Adventures in Sustainable Living Podcast

Episode 270

Local First

Build Your Life Around Place, Not Convenience

I am always astounded when one single event in our world has a profound impact on the entire global economy. It is now possible for one small disruption in one country on the other side of the planet to affect our daily lives. How can this possibly happen?

You may not realize that this is the direct result of globalization. Many of our goods and services are dependent on a long supply chain that we cannot understand much less control. 

In my opinion this is extremely poor planning. Would it not be better to keep our resources local instead of global? Would we not have much better control over those resources? 

That is the subject for this week so join me for Local First, Build Your Life Around Place, Not Convenience. 

Welcome back everyone to the Adventures in Sustainable Living podcast. This is your host Patrick and this is E270 Local First, Build Your Life Around Place, Not Convenience. 

What I want to accomplish is this episode is to first talk briefly about how we grew into a global economy, the pros of that type of economy and to also outline how that is now starting to turn against us.  But then I want to follow that by giving you a plan on how you can prevent this from affecting your daily life. 

But before we get started with that, let’s first talk about the good news story of the week. 

Good News Story of the Week 

With increased frequency these days we hear about the negative impacts of being constantly connected. The few times that I do eat in a restaurant, I always see people who cannot seem to pay attention to those that are in front of them because they are constantly looking at their phone. 

This makes me happy to report that phone free social events have grown by 567% and this was led by generations that did not have then until adulthood. Members of Gen Z and Millennials are attending these events in record numbers. 

There is no doubt that we live in the world that is shaped by algorithms and constant visibility. But, people are now showing signs of wanting to back away from such influences. We now see things such as the Offline Club, which is exploding across Europe and even phone free event organizations in the US. 

Phone-free events grew 567% globally between 2024 and 2025, with attendance rising 121% and expanding from 5 to 12 countries. There are now events that span the full calendar year, signaling a shift from temporary reset to sustained behavior. The momentum is most pronounced in the US and UK.

The United Kingdom has emerged as the global leader for phone-free socializing, with events growing by 1,200% and attendance increasing by 1,441%. In the United States, the offline or analog movement is defined by expansive participation. While event volume grew by 388%, attendance jumped by 913%.

In just the first three months of 2026, phone-free experiences have reached over a third of last year’s global event volume, signaling that this is no longer a fringe behavior, but a mainstream way of gathering.

My best advice to everyone, disconnect yourself as frequently as possible. I can almost guarantee you will have less stress and an improved sense of personal grounding. 

Now let’s move onto to this weeks episode. 

Globalization is something we hear about quite frequently. But our economy has not always been this way. From a historical perspective, our world economy has grown in distinct phases that resulted in a global economy. For example, a dramatic decline in transportation costs due to steamships and railroads, and the reduction in trade tariffs resulted in an era of rapid growth in world trade. Post WWII reconstruction and liberalization ushered in unprecedented economic growth and a new era of world trade.  In more modern times, this global phenomenon has been accelerated by the information and communication technology revolution as well as the establishment of the World Trade Organization. 

Along with this trend came many advantages such as access to new markets, the spread of knowledge and technology, enhanced global cooperation, and increased economic growth. But there are also distinct disadvantages such as  increased competition, the exploitation of labor and resources, imbalanced trade and domestic job loss. 

But there is also one other distinct disadvantage that we often overlook. When you depend on long complicated supply chains, it is much easier to disrupt that supply chain and produce a negative impact on the world economy. Most recently the war in Ukraine and now the war with Iran are perfect examples of how our global economy can so easily be disrupted. 

When I look at things like this, I think to myself that there has to be a better way to run our economy. I also think back to when I was growing up in north Georgia and Tennessee, all of our resources were local. We had a large backyard garden. Both of my grandparents raised livestock. We made frequent visits to the local farmer’s market. My parents purchased vegetables and fruit in bulk and we would sometimes spend days prepping and canning food to get us through the winter. 

Surprisingly, many of us have gotten away from these basic skills. Since most foods are readily available, we often do not see the need to do home canning or to plant a garden. But these are the very things that prevent us from depending so heavily on the global economy. 

In my opinion the answer to the challenges of a global economy is to go local. Most of us can avoid the negative impact globalization by designing a lifestyle based solely on a local economy. And that is what I want to present in this episode, a practical design for a life built around the local economy, with the goal of reducing dependence on globalization as much as realistically possible.

