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What Can We Learn from the Amish?

First, a connection to the land is vital. If at all possible, live on the land, work the land, care for the land, be one with the land, and grow at least part of your own food so you have a physical connection to it. Even if you live in town, regain that connection to the land by working your little plot or pot of soil.

Housing Co-ops: When Renting and Buying are Too Expensive

In 1963, with a median income of $6,200, you could have bought a home for about 3 times your annual income. In 2017, that ratio had increased to 5.2, with the median income being about $50,000 and the median cost of a house at $321,000. In two-thirds of America, the growth in the cost of housing is exceeding wage growth. I’ve included a cute little table below to show you the numbers, and you can see the sources below that.

First U.S. Co-op Accelerator, Launches its Inaugural Cohort of Startups

Start.coop, the first accelerator program designed to help scale cooperatively-owned startups and cooperative tech platforms, will celebrate the graduation of its inaugural cohort May 20-24 in San Francisco. The five startup teams are traveling from across the United States to present their companies at a series of Bay-area events, including:

Smaller California marijuana farmers form co-ops

As corporate cultivation operations in California continue to expand, small cannabis growers in the Golden State are banding together to develop cooperatives in an attempt to gain a competitive edge against their large-scale rivals.

Co-ops present pros and cons for smaller marijuana growers. But those who are making the move point to these factors:

Workers’ cooperatives: jobs and people over profits

Workers’ cooperatives are typically lean businesses with high efficiency and employee motivation.  The employee-owners play meaningful roles; they not only do their jobs, but they also collectively determine the future direction of the company. This, in turn, often leads to higher productivity and better overall business performance.

If their business is performing well and the employee-owners have more money in their pockets, the community and the local economy prosper.  

Job Opening: It Takes Roots Organizer

It Takes Roots (ITR) to Grow the Resistance centers the leadership and power of urban and rural communities on the frontlines of racial, gender, housing, environmental, energy and climate justice in the United States to advance regenerative economies and healthy communities.

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How to Bring High-Speed Internet to Public Housing

This week we’re rebroadcasting an episode of our Community Broadband Bits podcast that details our recent report on San Francisco’s innovative efforts to close the digital divide in public housing. Host Chris Mitchell is joined by former ILSR intern and report co-author, Hannah Rank, to discuss how this model can be used as a blueprint by other cities.