The Return to Small Communities in a Global World
Pocket Networks
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an essay on here. I’ve been so focused on work and fiction writing I’ve let my schedule command me instead of the other way around. But hopefully this can satisfy. I had a good time writing this and I was compelled to get these thoughts off my chest for a variety of reasons. Enjoy.
The pendulum of human organization appears to be swinging once again. After decades of accelerating globalization, interconnectedness, and digital dispersion, we are witnessing a profound countermovement: a sophisticated rekindling of interest in the small, the local, and the tangible. This shift transcends mere nostalgia, representing instead a nuanced response to the limitations and excesses of globalized systems that promised connection but frequently delivered isolation.
Contemporary evidence of this "return to small" permeates both physical and digital landscapes. The proliferation of intentional communities and cohousing developments, the renaissance of farmers' markets, the dream of local manufacturing, and the emergence of digitally-enabled neighborhood networks all point to a fundamental recalibration of how we organize ourselves socially. Yet this movement exists paradoxically within a world more globally integrated than ever before. This raises a critical question: are we witnessing a reactionary retreat from progress, or the enlightened evolution of our social structures?
The Discontents of Scale
The twentieth century stood as a monument to scale. Corporations transformed from local enterprises into multinational behemoths, governments expanded their bureaucratic reach exponentially, and cities swelled into sprawling megalopolises. Even our social networks transcended geographical constraints through digital platforms, creating unprecedented connectivity across vast distances.
This scaling delivered remarkable benefits: economic efficiencies through specialization, extraordinary diversity of options, and unprecedented access to information and resources. However, contemporary research increasingly illuminates the shadow side of these developments. Robert Putnam's seminal work "Bowling Alone" documented the decline of social capital and civic participation across America, revealing a society increasingly disconnected despite its technological connections. More recent data reinforces these concerns, with a 2021 Harvard study finding that 61% of young adults report experiencing serious loneliness—a striking indictment of our hyper-connected age. Environmental degradation has accelerated through global supply chains that effectively obscure responsibility and accountability, while political polarization has intensified as communities fragment into digital echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs rather than fostering genuine dialogue.
The pandemic crystallized these tensions with unprecedented clarity. While global scientific cooperation produced vaccines at remarkable speed—demonstrating the power of international collaboration—the crisis simultaneously exposed the fragility of extended supply chains and highlighted the critical importance of local resilience. Communities with strong local food systems, robust mutual aid networks, and effective local governance weathered the crisis more successfully than those entirely dependent on global systems.
Political philosopher Hannah Arendt presciently observed that excessive "bigness" in human organization inevitably produces "worldlessness"—a condition where direct experience and agency are replaced by abstract systems beyond individual comprehension or influence. This theoretical insight manifests concretely today in the widespread perception that our largest institutions—from multinational corporations to federal governments—have become fundamentally unresponsive to human needs and local contexts.
Historical Precedents and Contemporary Manifestations
The idealization of small-scale community possesses deep historical roots. From Aristotle's conception of the polis as the ideal political unit to Jefferson's vision of an agrarian republic, from the nineteenth-century utopian communities to E.F. Schumacher's influential "Small Is Beautiful" economics, thinkers across centuries have advocated for human-scaled social organization. What distinguishes the current movement is its sophisticated emergence within—rather than in opposition to—a globalized context.
Contemporary localism eschews the fantasy of dismantling global networks, focusing instead on establishing more meaningful and resilient nodes within them. This manifests across multiple domains simultaneously. The proliferation of "third places"—coffee shops, coworking spaces, and community centers explicitly designed for social connection—represents a conscious effort to recreate the informal gathering spaces that urbanist Ray Oldenburg identified as essential to community life. Brooklyn's Industry City, for instance, combines manufacturing, retail, and communal spaces to create a modern village within the urban fabric, while rural areas see the emergence of community hubs that blend remote work facilities with local services.
Intentional communities have evolved from their countercultural origins into sophisticated experiments in balanced living. Contemporary cohousing developments like N Street Cohousing in Davis, California, demonstrate how shared resources and intentional design can foster community while maintaining privacy. These communities employ architectural innovations—clustered housing around common spaces, shared kitchens for communal meals, car-free zones that encourage interaction—alongside governance structures that balance individual autonomy with collective decision-making.
Local economic initiatives represent another crucial dimension of this movement. Community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs have expanded from a handful of farms in the 1980s to over 7,000 operations serving hundreds of thousands of families. Maker spaces like Detroit's Ponyride provide shared tools and expertise that enable local manufacturing and entrepreneurship. Time banks in communities from Madison, Wisconsin, to Brixton, UK, create alternative economies based on reciprocal service exchange. Local currencies like BerkShares in Massachusetts and the Bristol Pound in the UK demonstrate how communities can partially decouple from global financial systems while maintaining external connections.
Digital localism emerges as a particularly interesting phenomenon, using technology to strengthen rather than replace place-based connections. Platforms like Front Porch Forum in Vermont create hyperlocal digital spaces for neighbor-to-neighbor communication, while apps like Nextdoor attempt to scale this model globally. These tools demonstrate how technology can serve community building when designed with local connection rather than global reach as the primary goal.
