I hope this doesn't violate blog etiquette, but I'm going to repeat a conversation an anonymous Canadian and I have been having over at East of Eden, on the post I mentioned in Casting the Net, Vol. 6. I'm hoping she'll continue the discussion here, because (1) the blog owner is taking a break for Lent and I don't want to overwhelm her post while she is gone, and (2) I think several of my readers would enjoy the conversation and have something to contribute to it. If the best part of overseas travel is being with family and friends, the second best is the opportunity to meet other points of view. I'd welcome a Canadian viewpoint around here.
The original post is here, and I've excerpted below our conversation so far.
CA:
As a Canadian who's been online for 11 years (talking to Americans, watching America, visiting America) I'd like to make a few comments about what I see as the causes and effects of the current economic situation.
1. A major cause of the economic troubles now is a corporate culture that rewards short term thinking - bonuses based on quarterly returns for example - an action with a large short term benefit may not be in the company's best long term interests. Rev'ing an engine makes a really cool noise and makes you go fast for a while, but it burns out the engine. The economic engine is burnt out.
2. I realise that watching America through the Internet selects for a certain level of affluence, but "your" idea of comfort is very different than most of the rest of the world's - even a Canadian's! - idea of comfort! When a blogger posts, "We're struggling financially" then posts a picture of her house and neighbourhood, or talks about the great decorating find at the Pottery Barn or wherever, well, it's hard to be sympathetic. It's hard not to think that you don't actually understand what struggling is, and this inability to understand just how "rich" you are has led you into this mess.
3. The affluence gap. A "rich" Canadian may not be as "rich" as an American, but our "poor" aren't as poor either. I have traveled in the States, as has my dh on business and the evidence is very easy to spot from the window of a plane or the side of the highway. The gap between rich and poor in the US is extremely disturbing. Again, I think a great many Americans just don't understand and appreciate just how "rich" you are.
4. And may I say? This rev'ing of the economic engine to get more and have more, taking out mortgages for more than the house is worth in the expectation that you can sell it for more later, credit ratios of 30:1, and so on? Yes, this is what America did, and yes, you're taking the rest of the world down with you. I think that should be as much, if not more, of a moral concern as the workers in your company (I applaud your concern for them BTW) and your pondering the "deep dark hole that America has binged herself into"
Obviously, I'm going to post this as Anonymous, but I look forward to the comments on my comment.
LW:
It's a little odd, leaving a comment that the writer of the original article won't read for over a month, but since the Anonymous Canadian invited comments, I can't resist:
1. You are 100% right. It's not the only cause of the problems, but certainly a major factor. Rewarding short-term thinking is...well, short-term thinking. Rather than the engine analogy, though, I'd compare it to over-fishing the oyster beds, and hope we haven't taken the last oyster.
2. I agree that we are all, even the poorest American, much richer than we think. And we have, indeed, become accustomed to a ridiculous level of luxury. But in defense of the examples you mention, it is not impossible to have a large, beautiful house and struggle financially, even if you didn't overextend yourself in buying it. Very few people can buy any house and not be dependent on a job to provide income to pay the taxes, let alone a mortgage. You might say they could sell the house, but probably not without a tremendous loss, and maybe not even then in this market. And you can buy "great decorating" items at places like the Pottery Barn for less than a meal at McDonalds.
3. True again -- about problems with the large gap, I mean; I don't know enough about Canada, unfortunately, to compare. But I think there are too many causal factors to make a country-to-country comparison particularly meaningful.
4. Yes, there was a lot of stupidity and crime to go around, and I'm glad to see someone blaming the folks who knowingly bought more house than they could afford as well as the banks that financed them. But I don't buy the idea that "we" are bringing the whole world down. A former Canadian Prime Minister (sorry I don't remember which one, but I think the quote is reasonably close to what he said) once said that bordering the United States was like sleeping with an elephant: when the elephant rolls over, the whole bed shakes. With the world as interconnected as it is, Canada isn't the only country affected, and the U.S. economy -- whether up or down -- makes waves that are felt worldwide. But we have no monopoly on greed and stupidity -- even the careful Swiss were taken in by Bernie Madoff, and the desire to improve one's lot is a universal trait.
What strikes me most about the whole situation -- and here I'll show my age -- is that once upon a time we knew the value of frugality, thrift, savings, and living within our means. Many people still do, but clearly not enough. How did we fail to pass this on? I think it all goes back to point #1 -- the rewards for short-term thinking, not just corporately, but all over.