Local-First Lifestyle Blueprint

Core Idea

A local-economy lifestyle means organizing your daily life so that your food, services, relationships, work, spending, and even personal resilience are all rooted in your immediate region rather than distant supply chains. The goal is not perfection. The goal is to make your life increasingly dependent on:

• local land
• local people
• local skills
• local trade
• local production
• local trust

This is a shift from being a consumer in a global system to being a participant in a place-based economy.

1. Guiding Principles

1) Buy local before buying global

Every purchase begins with the question:
 Can this be sourced locally first?

Priority order:

1. Make it yourself
2. Borrow/share locally
3. Buy used locally
4. Buy from a local producer or craftsperson
5. Buy from a regional business
6. Use national/global supply chains only when necessary

2) Replace convenience with relationship

Globalization thrives on anonymous transactions.
 A local lifestyle thrives on:

• knowing your farmer
• knowing your mechanic
• knowing your carpenter
• knowing your neighbors
• knowing who can teach, repair, barter, or trade

And believe it or not, I have at least one person I can name from that list I just mentioned. 

3) Choose sufficiency over abundance

A localized lifestyle usually means:

• fewer choices
• more seasonality
• less novelty
• more maintenance
• more patience

In exchange, you gain:

• more resilience
• stronger community ties
• less dependence
• more meaning
• greater control

4) Trade skills, not just money

The local economy becomes stronger when you are not only a buyer, but also a contributor.

Ask:

 What useful service, product, or knowledge can I offer locally?

5) Build redundancy close to home

Global systems are fragile because they are distant and complex.
 A local-first life reduces fragility by building:

• food reserves
• water resilience
• repair skills
• neighborhood alliances
• multiple local suppliers

2. Vision of Daily Life

A localized lifestyle often looks like this:

• Most food comes from local farms, gardens, fishing, hunting, or regional producers
• Meals are built around what is seasonal, not what is imported
• Home goods are repaired, reused, or bought secondhand before buying new
• Work is tied to local needs or regional service
• Money circulates among neighbors, small businesses, farmers, and tradespeople
• Entertainment becomes community-based rather than consumption-based
• Health, education, and support become more relationship-centered
• Energy, food, water, and household systems become more self-reliant where possible

3. The 8 Pillars of a Local-Economy Lifestyle

Now, let’s break this down into a basic foundation of a place based lifestyle. 

Pillar 1: Food

Food is the foundation.

Goals

• Source as much food as possible from within your local region
• Learn seasonal eating
• Reduce dependence on imported processed foods
• Build home food production

Action Plan

• Join a CSA or buy directly from local farms
• Shop farmers markets weekly
• Build relationships with:
   
  • produce growers
•  
  • egg producers
•  
  • dairy producers
•  
  • fishermen
•  
  • beekeepers
•  
  • bakers
•  
  • butchers
•  
• Start a home garden
• Grow high-value crops first:
   
  • herbs
•  
  • greens
•  
  • tomatoes
•  
  • peppers
•  
  • sweet potatoes
•  
  • beans
•  
• Learn preservation:
   
  • freezing
•  
  • dehydrating
•  
  • fermenting
•  
  • canning
•  
• Build a seasonal pantry
• Create menus around what is locally available instead of global grocery variety

Lifestyle Shift

Instead of asking, “What do I feel like eating?”
 Ask, “What does my place produce right now?”

Pillar 2: Shelter and Household

Your home should become a base for local resilience.

Goals

• Reduce dependence on mass-produced disposable household goods
• Favor local materials, local labor, and durable repairable items
• Make the home more productive, not just consumptive

Action Plan

• Use local contractors and craftspeople when possible
• Learn basic home repair
• Buy secondhand furniture locally
• Choose natural, durable materials over trendy imported products
• Create productive home systems:
   
  • composting
•  
  • rainwater capture where legal and practical
•  
  • clothesline drying
•  
  • kitchen garden
•  
  • backyard food production
•  
• Reduce purchases of decorative or nonessential household goods
• Build a repair shelf with:
   
  • screws
•  
  • hand tools
•  
  • adhesives
•  
  • spare parts
•  
  • sewing kit
•  

Lifestyle Shift

Move from a “replace when broken” model to a “repair, adapt, and maintain” model.

