Gil Friend and David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

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We'd like to show people that some experimenting needs to be done . . . that growing food isn't just a chore, but can actually be exciting . . . that it can be a learning experience. We want to demonstrate that ordinary people—without scientific training or credentials—can experiment with something that's important to them . . . that building a store of knowledge isn't just something for experts to do.

PLOWBOY: Is the Institute for Local Self-Reliance an organization designed to put itself out of business? If the ILSR is successful and really catches on, will that very success spell the Institute's death because there will no longer be a need for such an organization?

MORRIS: No, although the Institute will probably change its name as time goes on. What we hope is that, during the next ten years, hundreds of Institutes for Local Self-Reliance will spring up to serve their own local areas . . . all giving technical assistance and serving as contact points with yet other institutes in other neighborhoods.

And there will always be a need for the research and development work we do. Eventually, organizations like ours should become part of the educational system . . . because what we're doing is what the educational system should be doing. There will always be a need for the assembly and distribution of this kind of information.

These publications and many more are available from the New Rules Project a program of the Institue for Local Self Reliance.

THE DAWNING OF SOLAR CELLS. Documents the maturity of solar cell technology and proposes volume orders financed by cities to reduce prices.

NEIGHBORHOOD POWER: THE NEW LOCALISM. Shows how a potentially self-sufficient community moves from the initial stages of community awareness and organization . . . to the creation of service networks, the development of neighborhood sustaining funds, and the development of neighborhood government. A guide for bringing economic and political power down to a workable human scale.

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