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Introduction

Communities across the globe face myriad and interacting socio-economic and environmental challenges. The drivers vary widely in scope and duration and range from macroeconomic forces governing capital markets, to geopolitical forces affecting international relations, to extremely localized forces impacting access to community resources such as wells. Responses to such challenges demand action at all levels, and widespread energy has been invested to develop appropriate national and international institutions that target the multiple pillars of sustainable development such as through the United Nation’s Development Programme and UN-HABITAT.

Capacity to address such challenges differs markedly among smaller-scale communities, especially when it comes to preparing for slow-onset hazards such as sea level rise, increasing temperatures, and weather volatility as a result of global environmental change. Recent scholarly and practitioner attention has shifted to the local scale for promoting adaptation to these challenges, with substantial interest in “community-based adaptation” efforts that simultaneously improve the environmental resilience and livelihoods of local communities (Archer et al. 2014; Dodman and Mitlin 2013; Soltesova et al. 2014).

Further research is desired that explores opportunities to effectively increase the “adaptive capacity” of local communities in addressing these challenges, described as “the ability of a system to adjust to climate change; it is thought to be determined by a range of factors including technological options, economic resources, human and social capital, and governance” (McEvoy et al. 2006, p. 186).

In this chapter, we aim to contribute to this ongoing research effort by describing and evaluating the citizen-led, community-scale response provided by the Transition Movement, originally established by Rob Hopkins (2008, 2011a) in Totnes, England, and now present in 1200 communities in 43 countries. As a framework for the analysis, we use phronetic inquiry to answer four value-rational questions posed by Flyvbjerg (2001) for social-scientific research, including: Where are we going? Is this desirable? What should be done? Who gains and who loses? After reviewing the foundations of phronetic inquiry, the chapter moves on to answering Flyvbjerg’s four questions in the context of the Transition Movement’s practice in the United States. The analysis points to the strengths and potentialities of the Transition Movement for mobilizing a community-scale response to global hazards, but it also highlights possible shortcomings, especially for who gains and loses in the economically localized future envisioned by the movement’s participants.

Phronetic Inquiry

This essay utilizes the methodological foundation of phronetic inquiry articulated and refined by the urban planner and philosopher of science Bent Flyvbjerg (2001). Flyvbjerg argues that social science researchers should refrain from efforts to emulate the physical sciences, both methodologically and epistemologically. Whereas the physical sciences create instrumentally rational knowledge, or techne, the development and accumulation of knowledge of the social world and the ability of that knowledge to predict social outcomes is limited in subjective disciplines such as sociology, public policy, urban planning, and disaster studies.

Flyvbjerg suggests that social science researchers should reorient their methodological compass away from techne and toward Aristotle’s (1973) value-rational concept of phronesis, roughly translated as practical wisdom or prudence.

The shift to a phronetic understanding of the social world gives actors a normative decision-making framework that goes deeper than the instrumental rationality of techne. Because phronesis takes practical wisdom and value rationality as the points of departure, it can inform individual and collective action toward improved technological, environmental, and social ends. Those ends cannot be known with full certainty, nor will they be agreed upon with the full consensus of all social actors. Yet phronetic inquiry, when conducted with sensitivity and self-reflexivity, can illuminate what ought to be and can equally provide guidance on practical actions that can be taken to achieve desired ends. Relatedly, the validity of a phronetic inquiry is evaluated against the transformation of real world conditions and the charting of alternative courses. Research results must be meaningful to social actors so they can be internalized and implemented to improve conditions (Majchrzak and Markus 2013). Praxis, as opposed to theory, is the yardstick by which phronetic inquiry is measured. It is inherently pedagogical because it links research results and informed practical action (Frank 2012).