Pillar 3: Work and Income

A local-economy lifestyle works best when your livelihood is tied to local usefulness.

Goals

• Earn in ways that serve local people or local needs
• Reduce dependence on fragile distant institutions where possible
• Build a reputation-based livelihood

Local-Friendly Income Types

• gardening or food production
• repair services
• carpentry
• tutoring
• animal care
• health and wellness services
• food preparation
• preservation classes
• waste reduction consulting
• sustainability workshops
• local delivery
• home maintenance
• community education
• local bookkeeping or admin support

Action Plan

• Identify 3–5 local problems you can help solve
• Build one income stream based on a recurring local need
• Add one barter-compatible skill
• Develop one physical product or service locals can buy repeatedly
• Prefer direct service and direct customer relationships over platform dependence when possible

Lifestyle Shift

Ask:
 What do people in my area genuinely need, repeatedly, and locally?

Pillar 4: Spending and Consumption

Every dollar is a vote for a system.

Goals

• Keep money circulating in your local area
• Reduce purchases from large globalized corporations
• Buy less overall, but buy better

Action Plan

Use a spending filter before every purchase:

1. Do I actually need this?
2. Can I borrow it?
3. Can I repair what I have?
4. Can I buy it used locally?
5. Is there a local maker or seller?
6. Is there a regional alternative?
7. Only then consider national/global retail

Categories to Localize First

• food
• home repairs
• personal services
• gifts
• furniture
• clothing repair
• basic tools
• pet care
• education
• entertainment

Lifestyle Shift

Consumption becomes intentional, slower, and rooted in values rather than impulse.

Pillar 5: Community and Mutual Support

Localization is impossible in isolation.

Goals

• Become embedded in a web of reciprocal support
• Replace some market transactions with trust and exchange
• Know who around you does what

Action Plan

Build a “local network map” of people you know or want to know:

• gardeners
• farmers
• handymen
• nurses
• teachers
• elders
• cooks
• mechanics
• electricians
• herbalists
• child care providers
• animal caretakers
• organizers

Join or create:

• time banks
• swap groups
• seed exchanges
• repair circles
• food co-ops
• neighborhood work days
• community gardens
• local preparedness groups
• tool libraries

Lifestyle Shift

The question becomes less “Where can I buy this?”
 and more “Who nearby already knows how to do this?”

Pillar 6: Health and Care

A localized life benefits from community-based health habits, though not all medical care can or should be localized.

Goals

• Improve day-to-day health through local food, slower living, movement, and social support
• Reduce unnecessary reliance on industrial convenience
• Maintain access to modern care when needed

Action Plan

• Eat mostly local whole foods
• Walk or bike locally when practical
• Develop preventive health rhythms:
   
  • sleep
•  
  • cooking from scratch
•  
  • sunlight
•  
  • daily exercise
•  
  • stress reduction
•  
• Learn basic home care skills
• Use local practitioners you trust where appropriate
• Keep a practical home health kit or first aid kit
• Grow some medicinal herbs where suitable

Reality Check

A local-economy lifestyle does not mean rejecting needed medicine or professional care. It means reducing unnecessary dependence while preserving wise access to what genuinely helps.

Pillar 7: Education and Culture

Globalization standardizes culture. Localization restores place-based knowledge.

Goals

• Learn the ecology, history, climate, and practical realities of your region
• Pass down useful skills
• Build local identity and memory

Action Plan

Study:

• local edible plants
• local growing seasons
• weather patterns
• traditional building methods
• regional cooking
• water sources
• local history
• local hazards
• local species and ecology

Teach and practice:

• food preservation
• repair
• sewing
• gardening
• cooking from scratch
• budgeting
• first aid
• tool use
• conflict resolution
• community organizing

Lifestyle Shift

Entertainment and education move away from passive global media dependence and toward place, skill, and participation.

Pillar 8: Energy, Transport, and Resilience

These are often the hardest areas to fully localize, so the aim is reduction and resilience.

