Metropolitics

Transition towns, or the desire for an urban alternative

Adrien Krauz & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-05-15T04:50:00Z

The entry of the term “transition” into the vocabulary of public action shows that questions regarding how to build more sustainable models for society are still relevant. The response offered by “transition towns” is a model for action involving a variety of local and citizen-led initiatives that are based on a method for sustainable environmental development called permaculture.
---- Series: The Renewed Relevance of Urban-Planning Models? Faced with the threat of an environmental crisis,

- Essays / utopia, sustainable development, LETS, local currencies, urban agriculture, agriculture, resilience, model, sustainable urban planning, permaculture, transition towns

The Wealth of Local Currencies

Sophie Donzel & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-04-27T05:30:00Z

Following up on Smaïn Laacher's essay on Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), Sophie Donzel, deputy mayor of Nanterre, extols the value of local currencies and calls for a new monetary ecology.
Are you rich if you've got twice as many jobs as jobholders living in your district? If you've got ten million square feet of office space, including the headquarters of national and multinational corporations? If the companies located in your district turn over all told €29 billion? Well, no!

- Debates / Nanterre, LETS, local currencies

Alternative views and uses of money

Smaïn Laacher & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2010-12-01T15:20:57Z

Still largely unknown, Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) are interesting alternatives to free market dominance. How do they work and what are their social and political goals?
Contrary to what is often said, the social critique of the economy has not disappeared. Moreover, social experiments involving applied critiques of capitalist economics and a quest for concrete alternatives have never given up the ghost. One perfect illustration is the emergence in France in the mid-1990s of a large

- Essays / LETS, local currencies, market