The process by which one conducts phronetic inquiry varies greatly depending on the subject (see especially Flyvbjerg et al. 2012) but in its most basic form, self- reflexive and self-critical researchers must ask and answer four value-rational questions: Where are we going? Is this desirable? What should be done? Who gains and who loses?Footnote 1 In answering these questions, phronetic researchers spotlight the current social development trajectory and anticipate eventual outcomes if the status quo is maintained. Researchers then pass a judgment on the overall desirability of those outcomes, investigate and analyze practical strategies for improving future conditions, and highlight the likely benefits and costs of pursuing those strategies, up to and including the distribution of benefits and costs across a community of social actors. Fundamentally, the four value-rational questions involve similar political judgments and insights required to conduct public policy analyses (Morçöl 2002). The output of the inquiry is also similar to policy analysis, namely a compelling and persuasive case for change coupled with a set of recommended, practical, and implementable steps (Bardach and Patashnik 2015; Majchrzak and Markus 2013).

Answering Flyvbjerg’s Questions

Flyvbjerg’s series of four questions lends itself to utilization as a novel method for evaluating local community responses to larger, systemic forces and challenges. The Transition Movement is particularly well suited as a subject of phronetic inquiry for several reasons. First, as will be described shortly, the Transition Movement is a network of disaggregated community initiatives that intentionally and prefiguratively adapt to global hazards. Second, these groups prioritize practical action above discourse. Third, the groups have been criticized by observers as being populated with predominately White, highly educated, upper-middle class members (Alloun and Alexander 2014; Chatterton and Cutler 2008; Seyfang 2009). These critiques directly raise the justice-related question of “Transition for whom?” The Transition Movement, its practice, and existing critiques over the distribution of costs and benefits square neatly with Flyvbjerg’s four- question framework of phronetic analysis. We now turn to those questions.

Where Are We Going?

Four converging environmental, economic, and political challenges facing the United States give a strong indication of our present development trajectory. First, anthropogenic climate change impacts are already being felt and pose extreme long-term risks that threaten the destabilization of critical human and natural systems (IPCC 2014; Melillo et al. 2014). Moreover, these impacts vary according to geographic location, socio-economic status, and race, thus raising questions of social equity (Hoerner and Robinson 2008; Lynn et al. 2011). Second, the financial crisis that unfolded in 2007–2008 and the subsequent Great Recession demonstrated the complex and perhaps unknowable interplays in global markets and the vulnerability of economic models and technologies such as financial derivatives and collateralized debt obligations to widespread, systemic failure (Colander et al. 2009). Third, while the American macroeconomy has rebounded since the financial crisis, 91% of income growth in the United States from 2009 to 2012 accrued to the top 1% of earners and current wealth inequality is at a level not seen since the 1930s (Saez 2015; Saez and Zucman 2014).

When race is considered, wealth inequality is widening between White, African American, and Hispanic families in the post-Great Recession “recovery,” with the latter two groups’ net worth decreasing since a mid-2000s peak (Kochhar and Fry 2014; Pfeffer et al. 2013). Fourth, supra-local political and regulatory institutions are largely captured by this concentrated wealth and power, much of which resides with financial and fossil fuel interests that would be harmed by comprehensive reform efforts (Baker 2010; Klein 2014; Stockman 2013). Recent investigations reveal that the judicial system is becoming overwhelmed and influenced by moneyed, special interests (Gass 2014; Lipton 2014). In 2010, the fourth challenge was further embedded in America’s governance landscape after the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision for the plaintiff, which solidified the fusion of the pecuniary and political spheres into an unencumbered, undemocratic, crony capitalist system of campaign finance (Lessig 2011).

Meaningful societal interventions are needed to address these challenges. One option is to position the United States as a proactive leader in domestic and international climate change mitigation, as a nation whose economy is not colonized by the accelerating globalization process made possible by a periodically dysfunctional techno-financialization model, and as a country where equality of socio-economic opportunity is transformed from hollow rhetoric into reality for millions of marginalized individuals. Practically, however, because of the fourth challenge, comprehensive policy responses that might otherwise catalyze transformative change are stymied by a political economy of wealth and power that strategically constructs and diffuses doubt among citizens on the necessity and efficacy of government intervention (Dunlap and McCright 2015; Oreskes and Conway 2010; Rayner 2012). Indeed, we saw immediate political resistance to President Obama’s support for international climate action at the United Nations’ Conference of Parties meeting in Paris in late 2015, and now refreshed hostility owing to the election of Donald Trump. In this polarized environment, policy non-decisions are frequent and progress toward resolution of the challenges struggles to gain traction. In those instances where policy interventions do materialize, the outcomes consistently favor elite interests over those of most American citizens, further entrenching socio-economic inequality and exacerbating the most pressing global challenges (Gilens and Page 2014).