Political devolution toward city and regional governance represents another expression of this trend. As national politics grows increasingly polarized and gridlocked, cities from Barcelona to Burlington pioneer innovative approaches to challenges from climate change to economic inequality. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group exemplifies how local governments can collaborate internationally while maintaining focus on local implementation.
Empirical Evidence of Transformation
The return to community transcends anecdotal observation, supported by robust quantitative trends. The number of farmers' markets in the United States expanded from 1,755 in 1994 to over 8,600 in 2019, according to USDA data, representing not just commercial venues but crucial social spaces for community interaction. Cohousing communities have proliferated from virtually none in the 1980s to over 165 established communities with thousands more in development across the United States.
Economic research validates the impact of local focus. Studies by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance demonstrate that local businesses return up to three times more revenue to local economies compared to chain stores, creating multiplier effects that strengthen community resilience. The American Independent Business Alliance's research shows that local businesses donate 250% more to local nonprofits than national chains, weaving stronger social fabric through economic activity.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated existing trends toward distributed living, with remote work adoption enabling significant population flows from major metropolitan areas to smaller cities and towns. Zoom towns like Bozeman, Montana, and Bend, Oregon, experienced population surges as knowledge workers sought communities offering both quality of life and digital connectivity. This migration pattern reverses decades of metropolitan concentration, potentially revitalizing smaller communities while challenging them to maintain their character amid rapid growth.
Perhaps most significantly, contemporary community-focused initiatives attract remarkable demographic diversity. Unlike previous back-to-the-land movements that primarily drew young, white, middle-class idealists, today's localism spans generations, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Urban agriculture initiatives in cities like Detroit and Oakland engage predominantly African American communities in food sovereignty. Immigrant communities create mutual aid networks that blend traditional practices with contemporary needs. Retirees seek cohousing arrangements that provide social connection and shared care as they age.
The Architecture of Connected Localism
What fundamentally distinguishes today's small community renaissance from historical precedents is its sophisticated relationship with global systems. Rather than pursuing autarkic isolation, successful local movements selectively leverage global connectivity to strengthen local resilience. This creates what sociologist Barry Wellman terms "networked individualism"—a social operating system that combines local embeddedness with strategic wider connections.
This hybrid model manifests in countless practical examples. The farmers' market vendor uses Instagram and Square payment systems to build customer relationships and streamline transactions while maintaining the face-to-face interactions that define the market experience. Intentional communities coordinate through Slack and shared Google documents while prioritizing in-person meetings for substantive decisions. Local currencies operate through smartphone apps that combine the convenience of digital payment with the community-building effects of local circulation.
The key insight is that we need not choose between local connection and global participation. Instead, the challenge becomes determining appropriate scale for different human activities. Material needs like food and basic goods benefit from shorter supply chains that reduce environmental impact and increase resilience. A 2020 study in Nature Food found that localizing food systems could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 17% while improving food security. Governance of common resources—from water systems to community forests—functions most effectively at bioregional levels where stakeholders share direct interest in sustainable management.
Conversely, cultural exchange, scientific research, and knowledge-sharing thrive in global networks that enable rapid innovation and cross-pollination of ideas. The development of COVID vaccines demonstrated how global scientific collaboration can address challenges impossible for any single community to solve. Climate change similarly requires coordinated international action alongside local adaptation measures.
The most sophisticated community models recognize these scalar distinctions rather than advocating universal localism. The goal shifts from self-sufficiency—an impossible and undesirable aim in complex societies—to what permaculture designers call "appropriate interdependence." This involves creating small-scale intensive systems linked in resilient networks, capable of meeting essential needs locally while engaging strategically with larger systems for specialized requirements.
Transcending Political Polarization
The community-focused movement's political dimensions defy conventional categorization, containing elements that resonate across ideological spectrums. This ideological flexibility suggests potential common ground in our increasingly polarized political landscape.
Progressive values manifest in the movement's emphasis on environmental sustainability and ecological responsibility. Community land trusts preserve affordable housing while removing land from speculative markets. Cooperative economic models—from worker cooperatives to credit unions—demonstrate alternatives to extractive capitalism. The celebration of diversity within community contexts and the rejection of unfettered corporate power align with progressive priorities.
Simultaneously, conservative values find expression through the renewal of mediating institutions between individual and state—what Edmund Burke called the "little platoons" of society. The emphasis on self-reliance and mutual aid over government dependency resonates with conservative principles of subsidiarity. The preservation of local traditions, customs, and practices appeals to conservative sensibilities, as does skepticism toward centralized authority and technocratic solutions.
This ideological inclusivity explains localism's broad appeal across political divides. It offers paths toward social fabric restoration without necessarily imposing uniform values beyond the baseline commitment to community itself. A conservative Mormon community in Utah and a progressive ecovillage in California can both strengthen local resilience while maintaining distinct value systems.