CA:
Yes, perhaps a little odd, but the first blog that I've come across that had a topic that seemed appropriate for the comments that I've wanted to make somewhere for a very long time. And blog-visitors can always have a conversation while blog-host is away.
PM Pierre Trudeau said that sharing a continent with the US is like living with an elephant, when the US sneezes, we get a cold. Perhaps I am generalizing, or single-cause blaming just a bit too much, but I think the US's prominence in the world (deserved or not) confers more responsibility than privilege, and a large part of the responsibility for this mess is US spending habits: governmental, corporate and personal.
It's hard to 'see' an acceptance of that global responsibility in stimulus bills requiring US-only purchasing (for example).
As for your example of a purchase from Pottery Barn costing less than a meal at MacDonald's - what is the cost of a meal at MacDonald's? What are you doing eating there anyway? when a sandwich from home takes as much time and costs so much less for more nutritional value?! (Just as an aside)
DH and I are self-employed,and have not yet financially recovered from the dot.com crash of 2001. There was some light at the end of that tunnel though, until this fall...it's all a little hard to take.
I'll show my age too - I was raised in the era when saving, frugality and living within our means meant something. When a budget meant 'not now', instead of 'we'll get it on credit.'
LW:
Sorry, Canadian Anonymous, I didn't mean to give the impression that we eat at McDonald's. I did eat a chicken sandwich there about a year ago when I had a coupon for a free one, and I was surprised that it was a pretty decent sandwich. But, as you point out, I can (and do) make better, cheaper, sandwiches at home. Why, I'm so old that our kids and my husband always took homemade lunches to school/work! I used McDonald's to make my point because, as far as I can tell, no one in the U.S. considers himself too poor to eat there. But my point may have been wrong, anyway, since I confused the Pottery Barn, which I do not know, with Old Time Pottery, which I think of as a place to buy cheap, though sometimes useful, junk.
Thanks for identifying, and correcting, the Trudeau quote. I was sure it had something to do with the elephant rolling over...but having already admitted my age I can admit a sometimes faulty memory. :)
You say this is "the first blog that I've come across that had a topic that seemed appropriate for the comments that I've wanted to make somewhere for a very long time." If it's not rude to hijack you, I'd love for you to come over to my blog and continue the conversation. My readership is not large (okay, it's very small), but includes differing nationalities as well as a range of ages, life situations, and political opinions. One thing they nearly all have in common, however, is that they value saving, frugality and living within their means, and agree that a budget means "not now" instead of "we'll get it on credit."
The floor is open. :)
Update: Please note that the comment section has spilled over onto a second page (hooray!), so to see the most recent comment you'll need to click the "Next" button.
Thank you, Cara, for dropping in. Please come back often. :) This is probably the wrong question to ask one who has never had the need to use the services of a midwife, but do you happen to know if Canada supports what are called here Direct Entry or Certified Professional Midwives? It's our CPMs who are being persecuted, the ones whose knowledge comes from direct, personal apprenticeships. Certified Nurse Midwives are more accepted (though their road hasn't been easy, either, and they are often required to be under the supervision of a doctor and thus present a more medicalized approach to childbirth than they might want to. I see the value of both kinds of midwives, and find that as we kill off (figuratively) the CPMs, we are losing knowledge of important skills. Doctors, who do not have this experience, will often insist on C-sections after previous C-sections, and for twins, breech births, and even posterior presentations. (As one who delivered a posterior baby, I find the insinuation that it can't be done vaguely insulting. :) ) Anyway, doctors don't do these deliveries because they haven't had the experience in how to do it right, whereas midwives have never lost that knowledge. Sorry; end of rant. For now.
Thank you for the information about the charge for those whose employers don't cover them. That gives me some hope that the system is sustainable, because of course none of this health care is "free"—someone is paying for it, even if the patient doesn't get a direct bill. I assume the $1000/year covers all health care, not just childbirth, and that there's some provision made for those who can't afford that much.
A 4-5 hour wait is not unusual here at emergency rooms, but my minimal experience with walk-in clinics has been much better than that.
Interesting that so many of your doctors are from South Africa. The dentist I keep talking about, by the way, is from Kenya, though she has since become a U.S. citizen.