Is This Desirable?

Taken as a whole, the United States is facing converging and intensifying challenges – climate change, macroeconomic failure, and extreme socio-economic inequality – and existing public and private sector institutions are unlikely to address these “wicked” problems in an effective, comprehensive way (Rittel and Webber 1973). This is not a cheerful diagnosis. It points to an impending hybrid crisis scenario, one that could materialize slowly over the course of many years (as with the slow, creeping onset of climate change and socio-economic inequality), or one that could arise suddenly with little or no advanced warning (as with a techno-financial crisis and subsequent economic collapse). In either case, if the status quo outlined here continues to fester, both human and natural systems will experience significant hardships. Clearly, this is not a desirable development trajectory and some form of proactive response will be required to chart an alternative course.

What Should Be Done?

Answers to the question of what should be done depend upon the scales at which change occurs. Comprehensive policy change at the national or state level could materialize if the American public rallies around a political message and resoundingly rejects the status quo at the voting booth. Indeed, the electorate may be in the midst of such an ideological shift, although the final direction of the shift is far from certain. For example, the emergence and growing influence of the anti-establishment Tea Party across various scales of governance and the electoral success of Donald Trump is an indication that members of the ultra-conservative and/or populist flanks of American’s political spectrum are rebelling against longstanding Republican conventions inside Washington DC and state capitol buildings.

Populist resentment of the status quo is also rising on the left flank, with rhetoric reminiscent of Occupy Wall Street reverberating through the Democratic electorate.

What this indicates, unfortunately, is that the American electorates’ values are diverging further apart, and an ideologically polarized environment is not a solid foundation for meaningful political negotiation and compromise over important issues. From this brief analysis we may conclude that effective national and state-scaled policy interventions to address the four challenges highlighted above will likely be slow to materialize and implement. Even though anti- establishment leaders swept to power in 2016 through a populist wave, their policy prescriptions for rescuing our faltering socio-economic and climactic systems would encounter strong opposition from the opposing ideological flank.

Given that virtually all top-down policy solutions to the urgent and converging challenges will face extremely stiff political headwinds, it is worthwhile to investigate autonomous, bottom- up, and localized strategies for change that operate separately from formalized governance structures. Debate will forever continue on the most appropriate scale of problem-solving as well as the efficacy and ability of local, independent social action to aggregate and ameliorate global challenges such as climate change (Dryzek 2013). It is not our intention to engage in that debate here, but rather to identify opportunities for grassroots community mobilizations that are able to function parallel to institutional and administrative systems, thus promoting the adaptive capacity of local communities.

Toward that end, we will examine one such mobilization that has a well-defined identity and is growing in popularity in the United States: the Transition Movement (or simply Transition). The Transition Movement was selected above other grassroots actions, such as communes and other forms of counter-cultural resistance, because it recognizes similar converging challenges and presents a coherent and comprehensive strategy for local community mobilization and action. The Transition model is therefore designed from the outset to proactively engage communities in a collective response to the current development trajectory.

History and Current Status of the Transition Movement

The Transition Movement is a bottom-up, citizen-led social movement that offers a consistent definition of the challenges facing all communities and a belief that substantive economic, political, and technological change is not only necessary, it is quickly becoming inevitable (North 2011; Seyfang and Haxeltine 2012). For Transition Movement members, there is an overwhelming consensus about where community development should be heading. Equipped with this conviction, the movement’s activists are able to anticipate and engage in the prefigurative practice of creating their desired future. As a grassroots community-based social movement, the Transition Movement encourages all communities to seriously consider the major global challenges and implement local, contextually appropriate development strategies in response.