However, this political ambiguity presents genuine risks. Without intentional attention to inclusion and bridge-building, small communities can devolve into insular, exclusionary, or parochial enclaves. History provides ample examples of local communities enforcing conformity, excluding outsiders, and resisting necessary change. The challenge lies in building communities sufficiently open to avoid stagnation and welcome diversity while maintaining enough coherence to facilitate genuine connection and collective action.
Navigating Digital Tensions
No serious analysis of contemporary community can avoid grappling with digital technology's complex effects. Our devices simultaneously connect and isolate us, creating what psychologist Sherry Turkle insightfully describes as being "alone together"—physically present but mentally dispersed across virtual spaces.
Empirical research reveals nuanced impacts of digital communication on community life. A 2018 study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that digital tools effectively maintain existing relationships but prove less effective at building deep new connections. Social media use correlates with increased awareness of others' lives but often decreased depth of engagement—what researchers term "context collapse" where diverse social circles merge into undifferentiated feeds. Online participation can serve as a gateway to offline community engagement but frequently substitutes for rather than supplements face-to-face interaction.
The most successful community models neither uncritically embrace nor categorically reject digital tools. Instead, they practice what technologist Jenny Odell calls "resistance in place"—the selective and intentional use of technology to strengthen rather than replace embodied community. This involves developing community agreements around device use in shared spaces, creating local digital networks that enhance neighborhood connections, and using technology primarily for coordination rather than substitution of physical gathering.
Portland's Jade District exemplifies this approach, using WeChat groups to coordinate among Vietnamese, Chinese, and Latino residents while prioritizing face-to-face gatherings for relationship building and decision-making. The platform enables multilingual communication and broad participation while maintaining the primacy of embodied interaction.
Pathways to Implementation
For those seeking to strengthen local connections, multiple entry points exist across the spectrum from individual action to community-wide transformation. Successful initiatives typically begin with achievable projects that demonstrate tangible benefits while building social capital for larger endeavors.
Individual actions might include participating in or initiating neighborhood gatherings—from informal block parties to structured skill-sharing events. The Little Free Library movement demonstrates how simple interventions can catalyze broader community connections, with over 100,000 registered libraries creating nodes of interaction worldwide. Community gardens transform vacant lots into productive spaces while fostering intergenerational relationships and cultural exchange through shared cultivation practices.
Institutional approaches involve creating or supporting third places that facilitate casual interaction. The revival of public libraries as community hubs—offering everything from maker spaces to meditation rooms—demonstrates how existing institutions can adapt to serve contemporary community needs. Repair cafés, emerging from the Netherlands and now numbering over 2,000 worldwide, combine practical skill-sharing with waste reduction and social connection.
Systemic interventions address structural barriers to community formation. Reforming zoning codes to permit accessory dwelling units, mixed-use development, and communal housing arrangements removes legal obstacles to innovative living arrangements. Creating community land trusts preserves affordability while enabling resident control. Implementing participatory budgeting processes, as pioneered in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and now practiced in over 3,000 cities worldwide, gives communities direct agency over resource allocation.
Toward Resilient Futures
The renewed interest in small communities represents neither wholesale rejection of globalization nor romantic retreat to an imagined past. Instead, it constitutes a sophisticated attempt to humanize global systems by creating meaningful nodes of connection and agency within larger networks. The goal is not isolation but rather appropriate scale for different dimensions of human experience.
This movement suggests that the question is not whether to organize locally or globally, but rather what belongs at each level of organization. Some needs—meaning, belonging, mutual aid, place-based knowledge—are best met in contexts where participants can know and be known by others. Other aspirations—scientific advancement, cultural exchange, addressing planetary challenges—require coordination across vast scales.
The wisdom lies in discerning appropriate scales and designing social systems that honor both our need for rootedness and our capacity for connection beyond boundaries. The communities that will thrive in coming decades will likely be those that maintain strong local cores while participating strategically in wider networks—neither isolated enclaves nor dissolved nodes in placeless flows.
As we navigate increasingly complex global challenges—from climate change to technological disruption to political polarization—the return to small community offers not escapism but essential infrastructure. Strong local communities provide places to stand while reaching outward, home bases for wider exploration, and testing grounds for innovations that might scale beyond their origins. In this sense, robust local communities don't diminish global citizenship but rather enable its most meaningful and effective expression.
This transformation requires moving beyond purely individual choices to structural changes that support community formation. Policy reforms, economic innovations, and cultural shifts must align to create conditions where community thrives rather than struggles against systemic headwinds. The work is both deeply personal—requiring individual commitment to presence and participation—and necessarily collective, demanding that we reimagine and rebuild the systems that shape our possibilities for connection.
The path forward involves neither uncritical localism nor rootless globalism, but rather the patient work of weaving resilient communities that honor both human scale and planetary interdependence. In this weaving lies the possibility of social futures that serve genuine human needs while addressing collective challenges—small worlds connected within a larger whole, each strengthening rather than diminishing the other.