You are so right that even with all the problems of our health care system we are so much better off than much of the world, and it pays to remember that "early and often." I do think it's legitimate, however, to work to make sure what we have doesn't decline.
I think about our "free" public education, which is of course not free at all but extremely costly. Although there are no up-front fees, the cost for educating a child in a U.S. public school is generally higher—often much higher—than that in private and home schools, and the evidence I see is that we are getting less, not more quality for that additional money. Our own family has experienced all three forms of education, by the way, and I can see pluses and minuses in each; what's most important is the right to choose what works best for a particular child at any given time.
What I don't want is for our health care system to become like our educational system—lower quality for higher cost—and without the freedom of choice. What I'm hearing is that Canada's health care system gives you choices within the system, which is admirable and encouraging—our public school system would be much better if we had that kind of choice. And yet it seems that another kind of choice is missing, as if one could choose any public school to go to, but there were no private schools and homeschooling were illegal. Or as if a grocery store offered hundreds of varieties of processed breakfast cereal, but no plain oatmeal.
Thanks again for commenting, Cara. I'm appreciating very much the chance to hear what individual Canadians think on this—and I hope other—issues.
childbirth:
I live in Ontario and am currently expecting my third child.
We don't pay a 'medical premium' here, and I think that Alberta is the only province that does that.
I have had one hospital birth with a midwife, and one home birth with midwives and, God willing, this child will be born at home as well with a midwife.
Midwifery care is completely covered in Ontario as are all tests and ultrasounds that she may order. I'm also seeing my new NFP-only family doctor to monitor hormonal levels for the safety of the child. He has ordered a specialized blood test every two weeks until August. I am on a medication to manage those hormonal levels and will continue it through the pregnancy. My family pays about $97 a month for our group medical benefits plan through my husband employer. This plan covers 100% of all of our prescriptions.
I haven't read very many of the posts on this blog but I suspect that the author and I have very similar thoughts about pregnancy and birthing. One of the reasons that I choose midwifery was that I was not inclined to trust the medical establishment with my future fertility. I'm sure that the motivation for this lack of trust is more from modern attitudes toward children that it is from the country in which I live.
However, most of my friends have chosen obstetric care for their pregnancies and births. And some of my friends (who all have the same doctor in fact) have an old fashioned family doctor who delivers their children. This doctor is actually an OB and pediatrician. Most of my friends have had normal pregnancies, but some have had multiple miscarriages and very complicated pregnancies and deliveries.
No one in my acquaintance has had financial concerns related to pregnancy and child-birth or neo-natal care.
As for waiting times etc:
The problem with a doctor shortage is that the provincial government overstepped their bounds in the regulation and delivery of medical services. About 10-15 years ago, they started capping the numbers of spots available in medical schools. They could do this because our universities are partially funded by the government. I think that in this area, the supply and demand of doctors, should be left up to more traditional market forces.
I think that undergrads and med students are quite capable of self-regulating to make sure that there are enough of each kind of doctor. I think also that leaving the supply and demand of doctors up the the market would eliminate some people having to put up with less than ideal doctors. They could just find a new one and gradually the 'bad' one would go out of business or find a new speciality.
They have recently started to increase the numbers of med students accepted to medical schools and they've sped up the re-certification process of foreign trained doctors.
Waiting times:
Perhaps I've lead a fairly healthy life, but I've never had to wait that long in an emergency room or doctors office. Obviously, for doctors I make appointments, and even for walk-in clinics on the weekends, I make sure that my problem is serious and that I'm not wasting peoples time.
And most of the time I have had extremely prompt service. Let me tell you, when you show up at a children's hospital after a homebirth and they ask how old your baby is and you answer in hours instead of days or weeks, they just jump all over you!
I do remember one occasion, on a holiday, when I took my daughter in to the children's hospital, we did have to wait a long time. But we were taken into an examining room quickly and most of the wait was for the results of tests. But, it was a trying experience with two young children.
But on the other hand, I took my elderly grandmother to the emergency room on a holiday at about 11pm, and we were home by 1am.
Sursum asked
" but do you happen to know if Canada supports what are called here Direct Entry or Certified Professional Midwives?"
In Ontario and Quebec midwives are direct entry. My best friend gave birth with a midwife in Alberta about 5 years ago and I'm pretty sure that she said that they were CNMs.
