“What, exactly, does Eco-mUNITY DO?” you may ask. Well, we shall endeavor over the next few weeks to outline exactly that. Overall, we put the “e” in Eco-mUNITY when we plug the dot into the com by providing free wi-fi access, the “eco” in Eco-mUNITYwhen we plug the community into sustainability, and the “community” is put into Eco-mUNITY citizen by citizen. Thank you for reading this, learning about Eco-mUNITY, and in doing so, thank you for participating.
REAListic optimIST has become concerned that the amazing connection capability of the internet and cellular technology has been causing the opposite phenomenon. More and more, people are staring at their cel phones or listening to their ipods instead of talking to people encountered on their daily commute; or people stay home and watch TV or surf the net to find their entertainment instead of going to local community meeting spots. As a result, one driving purpose of Eco-mUNITY is to build an infrastructure to enable more community collaboration because that collective experience will transform our experience of life by increasing the ease of intentional and co-created community.
Yet, if having a conversation with someone in China is indicitive of people coming together, and texting our next door neighbor is a sign that we need to get out more, where is the tipping point? At what point do we value our ability to enrich each other’s lives enough to brave the threat of misplacing trust? Just where is the boundary where community is sufficiently diverse yet tightknit?
Eco-mUNITY will seek to highlight the artistic expression contained within the community to amplify the color and characteristics which make up each community identity and the mythos of each community story. Eco-mUNITY will invite artisitc collaboration with a community focus to incorporate in each community effort. You are the face of Eco-mUNITY.
Eco-mUNITY will also help to flesh out the flavor and identity of each community by providing a community map with several layers, each of which show the location of particular individuals, services, notable sites, and the like both from Eco-mUNITY’s website, and from publicly accessible kiosks. Eco-mUNITY envisions these kiosks to be able to not only provide information, but to also be tied to Eco-mUNITY’s Community Bike Project, which is designed to function like FleXcar, only with bicycles in order to empower the expedient and eCo-locomotion of community citizens.
Eco-mUNITY will work with already existing organizations to help them to better work with one another to serve the community more effectively. Eco-mUNITYwill also put together community events designed to bring people together to meet each other, and to engage in the the aforementioned community dialogue in order to empower micro-democracy. Eco-mUNITY intends to work with neighborhood organizations and community members to facilitate direct democracy (or as Democracy Catalyst likes to say, “foment micro-democracy”) at the community level.
There is more to come!