More specifically, the Transition model’s community development strategy is designed to confront the implications of three exogenous problems: peak oil, climate change, and macroeconomic dysfunction. The movement originated in Totnes, England through the sustained effort of a small group of residents. Rob Hopkins is the model’s leading architect and most visible figurehead, and he was an influential member of that core group. Hopkins, a permaculturalist, designed Transition to reflect permaculture principles and in 2008, he published the movement’s guiding document, The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (Hopkins 2008). The Transition Handbook discusses the community-level implications of peak oil and climate change and it offers a set of local development guidelines for communities to follow to adapt to peak oil and climate change impacts.Footnote 2 The book recounts events in Totnes where, in 2005, the core group of activists began to raise awareness among the town’s residents about the threats peak oil and climate change pose to the community and what, if anything, the residents could do to proactively mitigate those threats and adapt to the consequences. After 8 months of awareness raising, which included film screenings and talks on peak oil and climate change, the group decided there was sufficient community and local government motivation to act and in September 2006 the participants anointed Totnes with the title of “Transition Town Totnes” (Hopkins 2008). Afterward, community members active in Transition Town Totnes began to reshape a number of different aspects of social and economic life in the town. Residents planted almond and walnut trees on public land to enhance food security and established a local currency, the Totnes Pound, in an effort to recirculate economic activity and value within the community.

At the September 2006 launch of Transition Town Totnes, a public meeting was held in the Totnes Civic Hall to celebrate the event. In attendance were residents from the nearby municipalities of Falmouth, Penzance, and Lewes who returned home with an eye to adopt the Transition model in their communities. Soon afterward, Transition Town Totnes leadership began receiving enquiries from other communities. A decision was made to create Transition Network, a central resource and support hub for communities looking to start a local Transition group, or what is called an “initiative” (Hopkins 2011a). The Tudor Trust offered startup financial support to Transition Network and funds were used to rent a small office, hire an office manager, create a website, and write an information and start-up guide for communities (Transition Network 2013). Transition Network organizers planned training sessions to help communities successfully navigate the early stages of initiative formation and soon after, new initiatives formed in other towns and cities throughout southern England (Hopkins 2008, chapter “The Emergency Manager as Risk Manager”).Footnote 3

After publishing The Transition Handbook, awareness of and interest in the model began to spread beyond England. Transition initiatives formed in Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United States, and Wales (Transition Network 2013). Over time, national coordinating hubs and training courses were developed in these countries to support communities interested in the Transition Movement model. What began with Transition Town Totnes in 2005 morphed into the wider Transition Movement in a relatively short time. As of November 2014, nearly 1200 communities in 43 countries have adopted the Transition Movement’s development strategy (Transition Network 2014).

While the Transition Network and the national hubs offer support to communities, they refrain from managing individual initiatives (Hopkins and Lipman 2009). A core tenet informing governance of the wider movement is that each initiative is unique and contextually grounded so there is a strong emphasis on affording each community the space and freedom to determine its development pathway (Seyfang and Haxeltine 2012). Nevertheless, all Transition initiatives are encouraged to adopt several best practices such as developing plans to reduce energy consumption and creating working groups that focus on local food security, local economic revitalization, energy conservation, and mental healthcare. The movement takes pains to be open and inclusive so that any community member who wishes to become involved feels welcome to join an initiative or start one if no initiative is present in their community.

In the United States, initiatives typically form in smaller towns or medium sized cities, although some initiatives, such as Boulder, act as regional coordinating hubs for surrounding Transition groups. At the time of writing there are 160 recognized initiatives in the United States, all located in the contiguous 48 states (Transition US 2015). The initiatives are located in communities ranging in size from just 152 in Julian, Pennsylvania, to more than 3.8 million in Los Angeles. In total, the American Transition initiatives are located in communities including 23 million residents, as of 2010 (Sarzynski and Barnes 2015). The majority of initiatives are located within the Northeast and Western regions, although the movement has diffused throughout the country (Fig. 1).

