The Lichen Factor
The Quest for Community Development in Canada
Lotz, Jim
Publisher: UCCB Press
Year Published: 1998
Pages: 350pp Price: $22.95 pb ISBN: 0-9203336-61-2
Resource Type: Book
Cx Number: CX6915
Abstract:
The Lichen Factor is a history of Jim Lotz's years working in community development in Canada. He debunks the myth that everything that makes us feel warm and fuzzy and less isolated in this world constitutes "community development". He looks at how people have attempted to create better societies through co-operation and interdependence. He tries to identify the factors that make them work. He offers contrasts between the United States and Canada and asserts that individualism and materialism in the States hinders the growth of communities. Likewise hardened attitudes to past ways and old hatreds make the creation of new societies in Europe difficult. As Lotz says in his prologue "In demytholizing community, I have sought to replace it with the idea of mutual aid, of interdependence between humans that mirrors the symbiosis found in the lichen."
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