Sursum
"Doctors, who do not have this experience, will often insist on C-sections after previous C-sections, and for twins, breech births, and even posterior presentations. (As one who delivered a posterior baby, I find the insinuation that it can't be done vaguely insulting. :)"
Yeah, same here! Both my children have been born posterior and I did just fine. At home, with no drugs, no less!
Tina, I think you may be right about our respective attitudes towards childbirth. :)
You said, "One of the reasons that I choose midwifery was that I was not inclined to trust the medical establishment with my future fertility. I'm sure that the motivation for this lack of trust is more from modern attitudes toward children that it is from the country in which I live."
That is too true! One of the problems with VBACs here, as I understand it, is that doctors are not doing as thorough a job of repairing the uterus as they might (and once did). Apparently the theory is that the equipment only needs to last through one or two children, so why bother?
Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have asked the midwife question...and tempt my kids to move to Ontario! That's great news about the DEMs, though. It's not that I don't appreciate CNMs; I do, and have had some good experiences (indirectly) with them. Each specialty has its rightful place.
I was asked to offer a contribution from a Swiss perspective on health care. I'm not often sick and rarely pregnant, so I don't have a lot of data to go on. Instead, I've googled and found a few articles that might be interesting to those of you in the thick of this conversation.
- NPR has an article here that I find readable and pretty representative.
- Matthew Yglesias blogs about the Swiss system and shows a number of diverse comments to his entry.
- Cato @ Liberty has an article here that mentions some of the problems of the Swiss system, in particular the rising costs due to expanding mandatory coverage. I just got my health insurer's magazine the other day and the CEO was explaining how premiums haven't been raised much in 2008 and 2009 because the government reduced the minimum reserves required for the insurers, so they could compensate for rising costs by eating up reserves, but because the markets have done so poorly the reserves have dwindled and unless something is done there will be increases again in 2010. He also mentioned the problem of the insured occasioning unnecessary costs simply because there was no incentive for them not to - i.e. if you're past your deductible, why not pile on the doctor's appointments?
- The New York Times also ran an article a while ago here. It mentions the Dutch system as perhaps even better than the Swiss model.
I hope that the above gives everyone plenty food for thought.
A practical example from today: My family went to the Swiss Tropical Institute (because that's what you do when you're showing flu symptoms after a trip to Africa) at 3:30 and was done at 4:30.
A practical example from Monday: I wanted to schedule a doctor's appointment for me and my family this week. The earliest we could get was Thursday next week because our doctor had just returned from vacation and was booked up.
A practical example from a few weeks back: I had a local infection and was leaving on a 3-week business trip the next day. I was able to see a colleague of my house doctor's the morning of the flight and get medicine before boarding the flight.
One clarification point, in case we previously said it incorrectly: Jonathan is not forking over the $35/month or whatever the cost currently is for Benjamin's food, clothing and schooling (hmm, maybe moving to Uganda or Brazil would help one's personal economy...) but he pays a portion, as he gets money and decides where to spend it. Heather has a 8.5x11 "bank statement" so he can see how much money he has in the bank, and some suggested guidelines on how to spend it.
Canadian midwives: I've heard mixed reports - I think on average, the situation is better than the US, but there are still some restrictions, and similar circumstances to the US, where certain things (like VBACs being one example) are "legal", but not available due to providers not willing, or insurance coverage or whatever the system is.
Gloria Lemay is a midwife in Vancouver, and would have more negative things to say about the Canadian system (though not as negative as what she would say against the US, at least under the last presidency)
Stephan - I also strive to be "rarely" pregnant. So far it has worked well, and I am even back down to my pre-college weight after Faith's birth. I had been up twenty pounds or so during the pregnancy. :)
The US has socialized medicine. There are many conditions that hospitals are required by law to treat regardless of ability to pay. Basically anything serious / life threatening. If they dont treat you, you can sue. To cover these costs, they pass the costs onto people who can pay: insurance companies and suckers who are unwilling to use bankruptcy. One of the main reasons costs are so high is that you aren't just paying for your care. You're paying for a few very possibly irresponsible people also. Generally speaking, most every hospital has a few drunken bums who constantly get into fights or otherwise hurt themselves and end up costing the hospital over $100000. They pass that cost onto you.
Jon,
It seems to me that most of what Gloria Lemay has to say is about the US and UK, not Canada. I've read the last two months worth of posts, and I've seen very little commentary about the state of midwifery in Canada.
