Home

Like everyone, I wonder how the current economy will affect the Yampa Valley as a community. Fortunately, I have colleagues who recently have explored the impact of a range of economic shocks on the quality of life and social networks in nearly 100 small towns.

Their work looks at the structure of social interactions and relationships, i.e. to people's networks in the community. Scholars speak of two kinds of networks: bonding (within-group) networks, and bridging (between-group) networks, as the crucial structures of community. Bonding networks develop when people have bonds with people with whom they share a lot, such as people in their neighborhoods, their churches, their families and their interest groups. Bridging networks develop when people form relationships that link a variety of diverse people from different neighborhoods, religious groups and interest groups into more loosely connected interactional patterns.

Research scholars have shown that communities with strong bonding and bridging networks are more resilient - they marshal their resources to solve problems and launch strategies to better their communities. So, what happens when sudden, negative economic shocks disrupt and destabilize communities the size of Steamboat Springs, Oak Creek, Yampa or Hayden? How will the Yampa Valley respond to the shock of unplanned, lost sales tax revenue of a 4 percent decrease or greater, of slackening building permits and housing starts, of more people laid off or let go, of vacant store fronts, or of friends and family moving away?

My colleagues at Iowa State have found the shock of losing employment or the rapidly declining quality and quantity of government services weakened within-group networks and between-group networks. During a longer period, between 1994 and 2004, they found the impact of the net sum of negative shocks weakened within-group networks most.

What does this mean for us? I suggest now is the time for our community to strengthen our ties with one another, in our close relationships with friends and neighbors and our between-group relationships. It's not too hard. Look at the people you "hang with." How different or similar are they? Do you have casual friends from work you never see socially? Can you think back to some misunderstanding you'd like to correct or to some person you'd like to know because you once saw them do something admirable? Break bread together - ask them to bring friends from their group over for a potluck dinner and you invite a friend or two from your group.

Occasionally, I remember to take my own medicine. I intentionally try to meet people whom I didn't already know or better know people I knew only casually. When we talk, I try to find something in common, such as a hobby or a book we liked. All people have their own personal networks. By extending our own networks to include acquaintances with other interests or in other neighborhoods, we build connections that lace the community together. During tough times, we tend to hunker down and withdraw. We need to resist that tendency, so maintain your current relationships, too.

The more we cherish and strengthen the network relationships of our Yampa Valley community within our groups and between our groups and others, the more our community will sustain itself. If we pay attention inclusively and openly to all of our relationships, we preserve our community character. Herein lies the promise of localism and the work of groups that bring locals and their networks together, groups such as the Steamboat Winter Sports Club, Rotary Club, The Community Alliance, Steamboat Dance Theatre, Deep Roots Local Food Trust, and the Community Ag Alliance. In "The Ecologist," Edward Goldsmith claimed that: "The problems facing the world today can only be solved by restoring the functioning of those natural systems which once satisfied our needs, i.e. by fully exploiting incomparable resources which are individual people, families, communities and ecosystems, which together make up the biosphere or real world."

The within-group and between-group networks of Yampa Valley are natural systems - ones we must protect and nurture to sustain our valley's community, ecosystem and the region's bioregion. In a world of events that seem beyond our control, this is something we can control.

Steve Aigner is the organizer for the Community Alliance of the Yampa Valley.