Tompkins County NY, Relocalization Plan

Whether you are anti-globalization, pro-localization, a supporter of sustainability, an environmentalist, a bear economist, a New Urbanist or a Peaknik, you will probably be interested in seeing one local government's response to the energy crisis. 

At a time when Big Government seems to be doing everything wrong, I have to applaud local efforts to prepare for self-sufficiency during the Long Emergency ahead.  I encourage everyone to send this link to your friends and elected officials.  (apologies for crossposting)

Tompkins County Relocalization Plan

"The purpose of the Project is to research and document an emergency plan for relocalizing the production and distribution of essential goods and services in Tompkins County in response to an economic crisis precipitated by an irreversible, perpetually increasing rise in the price of oil, a crisis that now appears to many of us to be inevitable and not much longer in coming."

It goes almost without saying that all residents of Tompkins County should be doing everything they personally can to live sustainable lifestyles to the best of their ability. Most people who live here already know perfectly well what they should be doing, and most would probably admit that they are not doing nearly enough. The efforts of local initiatives to build sustainability are essential to preparing us as best we can before disaster strikes; what we can do now locally, we certainly should be doing locally. But a realistic assessment of the future demands that we confront the likelihood that people will not willingly lower their levels of consumption until the crisis is upon us. This project attempts to think through the measures that we will then need to put in place in order to survive here economically while other localities think through the measures that they should take to best address their own local circumstances.

Every location will bring its own set of strengths and weaknesses to its struggle with the economic, social, and material consequences of the end of cheap oil. So unlike most sustainability plans, which apply now and apply almost universally to the U.S. and other developed countries, this project aims to develop a plan that will apply in the near future and will address the specific strengths and weaknesses of Tompkins County. This kind of plan is called “county relocalization.”

It is based on the belief that the size of counties and the traditional land use, welfare, and emergency management functions of counties puts them at the organizational level most appropriate to the management of emergency relocalization. In our case, it allows the plan to recognize and make best use of the unique blend of rural, town, and university resources in Tompkins County. The general outline of the TCRP may be applicable to other counties as well, but the objective is to map out in detail the measures to be taken right here.