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Transition Initiatives in the US (dot size varies with the size of the community)

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From Theory to Practice

The Transition Movement’s three major concerns – peak oil, climate change, and macroeconomic instability – are all exogenous forces that local communities have little capacity and power to control. The movement and its members are skeptical that governments will formulate effective policy solutions in a timely matter. A popular expression among Transition activists is that “if we wait for governments, it will be too little, too late.” The implication is that peak oil, climate change, and macroeconomic dysfunction are inevitable and non-negotiable, but what communities can do is proactively prepare themselves for the impacts of scarce and expensive fossil fuels, a climate system that is a significant socio-ecological stressor, and an economic system that exhibits volatile and uncertain behavior.

Distinct elements of a neo-Malthusian “limits to growth” worldview motivate the Transition Movement’s community development model (Daly 1996; Dietz and O’Neill 2013; Meadows 1972). At the systemic level, peak oil, climate change, and macroeconomic instability imply that the petro-powered, globalized, growth-dependent socio-economic system cannot be sustained. Peak oil and climate change represent, in the starkest terms, limitations to business as usual and the movement anticipates an eventual reversal of fossil fueled globalization and contemporary community development processes, which most American communities currently depend on to satisfy their basic material and economic needs. Macro-level processes that can no longer be taken for granted include, but are not limited to, the production and supply of raw materials, supply chains that move those materials around the planet, just-in-time manufacturing, the international bulk transportation of consumer goods, and the exportation and sequestration of waste products following consumption (Curtis 2009; Heinberg 2004). At the community level, other practices are called into question such as long auto-centric commutes, sprawling development patterns, and materialistic high consumption lifestyles (Hamilton and Denniss 2005; Wheeler 2013). Post-industrial education and the intellectual constitution of America’s workforce, which has undergone a massive shift from craft- and technical-based vocational training toward a service-based “knowledge economy,” is also threatened as many individuals lack practical skills to meet their or their neighbor’s basic material needs (Levesque et al. 2008; Tuma and Burns 1996).

From the Transition Movement’s point of view, community life cannot continue and must adapt to a future low-energy reality. The local community is viewed as the most appropriate scale of action for several reasons, one of which is that catalyzing change in the community is seen as more feasible than state or federal levels (Aiken 2012). It is a scale at which people are deeply invested in their everyday lives, and consequently a scale at which social giving and mutual aid frequently occur in times of great need (Solnit 2010). The local community tends to be smaller and more homogenous, promoting trust, reducing transaction costs of organizing, and making collective action more likely (Olson 1965). But there is also a geographic imperative to the local community given the expected decline of petro-powered globalization. The community scale will become, by necessity, the scale upon which people will increasingly depend to satisfy most of their material needs.

Socio-economic localization is a core objective of the Transition Movement’s community development efforts (Barnes 2015b). Localization helps their communities become as self- reliant as possible in many of their basic material needs such as energy, food, transportation, and housing (Bailey et al. 2010; North 2010). It also demands greater attention to local governance and decision-making systems. While localization is intended to shrink the spatial footprint of a community’s socio-economic activities, it should not be taken to the logical extreme of complete self-sufficiency. Hopkins (2008, p. 55) is clear that full enclosure – where “we put a fence up around our towns and cities and refuse to allow anything in or out.” – is an unattainable and undesirable situation.

Transition initiatives engage in various projects and activities to prefiguratively prepare for and adapt to a localized lifestyle. In a recent survey of US Transition initiatives, many expressed concern for their current and future ability to satisfy their most basic needs, for instance food needs (Barnes 2015a). Nearly all American initiatives are taking steps to enhance local food production, whether though the creation of community gardens (Amherst, MA; Anacortes, WA; State College, PA), raising backyard hens (Sarasota, FL; State College, PA; Venice, CA), starting farmers markets (Bellingham, WA; Media, PA), or developing seed sharing groups (Carnation, WA; Salt Lake City, UT; Richmond, CA; San Francisco, CA; Sebastopol, CA). Initiatives have taken steps to reduce energy consumption and localize renewable energy production. Holding home weatherization workshops (Media, PA; Sarasota, FL; Woodstock, NY), as well as project managing and marketing Solarize programs (bulk community purchases of home solar systems) are popular activities with initiatives (Staunton, VA; Greenfield, MA; Media, PA).

