Matt Grantham

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since Nov 13, 2012

Biography

Involved with go local type campaigns and am interested in the intersection of such campaigns and local food production. Also very interested in how communities can organize around a wide variety of issues under a more singular banner to facilitate the creation of alternative local media and networking capabilities. I have a particular focus on local food production and alternative/natural health issues, and believe these are the two areas where we can create the best inroads to community activation.

I worked on the North Bay Progressive newspaper with Peter Phillips a few years back and remain interested in producing local papers. I am also pretty familiar with local currency issues and the wider philosophical underpinnings of economics in general. I am a enthusiast of many of the likely heroes, David Korten, Michael Pollan, Gar Alperovitz, Helena Nordberg Hodge, etc, but am also disappointed with the manner which movements and there leaders have interacted with one another

I have also served on my local green party county council for 8 years plus. In general I find the others focused on running candidates, taking stances on propositions and other parties candidates, and getting behind one or two issues. I have never fit into that paradigm well since I instead believe we must first educate people, then get them actively creating substantive change, and then running political candidates in support of such accomplishments.

I probably do not belong in the greens since in some ways i am an anarchist, but the greens did put "decentralization" in their ten key values, though it seems like that is a fact I need to remind my fellow greens of on a regular basis

So to wrap up I am likely to be person here who is keenly interested in gathering information and resources to convey to others in a couple forms of dissemination. Paul is one of the few folks i have heard for that seems to have a similar focus, especially in that he has promoted a discussion board and offers MP3 audio and has resource guides. I invite him to get in touch with me if he has any interest in my efforts to express the ideas and resources of permaculture and re loclization movements into a coherent system to activate communities

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Napa CA

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Forums and Threads

Recent posts by Matt Grantham

Do Skyscrapers have a place in a permaculture city?

Hi Chris I assume in some way your response is aimed at my post in regard to Arcosanti and the ideas behind it I would not call Arcosanti a city, though I will admit I am not completely clear on the appropriate terminology for this conversation Perhaps it is simplistic to refer to vertical buildings versus horizontal or one story buildings, but something like that might be a nice starting point for some aspects of this conversation.

5 years ago

city repair

Free Website or Blogging Site

Dustin Thank you Yes Square Space seems really good especially since it allows one to post audio files. and for those of us interested in using these platforms as a kind of community trading post of ideas, controversies, goods and services etc, then being able to present recorded conversations of interested parties is clearly a powerful tool

5 years ago

communication

Do Skyscrapers have a place in a permaculture city?

While not directly addressing skyscrapers I thought I would add a reference to the work of Pauol sSleri and hiss creation of the Arcosanti center in the Arizona desert Soleri's work did try to integrate sustainable principles with a focus on multi leveled buildings

https://arcosanti.org/project/paolo-soleri/

5 years ago

city repair

Permaculture for Regional Planning?

A really good question in my opinion. We have thiese two organization that are indeed quite intertwinedin Northern California. I suppose I am not easily satisfied and feel we should have such better results than we have had. However it is impossible to attribute such shortcomings upon the organizers or the participants and general permies, or again my faulty expectations

http://permacultureconvergence.com/northern-california-permaculture-convergence/

https://thexpollinators.com/

5 years ago

permaculture

Free Website or Blogging Site

Also curious if anyone knows a resource where to find paid assistance with some of these specific different types of sites? When I Google this you just get Weebly sponsored stuff I am looking for independent sources of help. Also I am not sure how to go about being able to check the credentials of such individuals.I understand you can get a reference to see sites they have developed, but it is still difficult to know how much that actually cost and what was given to the website developer given to begin with. I understand I am asking questions that are relatively unsolvable, but just needed to state the obvious I suppose It is unreasonable to ask for phone numbers for references?

There is also the issue of censorship or whatever you choose to call it. I know a person that seemingly had their site taken off Wordpress without notice or explanation, the topic was 9/11. And while permaculture does not seem to be yet under threat from this censorship, those who may be headed in the direction of kind of a more general outline of topics to serve your local community, you might want to take this issue into consideration I know the person who lost their site had a free Wordpress site and felt it could have been avoided with a paid site

I suppose I will add that if communities had effective on line services and goods for hire and trade on some on line platform it would make this problem much easier

5 years ago

communication

Free Website or Blogging Site

Is Weebly considered just too simplistic? For those of us basically no website building skills it seems like a good option

5 years ago

communication

Vermiculture outside in winter?

Bryant RedHawk Is there a type of foam board you recommend for insulation?

6 years ago

composting

Growing fruit trees as a community project

I want to be careful with my comments since I feel somewhat responsible for raising a topic that can be controversial. So I hope those who feel I might be pushing things to give me their feedback on going about things the wrong way. It seems like several us believe communities, or the actors within communities, could go a lot further in terms of their local fruit tree, or other food, production Yet there seems to be a difference of opinion on how we go about getting there I have no problem with the idea of using existing institutional and familial relations in order to bring about such change However I would suggest that there is likely a limit to how much change one can make in any given situation only using the type of relationships one has used in the building of the existing paradigm I see nothing naive or impractical in the idea that complete strangers, in a given community, in common purpose, introduced by a notwork of communication platforms, can arrive at significant change within said community

6 years ago

fruit trees

Neighborhood-run produce market?

It is an idea that is so important and I cannot imagine anything less centralized, but I fear the author may not return in regard to the insurance issues Also with the farmers market is it peoples impression that said markets allow for an aggregation of growers at a single booth?

6 years ago

market garden