David Bollier

There is a little-known struggle going on right now over how a new series of “top level domains” on the Internet shall be used by cities of the world.  Top level domains, or TLDs, are the suffixes at the end of Web addresses, such as .com, .org and .net.  The international body that oversees TLDs is expected to announce a new series of TLDs in 2012 that would give cities their own TLDs.  So, for example, New York City would have a .nyc top level domain and Paris would have .paris.  The new TLDs could make it easier for people in the same metropolitan areas to find each other and interconnect on the Internet and in physical spaces.  

While the TLDs may be “just code” – a set of Internet protocols authorized by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for the Assigning of Names and Numbers – they will function much as parks, roadways and public squares in cities, that is, as spaces for getting around, meeting people, communicating things, and enjoying oneself.  The significant question is, Who shall have the authority to manage the city-based TLDs, and under what terms?  Very few people understand that the anticipated city-TLDs represent a world-changing urban infrastructure that could well be squandered through short-sighted privatization.

Photo of Queens street by Tony the Misfit, CC Attribution license, via Flickr.

At this point, we don’t know exactly when ICANN will authorize the use of city-TLDs.  But we do know that city governments are showing little inclination to treat the TLDs as a critical piece of common infrastructure that should be managed for the greatest public good.  It seems likely, at this point, that city governments will blindly delegate this authority to domain-registry companies, who will proceed to make a fortune selling prime domain names such as www.restaurants.nyc and www.queens.nyc.

I often despair of the sad state of political/cultural commentary, even (or especially) among the established journals of progressive thought.  The substance and sensibilities seem so stale and predictable, so focused on Washington, so resistant to really new ideas.  Consider The Nation magazine’s clueless, near-reactionary reviews of books about copyright and Internet culture, and the general neglect among U.S. political mags in focusing on the Transition Town movement, Solidarity Economy and other emergent strands of the worldwide commons movement.

What a breath of fresh air, then, to encounter a new British magazine Stir [as in "Stir to Action"], just released into the world by its editor Jonathan Gordon-Farleigh.  I immediately confess a bias because Stir features an essay by me, but I contributed the piece in ignorance of what the first issue would look like.  Now I am eager for the next issue to appear!  The magazine is a highly thoughtful, provocative look at the creative energies of local community action. It doesn't pander to prejudices; it challenges them in a constructive way.

“The reason for this existence of this magazine,” writes Gordon-Farleigh in his opening preface, “is the self-evident need to move beyond the idea of critique as a catalogue of crises and problems by producing and referring to various social groups and communities’ strategies that will inspire and en-courage us to surmount the particular challenges we face…. Critique has been more than adequate in describing and naming the problems we face, but has been insufficient in devising feasible and viable ways of living and exchanging that are not subordinated to wealth creation.” 

Stir makes good on its founding premise  by featuring a rich variety of fascinating essays and profiles about local action.  I was especially taken by “The Practice of Unknowing”  by Marianne Maeckelberg, a Dutch anthropologist, who clarified for me something that I had intuited but had trouble articulating:  that the very forms of knowledge about the commons are radically different from those of 20th Century politics. 

How to save local, independent bricks and mortar businesses in the face of big-box and Internet retailing?  Former retailer and now consultant Cinda Baxter had a great idea in March 2009 that led her to start The 350 Project, a marketing initiative to promote consumer patronage of local businesses and give visibility to the idea of "buying local."  The basic idea is that you should pick three local businesses that you would hate to see disappear, and then spend $50 a month at those and other independent local businesses.  The aggregate benefits for local businesses could be impressive.

As the project’s website points out, if half of the employed population in the U.S. did that, it would generate $42.6 billion in revenue.  That could be quite a boost to local bricks-and-mortar businesses at a time when Internet retailers and big-box stores are grabbing so much market share.  And the local community would benefit as well:  For every $100 spent on retail purchases, a national retail chain leaves behind only $43 (in payroll, taxes, etc.) while an independent local retailer returns $68 to the community.