But she certainly does have some good points about hospital births, circumcision, induction, VBACs, breastfeeding, etc,. Most of these issues would be the same regardless of country.
Jon - I'm afraid my pre-college weight is a low standard (or should that be a high standard?). Thanks for that comment, it made me chuckle.
I've actually never read her blog. She and I are on a help-midwives-who-are-on-trial yahoo group, which is where I met her, and where I see her postings on issues she thinks will be of interest to people on the list. I assumed that she would be posting the same sort of things to her blog.
She is currently (last time I heard) unable to practice midwifery in Canada, though I think she is allowed to train other midwives, or hold some sort of classes. It's been a long time since I first read her story, so I don't actually remember what caused the original legal action against her.
...After a long pause. I find it interesting that what started out as a discussion of financial responsibility, and who's responsibility various finances and financial practices are, took such a quick 90 degree turn into health care delivery.
I'm pondering all this and was going to work on a reply this weekend, but instead babysat my grandchildren while my pregnant daughter had her appendix removed. (So far, baby seems fine.)
And again, since my son-in-law is self-employed, I am very thankful for our socialized medical system.
I think there are some parallels between the attitudes that govern a nation's choice of health care delivery model and the attitudes that are leading to the latest AIG kerfuffle. (If it were up to me, I'd claw-back that portion of the gov't package to them...)
I apologize for neglecting this part of the conversation; as you point out, life sometimes intervenes. Though thankfully I have not had to deal with pregnant appendicitis! I hope your daughter and baby are doing well now.
Yeah, it's funny the turns conversations can take, but health care issues are certainly high on the list of everyone's worries when it comes to economic problems, whether you're worried about how you're going to pay for your next visit to the emergency room, or how your grandchildren are going to pay for a socialized medicine system, so this turn is not all that surprising.
As to the AIG bonuses, I don't like them any more than you do, and would be happy to see them voluntarily returned or donated to charity, but still, lex rex trumps rex lex. Would you have a company default on legal and contractual obligations? I wouldn't, no matter how much I disagree with the particular obligation. Even scarier is for the government to post facto change the rules.
As to the larger question of who is responsible for this mess, the short answer is, "me." I naively believed (short-term thinking) that responsible behavior (thrift, living within our means, setting aside money during good times against the hard times, a la Joseph in Egypt) would protect me and my family from other people's irresponsibility. And it helps, of course. But I guess it's like secondhand smoke, or pornographic movies, or AIDS: even when there's a simple way of avoiding a problem, the consequences of other people's wrong choices are not so easily escaped. And recovering from those consequences is a lot harder than avoiding them in the first place.
But knowing that I played a part in this financial collapse doesn't mean I know what I could have done differently. We taught our children financial responsibility, as our parents taught us, but financial evangelists are no more well-received by the neighbors than religious ones. Who am I to tell you, unless you ask, that you shouldn't have bought the boat that makes your family dependent on two incomes?
By saying "I am the problem," I am not by any means letting banks and other corporations off the hook. But all greed and irresponsibility is, at heart, individual greed and irresponsibility.
Going forward, the best thing you can do to not be responsible for current and future US government/banker malfeasance is to drastically change your investment portfolio. You should consider investing your wealth in either gold or foreign assets/stocks. Moving your wealth to either of these asset classes protects you from irresponsible US monetary policy and corporate governance.
This conversation seems to have ground to a halt, and that's okay, things play out after a while. But in case I brought it to an end prematurely by my comment that my responsible choices do not save me from other people's irresponsibility, which might have come across disgustingly "holier than thou"...that was not my meaning. What I'm trying to convey is that we are not alone in our choices. Much as the libertarian streak in me would like to live my life and let others live theirs—and believe me, my own life is usually quite enough to keep me more than busy— it's also true that we only get the neighborhood, community, and country we are willing to work for.
Yes, the conversation has slowed down, but it's as much my "fault" as anyone's - I started it!
I had been pondering answering your question; "Who am I to tell you, unless you ask, that you shouldn't have bought the boat that makes your family dependent on two incomes?" with Cain's, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and further asking "if your responsible choices do not entirely protect you from the irresponsibility of others, what do you suggest is a reasonable solution?" How much and what kind of work are you willing to do to get the neighbourhood, community and country that wouldn't have these kinds of problems?
