Out this week is the newest edition of Whole Terrain, which is published by the Environmental Studies Department of Antioch University, New England.
The entire issue focuses on the question of “scale.” While the phrase “think globally, act locally” may have become a cliché, now more than ever we must come to terms with how much is too much, how big is too big, what can and should be produced locally, and where the global economy creates needed wealth for the developing world as opposed to simply functioning as an unjust way to exploit workers unable to bargain for decent wages.
I’m proud to have contributed an essay entitled Big, Small, and the Bridge Between, which explores the experience of moving from New York City (which is not necessarily an appropriate scale) to Charlotte, Vermont (where appropriate scale provides endless unexpected delights.)
We are in Vermont, which is, for the most part, the boondocks epitomized.
But where outsiders see isolation, Vermonters themselves experience quite the opposite. Our human scale of life has allowed many things to flourish that have gone missing where things got big. Our rates of civic participation run high. Connections between neighbors are typically strong. Access to government is great. We enjoy a thriving cultural scene and burgeoning local food system. And most of these things happen for one overriding reason: There just aren’t very many of us here.