Some of these are just ideas I found interesting. Any thoughts, reactions of my own are in blue.
"Social capital is created when individuals learn to trust each other so that they are able to make credible commitments and rely on generalized forms of reciprocity rather than narrow sequences of quid pro quo relationships." p 81
"Social capital differs from other forms of capital in several significant ways, one of which is that it is not limited by material scarcity, meaning that its creative capacity is limited only by imagination. It thereby also suggests a route toward sustainability, by replacing the fundamentally illogical model of unlimited growth within a finite world, with one of unlimited development which is not bound by the availability of material resources."
p82
Interesting--the differentiation between growth and development. Similarly:
"...we must also shift our economic development emphasis from the traditional concern with increasing growth to reducing social dependence on economic growth, or what we might call economic demand management." p95
"...work for which there is social demand but no market demand." p96
"The more populous the city and the richer its inhabitants, the larger its 'ecological footprint' is likely to be in terms of its demand on resources." p101-102
This is pretty intuitive--but it makes me wonder, is this in comparison to the same number of people living in a rural settings' combined ecological footprint? Clearly urban sprawl/North American land use patterns are largely at fault in making cities the inefficient global citizens that they are. But in some ways, can't we look at the advantages that the centralization lends itself to? Most online quizzes measuring your personal ecological footprint will tell you living in an apartment building is actually more sustainable than living in your own personal house (depending somewhat, of course, on the size of your family, square footage etc). Where are the other places (besides land use) that cause this logic to fall down in the face of large-scale pooling of resources (i.e. large towns or cities)?
"...everyone has a stake in implementing a decision, because all have participated in its formation (participants have more energy for working in groups with which they are fully in agreement)" P107
Just wanted to share my limited experience in consensus decision making. It has often been in very small communities/committees where "turnover" was high, and the above quoted advantage to the process was kind of lost--the next "generation" felt an arbitrary decision was handed down, and all the work done in arriving at the decision was often not appreciated.
"Sustainability communities will not, therefore, merely 'sustain' the quality of our lives--they will dramatically improve it." P127
Interesting, the multiple connotations of the word "sustain." I've had similar thoughts about the duality of the word "tolerance."
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The point you raise about challenges of consensus decision-making when the group changes leads to an important understanding about community. If the group has no history or continuity, it is impossible to build the trust needed for shared decision-making. It also demonstrates that groups like to make their own decisions; this makes it hard to show progress when the group keeps changing.
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