lunedì 9 luglio 2012

Resilience: how to do it?

One of the most dramatic aspect of the current crisis and recession is that they put to a strain on the endurance capability of many local communities. The crisis of the conventional economic system has evidenced a huge gap in economic, social, cultural, environmental and psychological terms.dividing entire societies. It is no longer possible to keep the things as they were in the past. Change or die.

If the deep causes of this crisis won't be solved, in a short time things will become maybe worst in the future. Every future crisis seems to be more profund and dramatic than the previous ones.

During these decades of economic obesity our community appear particularly weak and the idea of community itself seems to definitively lack. We are only individuals with weak and virtual relations based on the idea of conflict and competition rather than cooperation and solidarity.

So, now we are weak, confused, isolated: everyone can be a potential enemy. We are thus prey of managers and politicians.

For this reason the concept of "resilience" is aquiring more and more importance as critical tool to provide local communities with adjustment capability, to re-construct local economies, to creat efficient local networks, to delineate a decent political class. 

In my experience I have noticed that the destruction of those relations at the base of the idea of community has highly increased the conflict and competition levels among local agents and many politicians are exploiting this competition to maintain their political power.

I have experienced many negative examples about it: inertia, opposition to any kind of change, resistence to any kind of committment and involvement. Any local initiative has to cope with severe difficulties making particularly hard the implementation of the idea of resilience. Many obvious activities (taking possession of the old town centres, squares, roads, parks, protecting public spaces, etc.) become very difficult task.

Resilience. How to do it? Maybe we can agree in theory, but how to implement it? Is there any suggestion?


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