitigate danger if even a skeleton police force exists. Of course, as a libertarian I think that large scale responsible gun ownership (with, perhaps, a recognition at how commonly 'open carry' is legally allowed) is only a net gain for the community.
Of course, there are issues of gentrification... with all the associated issues of race and class that accompany this process. And I don't have any easy answers. The only way to deal with it is to try and deal honestly and fairly with whoever. And get ready to listen to a lot of criticism.
People have always traveled to the frontier in order to live by their own terms. And, there were always sacrifices. Sacrifices in security, in the loss of family and the potential loss of opportunity. How much of this is mitigated by the introduction of modern communication infrastructure. Moving and trying to take over blighted areas risks the loss of physical security and various other creature comforts we have come to expect. But how much economic security is gained by moving into a co-op homestead? If you make your living off the internet, your income is the same, but how much less is your rent, your mortage your everything?
If you want to make something new, it's easiest to move into an empty space. Human nature abhors a vacuum. And the tectonic shifts of our economy have created empty spaces. So what's our frontier? Anyplace that has been written off. It is there where there are resources being underutilized to an incredible degree. Have a cool shirt design that's selling like hot cakes? Hire a hundred laid off auto workers for a week. This may sound heartless, hiring people and places for short term jobs. It is so outside our norm, where we like to imagine employment for life and processes and industries that we can bequeeth to our children. But how much waste, how much suffering is manufactured when people stubbornly cling to what used to work great twenty years ago.
I think part of the problem is, the big cities or just big problems in general tends to place an emphasis on discovering big solutions. Detroit wants the auto industry back, New Orleans and almost every other city thinks that can infrastructure and tourist their way out of their mess. Fuck large scale solutions, the end all be all fix to what ails you. Better to have a thousand independent crafters, programmers, contractors then one large factory that employs a thousand. The crafters can adapt in an ever weirder world, ever more rapid pace world and it would be nearly impossible to make them all irrelevant in one fell swoop. Of course, by being more diverse and more adaptive these independents are harder to regulate and tax as they will just more readily adapt around the legal barriers thrown in their way. Cities could undoubtedly make this process easier. They could buy up distressed properties and offer them prebundled for a nonprofit cooperative framework. Also, they could simply eradicate the reams upon reams of senseless regulation... but both these options seem unlikely.
Of late, I've been especially interested in what changes I can make in my life that will help me no matter if the world continues in its corporate capitalist path (
link http://baselinescenario.com/) or if the country/world experiences in a soviet style collapse (
link http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/). My list ranges from the simple, immediately available: buying bikes, keeping some cash on hand, bartering for the things I want, learning new and more basic skills and more importantly developing stronger relationships with the people I love et al. The thing that is so appealing about the armed artist emigration is that it provides a more secure, richer potentially more fulfilling life the way things are while at the same time providing a far greater level of societal collapse insurance.
Creatives get dismissed as hippies (in the bad sense) flippants, frivolous gadflies who can't engage in the vital sausage making process of real politic. It doesn't have to be that way. And maybe it won't work, maybe none of this will work. But hell, if you can't try something new on a small scale, when can you try something new?
This contraction of the economy affords us a chance to go from being renters in bohemian neighborhoods in the major metro areas to being owners crafting communities we own, with all the attendant headache and possibility that entails. It will fascinate me to watch what people make of this chance.
----Edit----
Wow. Guess I wasn't the only one with this idea. (
link http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/17/artists-buying-cheap.html)
I've been submitting a lot more fiction recently. I couldn't do it without the help of Ralan's Webstravaganza (link http://www.ralan.com/) It's pretty religiously updated, and is the best source I know of for spec fiction publication listings. For spec fiction at least, I find it incredibly more usefull then the bible sized Writer's Market (link http://www.writersmarket.com/) In fact, all the places I have been published so far, I've discovered through Ralan's.