The Transition movement aims to localize economic transactions while simultaneously building interpersonal relationships between community members, and to that end a number of initiatives have created Time Banks (Albany, CA; Media, PA; Aromas, CA; Missoula, MT; Northfield, MN; Ridgway, CO; Anacortes, WA; Vashon, WA). With Time Banking all participating community members register, on a centralized website, the personalized services they are able offer to other members of the community. When a Time Banker is in need of a particular service available on the website, they make contact with the individual and request assistance, which usually requires face-to-face interaction and relationship building. Afterward, in exchange for performing 1 h of service, the individual providing the service is subsequently entitled to 1 h of service offered by another participant in the Time Bank. No money changes hands when an exchange occurs and all participants’ time and labor is valued equally: 1 h of cabinetry work is equivalent to 1 h of walking someone’s dog. As an essentially localized economic system, Time Banking is a free flowing inner-community service exchange, organized through a central accounting platform to keep track of hours banked and owed, and it facilitates inter-personal interactions and social capital formation between participants (Seyfang 2004).

While the Transition Movement stresses the importance of local economic self-reliance and service exchange, it recognizes a major internal barrier to achieve this outcome. Hopkins (2008, pp. 98–99 and 166) notes that, “it is no exaggeration to say that we in the West are the single most useless generation (in terms of practical skills) to which this planet has ever played host… [W]e no longer have many of the basic skills our grandparents took for granted.” Many communities currently lack the knowledge, skills, or capacity to create the localized, low-carbon, economically vibrant future that is envisioned. Therefore, a key process in each initiative is the “reskilling” of community members. Reskilling is both the teaching and learning of knowledge and skills used to produce and create goods and services, all without the added benefit of large fossil fuel energy inputs (Hopkins 2008, 2011a). In practice, any community member possessing practical, useful knowledge and skills required to produce a good or service – for example the knowledge and skills to produce food – freely shares their insights with other community members. On the recent survey of US initiatives, half of the respondents stated their initiative currently advances the reskilling process through multiple methods and settings, with another eight initiatives planning to do so (Barnes 2015a). Workshops focusing on one particular skill, demonstrations, one-on-one tutoring sessions, and reskilling fair and expo formats are all used by Transition initiatives. Popular skills that are shared between community members include gardening and food production, food preservation techniques such as fermenting and canning, beekeeping, animal husbandry, rainwater harvesting, vernacular architecture and building construction, bicycle maintenance and repair, sewing, mending, darning, wool spinning, soap making, mental and physical health care, and residential home energy auditing. Reskilling develops capacity for localized self-reliance, and like Time Banking it connects people with each other and builds mutually beneficial interpersonal relationships and social capital.

Despite scepticism of the effectiveness of political action, Transition initiatives in the United States are politically active and involved in local governance (Barnes 2016). Local regulations and ordinances limit some initiatives’ ability to localize their economies, such as restrictions on backyard hens, prohibitions against edible plants and trees in public spaces, and bans on small structures such as free library huts. Some initiatives are therefore lobbying local governments to modify or eliminate restrictions that limit economic localization (Mankato, MN; Culver City, CA; Charlottesville, VA). In other instances, Transition activists are gaining access to local decision-making bodies such as councils and commissions with the intent to develop a more permissive policy environment for their community (Santa Monica, CA; Longfellow, MN; Montpelier, VT; Fairfax, CA). Initiatives are active with local urban planning efforts and are participating in the public engagement stages of comprehensive redevelopment plans (Port Townsend, WA; Portland, OR; Anacortes, WA; Ashville, NC). Through design charrettes, visioning sessions, and planning task forces, initiatives have advocated planning consultants and commissions for improving non-motorized transportation infrastructure, increased use of and access to public space, land for community gardens, and incentives for renewable energy development. Such activities blend the resources and interests of Transition members with that of authoritative governmental institutions, generating examples of “civic capacity” where both the desire and capacity to act are joined in pursuit of common goals (de Souza Briggs 2008).