We could discuss those questions, but something happened this weekend that I found very interesting, and that you may find useful. The larger half and I attended a course on teaching the Theology of the Body to engaged couples. We invited the trainer (an American flown in to teach it) to our home for dinner. In the course of the conversation, trying to explain some of the differences between the US and Canada, I remembered something from my history studies and was able to draw a parallel.
The Canadian attitude towards US business (and by extension all Americans) is very similar, if not identical to the post-civil war attitude towards Yankee carpet-baggers.
There's a lot of history there. A lot of resentment too.
Much of what's going on in Iraq could be seen in the same light.
When is it time to rein in "capitalism" (as a port-manteau for much of what we've discussed) for the Christian values of charity, community, prudence, and so on that founded our countries? When is it time to stop being Cain and start being Peter, John, Matthew, Barnabas, James, and the others? And how do we do it?
Ouch. That hurts. As one who has lived in the south for a quarter century, I'm all too aware of how evil the carpetbaggers were. Growing up in the Northeast—and not paying a whole lot of attention in history class—I had the luxury of believing they had good intentions, even if some of the consequences of their actions were bad. Had Lincoln lived, our country would be quite different, I think; no one but he could have quelled the "punish the enemy" mentality that we are still paying for today. I hate to ask—but tell me more about what we have done to Canada to cause such feelings.
You raise good questions and I don't have any clear answers. I've been thinking about Cain, and see the situation a bit differently. Cain's question was a lie and a cover-up for his murder of Abel. I wonder if the more applicable question isn't, What should Abel have done? Did he know that his offering would be acceptable to God and Cain's wouldn't? If so, what was his responsibility to his brother? Should he have informed Cain? Admonished him? Should he have given Cain a lamb from his own flock to use as an offering? Would that have made a difference to God? What if Abel knew, or suspected, that it was not the actual offering that mattered to God, but the giver's attitude—how much should, or could, he have done to change his brother? Would giving Cain a lamb have helped or hurt in that case?
I offer no sure answers, but a couple of suggestions. One is that we need more transparency, more openness, more light. A large part of the problem that precipitated the financial crisis was that the instruments were so complicated and diversified that no one knew what he actually owned. This applies at every level. Those who know me know I am a great advocate of personal privacy, but I do think that legislation like sunshine laws and the Freedom of Information Act is generally a good idea. Governments, corporations, universities, churches, dysfunctional families, criminals, and the guy who wouldn't be caught dead in a seedy bookstore but visits Internet porn sites all behave better when observed. "Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."
Am I advocating Big Brother watching our every move? Absolutely not. Big Anything needs watching closely, but for people, smaller is better. If we know our neighbors—defined as those we meet on a regular basis as well as those whose homes are near ours—we are in a position both to teach and to learn from them, and to provide the kind of openness and light that encourages healthy growth.
Another suggestion would be the need for more clearly defined and personal responsibility. In the financial example, this crash never would have happened had banks and other financial entities been required to hold the mortgages they granted, instead of being allowed to sell them off. Never give a salesman more incentive to sell than to sell wisely.
On a more personal level, I would see this as encouraging Communities rather than Cities. (I've capitalized the words because I'm using them as concepts and can't think of better words at the moment. Certainly I believe there can be Communities in a city, although they may be more difficult to form.) In a Community people know who is hungry, and leave bags of food on the doorstep, or invite them to share their family meal; in a City, the hungry are faceless, maybe even invisible, and anyway it's the government's responsibility to feed them. In a Community people help the town drunk to find his way home, and keep an eye on the welfare of his family; in a City, intoxicated people are a matter for the police. In a Community, people feed each other's pets at vacation time, drive each other to the doctor, babysit each other's children, and share their talents from carpentry to computer repair; in a City, people depend on professionals, not neighbors.
I realize this is more idealistic than practical, especially in places where a hungry person is more likely to live near another hungry person than one who has food to spare. That's why Communities are not merely geographical, and that's where I think the Church can make a big difference. But I believe the Community approach to be far superior to the City approach, and one of the first questions I ask of a proposed course of action is, Which of these approaches does it encourage?
Speaking of Communities, just for fun, check out What a Neighborhood! I've never seen it in action, but from what I read, it's a stellar example of what one person (okay, two people) can do to create Community spirit.
