MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS

	Introduction
Risk & Investment	Wealth & Power	People & Communities
Sustainability & Relationships	Industrial Estates or Work Parks	Uniformity or Diversity

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6. INDUSTRIAL ESTATES or WORK PARKS

What, then, would be the equivalent of the industrial estate in such a community?

For a start, it would be unlikely that there would be specialised places where making things, or delivering services from, might take place. "Work" would be much more integrated into everyday life and, as indicated above, most people might undertake a range of activities during a week, or even a day. There would still be a need to make things, both to satisfy the needs of the community itself and to "export" to other communities so that things the community could not produce for itself might be purchased. The emphasis would be on small scale, however, and on cooperative enterprises that empower the individuals involved as well as making them more accountable to the communities they are part of.

"What" is produced, "why" and "how" become the vital questions. "What" will depend on the resources and skills that are available within the community and, in that sense, entrepreneurs will still be needed to turn potential opportunities into real ones. The ability to take a vision and see it through to a finished product - especially one that may involve many different people and processes - is a rare one, which is why it is so valued by the money economy.

In terms of the "why" the process of deciding which project to back, as we have seen, will be very different from the single minded attempt to quantify the degree of profit that will be generated. It will refer back to the quality of life in the community in the widest sense and that will require a careful balancing of the positives and negatives of the development. Given the importance placed on relationships, this aspect of any project will receive especial attention. How are decisions made? Are people involved in the processes? Are the tasks they will be doing valued ones - or are they merely servicing machinery?

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