Who Gains and Who Loses?

Like the wider environmental movement, individual Transition groups have received criticism for being populated by a narrow socio-economic and racial demographic: highly educated, White, and upper-middle class (Alloun and Alexander 2014; Chatterton and Cutler 2008; Seyfang 2009). This charge, which has so far been based on anecdotal evidence rather than careful analyses, directly raises the justice-focused question of ‘Transition for whom?’ If Transition communities and a narrow demographic band are taking an advanced position for a low-energy, resilient future, the less well-off may continue to struggle with systemic marginalization, vulnerability to exogenous forces, and unhealthy environments. One must therefore take seriously the possibility that Transition initiatives could further entrench present inequities if the movement is indeed populated by a privileged, White, upper-middle class.

To verify anecdotal reports of Transition initiative demographic qualities, we analyzed census data of the cities and towns where the 160 US initiatives are located. The analysis is limited because it examines the characteristics of host communities rather than of participants in each initiative, yet it gives a reasonable picture of demographic features of Transitioning communities. Indeed, our review finds that the host communities are generally more White, less Hispanic, and with fewer foreign-born residents on average in 2010 than the United States as a whole (Sarzynski and Barnes 2015). The host communities also have generally smaller households on average, suggesting an older age distribution, and were better educated with both higher rates of high school graduation and of post-secondary education. Thus, we conclude that the Transition host communities are generally better educated and less racially and ethnically diverse than American communities on average.

Nevertheless, we do not find as much evidence of the upper-middle-class nature of the Movement, since the host communities on average look much like the rest of the United States in terms of poverty and household income (Sarzynski and Barnes 2015). Some communities do have extremely high household incomes, such as the Transition communities in Wayland outside Boston, Hastings-on-Hudson outside New York, and Palo Alto outside San Jose. Yet other communities have substantially lower than average income and higher than average poverty rates, including State College, Pennsylvania, and Romney, West Virginia. Indeed, our analysis finds that there may be five distinctive types of Transition communities within the United States according to their socio-demographic diversity and economic capacities. Only one cluster of 23 communities had relatively low racial and ethnic diversity and somewhat higher than average economic capacity, as was expected based on prior literature.

The economic diversity among American Transition communities suggests that the movement is capable of benefiting not just the residents of elite suburbs but also diverse and less-resourced communities throughout the country. We suspect that the benefits of the Transition movement may extend most favorably in communities where traditional resources are absent and community-based development strategies are most needed to promote adaptive capacity. Notably, those Transition initiatives with economic programs such as Time Banking, swapping, and collaborative consumption tended to be found in host communities with lower economic capacity than other host communities, suggesting that those activities might be used to compensate for a smaller resource base (Sarzynski and Barnes 2015). By contrast, the initiatives currently planning to implement local food activities are located in host communities with higher education and economic capacity, on average, than host communities not participating in such activities, raising again the question of “Transition for whom?” Several initiatives have narrowed their efforts to a select few activities such as local food and reskilling, abandoning efforts such as energy descent planning and psychological support groups intended to ease participants into a lower-energy lifestyle.

Discussion and Conclusion

Having answered Flyvbjerg’s four basic questions, we are now able to better evaluate the Transition Movement, its development practice, and offer recommendations to improve its performance. As a bottom-up community development model that operates parallel to macro-level processes and systems of governance, the Transition Movement is positioned to respond to three of the four converging environmental, economic, and political challenges facing the United States, namely climate change, global techno-financial failure, and electoral and regulatory capture. Initiatives are explicitly motivated by the threat of climate change (as well as peak oil and macro-economic instability) to localize their economies and satisfy many of their immediate needs. Participants are not waiting for state and federal-level elected representatives and public administrators to resolve these challenges, instead opting to proactively and prefiguratively create a more sustainable and climate adaptive community development framework. This enables Transition’s proactive, grassroots localization strategy to bypasses the political polarization and gridlock experienced at higher scales, and it places communities in a more resilient position against the threats posed by climate change, techno-financialization, and political capture.

