community thinking Archives

Community thinking is a social endeavour that considers the good of the community a priority, sometimes at the cost of the individual’s interest. Instead of granting privileges to certain individuals, it attempts to look for solutions and actions that meet everyone’s demands, treating the good of the community as a long-term project stabilizing common good.

Community thinking means to take care of each other, to do what is good for others, too, not only for one person. This however is not to be confused with charity, to the contrary, community thinking can be a win-win situation for all parties, for example exchanging services between community members – be it walking someone else’s dog, or repairing the zipper on someone’s jacket etc.

Community gardens are good examples of community activities undertaken in cities. Another good initiative might be by local governments, to plant herbs and fruit trees in public spaces instead of flowers, so that the poorer are able to use and eat them.

On the level of decision making there are more and more human rights movements that follow a policy of letting the community make the decisions instead of delegating it to leaders. Similarly, in many cities and local communities around the world, decisions concerning for instance the annual budget are discussed openly, so that the inhabitants can decide together with the local government how to spend the funds. This decentralization, the shift in decision making policy is yet another sign of the growing importance of local communities nowadays.

Slow food, the international movement that started in Italy in the late 1980’s, may be recognised as the starting point of all slow movements. It was a civilian initiative that aimed at preserving and protecting traditional and regional cuisine, local diversity, and also rehabilitating eating together as an important social experience – as opposed to consuming fast food. Slow food appears on multiple levels: from small farming communities and products made of locally produced goods to relaxed meals enjoying the smell, texture and taste of food in good company. Eating locally produced goods benefits both the environment and our health, since product does not need to be chemically processed to survive lengthy transport times that cause pollution. As a basic rule, the further the food comes from, the more health and environment damaging the process it went through is. This needs to be remembered when looking at trendy, proclaimed “superfoods” that arrive from distant countries, and are produced causing tremendous environmental damage due to increased market needs. The slow food movement has now grown into a global network, focusing on preserving local gastro-cultural values and supporting local producers and tourism.