There needs to be more in the ‘localism’ toolbox than local pride and buying from local businesses, right?

Civic pride and local business promotion are often components of localism, but clearly not enough. However, for some places, a process of returning to roots and to shared purposes may be important in developing robust localism.   

One way to understand the changes driven by the global marketplace and its effect on Place is to look at how ‘capital’ is deployed in globalism, and what ‘capital’ is available to place(s) (that is often not yet deployed). Since ‘capital’ has many definitions in economic systems, the definition used here is “the assets that can enhance one’s power to perform.” With the impact of globalization, there is a renewed interest in localization, impacting both the economics and the social wellbeing of Place.

The model that has successfully created innovation in technology reveals what is missing in social innovation.   

Today, the economic and social wellbeing of any place may rise or fall based on what is happening in business globally. And, as in all things digital, there are changes in business with the global marketplace’s relentless drive to efficiency. In the past, often the original business advantage for a place in the US was the result of its favorable location: a trade route, a port, a rail line, an interstate, and those things still confer advantage. New Orleans is still a significant port, based on agricultural tonnage from the heartland but other ports are far more consequential with value-added manufacturing, for example. Here are three forms of capital that are well deployed in globalism.

Finance capital. Finance capital and its search for best returns is the driver of globalization (global capitalism). The model for technology investment and its potential for outsized returns are focused on a national or global marketplace. Also, many business structures are global or national/local, but finance capital comes into an enterprise at the global or national business level, not the local level.  

Material capital. Global businesses engaged in extraction, for example, are in locations that allow them access to material capital (e.g. oil, timber, copper) or in a place where the refinement of material capital is made more efficient. The mix of these benefits determines the global location for these businesses. There are businesses that relocate when older technologies deployed in one location are replaced by newer technologies in another location (especially where favorable government treatment benefitting finance capital influences location.  

Human capital. Businesses may choose to locate where there is a concentration of skills (e.g. tech workers in Seattle) though presumably at least some of the people with these skills are mobile and able to relocate. There may be special educational or trade apprenticeship offerings leading to the concentration of skills in the place. Or as in the case of Austin, TX, for example, a place may be sufficiently attractive as a place to live for technology workers, that it creates its own concentration in technology businesses (and in turn amplifies the capital that can be deployed locally).

These three forms of capital, finance capital, material capital and human capital (to a lesser extent) are carefully invested now to serve the global marketplace. 

Finance capital and efficiency are drivers for globalism. They work. But are they the only things that work; for whom do they work?

Places have four forms of capital that can be deployed locally, human capital, social capital, cultural capital, and natural capital.  

Local human capital. It is now estimated that a person will experience five career changes requiring a new educational approach that includes a process of lifelong learning is important in place. So is making your place desirable as a place to live. Paducah, KY some years back, restored a blighted neighborhood with good housing stock by running ads for ‘artists’ in art magazines with the headline: “Paris, New York, Paducah.” They developed a regional day-trip market to secure a customer base for art sales, and rather than razing the neighborhood, restored it as a place asset. Ideas for marketing, business incubators and maker spaces, sometimes with shared production facilities, are common tools deployed. But this is not yet a sophisticated sector. Far more resources are deployed in land development and business recruitment than in processes to deploy human capital.

Social capital. Robert Putnam describing social capital says, “Community connectedness is not just about warm fuzzy tales of civic triumph. In measurable and well-documented ways, social capital makes an enormous difference in our lives…Social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy.” His research points to two forms of social capital. Bonding capital describes the closeness of people within social groups, where strengthening those connections, and valuing those groups increases civic engagement. And Bridging capital which connects groups to each other. People are often described as being tribal. Understanding how to strengthen social capital is the principal way to extend tribalism into collaboration, especially where shared love of place is engaged.

Cultural capital. Sociologists describe cultural capital as the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society. This understanding of cultural capital is ever-present but has gotten some revisions with the need for multicultural literacy and diversity, key terms that describe cultural expectations in the digital age. An emerging idea is that of acquiring cultural currency where the competence to move about social groups and geographies has increasing value.

Natural capital. Nature performs vital services for people, consider nature’s role providing: clean water, clean air, food and, many other services. These services are at least in part local services. Sure, water and air flow between places, but restoring the capability of nature is local. Furthermore, citizen scientists, natural restoration projects, wildlife counts, and other nature based initiatives, enrich the people and the place. 

In the pandemic, it is clearly visible how the digital age has sped up the impacts of globalization, as it concentrates power, as it generates risk. Meanwhile, the speed of change has hijacked our attention and ability to improve our Place(s). The digital age makes new tools and allows more robust use of information, collaborations, and networked structures. It allows collective decision making and citizen engagement. By maximizing the use of local human capital, social capital, cultural capital and, natural capital, plus digital age tools, new energy is created in place(s). This is our energy source to regenerate Places.