However, our analysis of US initiatives’ demographics suggests that the challenge of development inequities remains exposed. Part of this is likely due to the fact that Hopkins’ (2008, 2011a, b, 2013) writings tend to avoid overt judgments of just development outcomes and instead focus on de-politicized expressions of environmental quality and community resilience. Yet we argue that equity should become a core tenet of the movement and the US Transition Movement should aim to broaden its membership to communities of color and ensure that the benefits of its development strategy are more evenly distributed. To improve its performance going forward and to ensure a fairer distribution of costs and benefits, we recommend that the Transition Movement and its followers revisit the model’s permaculture roots and embed the ethical precepts of “People Care” and “Fair Share” into its adaptive strategy by emphasizing just community development outcomes (Holmgren 2002).

Encouragingly, there is some indication that this process is underway. Recently, the United States Transition Movement has engaged in critical self-reflection and actively promoted community development outcomes to marginalized groups. For instance, Transition US (TUS), the national coordinating hub of US initiatives, publicized and sponsored a January 29, 2015 TeleSeminar entitled “Diversity and Social Justice; Transition for Whom and to What End?” that allowed participants to share concerns about demographic homogeneity and their efforts to combat the issue. TUS held another TeleSeminar on November 4, 2015 entitled “Just Transition” that explored similar issues. We strongly recommend that these conversations continue.

At the level of individual Transition initiatives, some groups are making efforts to ensure that the benefits of their community development projects assist those who are most in need. For instance, the Pasadena, CA initiative is working with the city’s government to update its urban forestry plan and prioritize the planting of fruit and nut trees in parts of the municipality that are underserved by fresh food retailers. In Media, PA, the initiative created a FreeStore, which is like a Salvation Army or Goodwill except there are no prices for items – everything is donated and taken freely. When the project was created, the members of the group consciously designed social justice into the FreeStore model so that it would benefit low-income residents of the community. Another example of Transition projects benefiting those in difficult circumstances is the Time Bank, which can be useful for unemployed individuals. Some Time Banks require a sign-up fee that may be waived if an individual is experiencing economic hardship. These projects and actions that invite participation from marginalized individuals are part of a practical approach to expanding the socio-economic and racial character of demographically homogeneous initiatives, and they should continue to be encouraged and supported by the movement.

Still, while these efforts are noteworthy, initiative diversity is slow to materialize. There are, however, further steps that can be taken to advance the Transition model beyond the current demographic representation. For instance, the international Transition Network might expand its supporting materials by drafting a “Transition Equity Guide” and training course on operating in and reaching out to diverse and low-income communities. Working groups might be promoted within each initiative that address equity and inclusiveness, and a sub-network of initiatives might be constituted to promote social learning within the network communities on best practices in this realm. Indeed, the network structure of the Transition Movement may be one of its greatest assets – expanding social learning opportunities and extending the resource base of individual initiatives, while also leveraging the bottom-up efforts of individual participants into a more impactful climate adaptation and community development strategy. Looking toward the future, and considering the challenges faced by communities, local grassroots campaigns working together through such a network will likely become increasingly important.

We conclude by offering suggestions for further inquiry for researchers looking to contribute to the rapidly growing literature on the Transition Movement. Now that the movement is over 10 years old, it would be worthwhile to reassess the Transition Movement’s impact and development efforts in light of the experience of over a thousand communities worldwide. Which local strategies are easiest to implement, are most effective, and most popular among participants? Which strategies have been harder to sell and may be worth reconsideration? How have initiatives built cross-sectoral support for their efforts, including collaboration with the private sector and government? How can Transition initiatives become community partners for emergency managers, urban planners, and economic development coalitions? Answers to these questions could help improve the performance and efficiency of Transition initiatives, the wider Movement, and would create more resilient, sustainable communities.