3 Success on [he Edge

the home? Others survive only as tourist traps. They have lost their independence and some degree of the co— operation they once possessed. Why then have some managed to survive as living communities? How could others regain more life?

The important effects of survival, co-operation and independence relate to the future, and by extension, to the present. Why do these three attributes matter for a future we can hardly imagine? Because the future really is what we make it; in that sense, it has already begun. A combination of survival, co-operation and independence, such as this book will illustrate, could provide a kind of future many people would enjoy, and one that would be likely to respect its surroundings, both human and non- human. We will need such communities even more in a future which is being fostered by megalomaniac dreams.

Let us begin by defining ”survival,” ”co-operation" and ”independence," as these terms will be used in this book. By ”survival”, 1 do not mean simply continuing in the same place and, to a lesser extent, in the same way of life. The term includes that, of course. But more importantly, it refers to remaining a living community and not merely a ghost or shell of its former self. This does not inevitably happen in a community, no matter how firmly established it may have been in the past. This is especially so in the case of communities founded by groups whose members tend to move about; a hundred or two hundred years after the founding, the places themselves may be largely inhabited by peoples from other backgrormds or nationalities. Other common reasons for a change in the population of a community include the drift to the cities, widespread loss of employment (as happened with the mechanization of farming) or loss of services such