Goals

• Reduce dependence on long supply chains for fuel and energy
• Cut transport needs
• Build backup systems

Action Plan

• Live closer to what you use most often if possible
• Consolidate trips. When you do use your vehicle, make sure you can accomplish several errands instead of just one. 
• Walk, bike, or use low-input transport when practical
• Reduce unnecessary commuting
• Improve home efficiency:
   
  • insulation
•  
  • ventilation
•  
  • shading
•  
  • efficient appliances
•  
• Explore household resilience systems:
   
  • solar backup where possible
•  
  • battery backup
•  
  • water storage
•  
  • low-energy cooking methods
•  
• Keep a reserve of essentials

Lifestyle Shift

The goal is not perfect self-sufficiency. It is lowering dependence on distant systems that can fail suddenly.

4. What to Stop Doing

A local-economy lifestyle also requires subtraction.

Reduce:

• impulse online shopping
• dependence on fast shipping
• imported novelty foods
• disposable products
• frequent chain-store spending
• entertainment built entirely around consumption
• services that remove all practical skill from your life
• hyper-specialized dependence for simple tasks you could learn

5. What to Start Doing

Increase:

• growing food
• preserving food
• fixing things
• buying used
• trading skills
• knowing neighbors
• learning local ecology
• supporting local producers consistently
• keeping a pantry and reserve
• making gifts and household products
• using your hands regularly
• participating in community events and exchanges

6. A Realistic Transition Plan

Phase 1: Audit and Awareness

For 30 days, track:

• where your food comes from
• where your money goes
• what you buy online
• what you could source locally
• what skills you lack
• what recurring needs you have

At the end of the month, identify:

• top 10 most globalized habits
• top 5 easiest things to localize
• top 3 hardest dependencies

Phase 2: Food First

For the next 60–90 days:

• replace one grocery category at a time with local sourcing
• start a garden
• begin preserving food
• reduce processed imports
• create a local meal rotation

Phase 3: Build Local Relationships

Over the next 3 months:

• meet 10 local producers or service providers
• attend markets consistently
• join one community group
• find one barter or exchange opportunity
• create a local resource directory for yourself

Phase 4: Household Localization

Over the next 3–6 months:

• reduce online shopping by at least half
• buy secondhand first
• learn 5 repair skills
• create a durable household inventory
• make your home more productive

Phase 5: Income Re-localization

Over the next 6–12 months:

• identify a local service or offering
• test it with real people
• build repeat customers
• create one side income stream rooted in local needs

Phase 6: Deep Resilience

Over 12 months and beyond:

• improve food reserves
• reduce fuel dependence
• strengthen local support systems
• build practical competence
• become a known reliable person in your community

7. Weekly Rhythm for a Localized Lifestyle

A local-first weekly structure could look like this:

Daily

• cook from scratch
• maintain garden or food systems
• walk your neighborhood
• fix or maintain one small thing
• interact with at least one local person

Weekly

• shop farmers market or local vendor
• review spending for local vs nonlocal purchases
• preserve or prepare food
• practice one practical skill
• support one local business intentionally

Monthly

• attend a community event, swap, or market
• reduce one more global dependency
• improve one home resilience system
• build or deepen one local relationship
• assess what categories still rely heavily on distant supply chains

8. Challenges You Should Expect

1) Higher visible prices

Local products sometimes cost more upfront.
 But often they are:

• higher quality
• more durable
• more ethical
• more supportive of your community

2) Less convenience

You may have to:

• wait
• plan ahead
• eat seasonally
• accept fewer choices

3) Skill gaps

Modern life trains dependency.
 You may need to learn:

• sewing
• gardening
• cooking
• mending
• maintenance
• negotiation
• bartering

4) Limited local supply

Not everything can be sourced locally, especially:

• medicine
• technology
• some tools
• replacement parts
• specialty goods

That is fine. The goal is less dependence, not fantasy purity.

5) Social friction

Others may not understand why you are choosing a slower, less convenience-driven life.
 Stay grounded in your reasons.

9. Metrics for Success

Measure progress by asking:

• What percent of my food is local?
• How much of my spending stays in my community?
• How many people nearby can I call for help, trade, or collaboration?
• What can I now repair, grow, make, or preserve that I used to buy?
• How much less dependent am I on online retail and long-distance supply chains?
• What local value do I contribute?

10. The End Goal

The deeper purpose is not just avoiding globalization.
 It is creating a life with:

• rootedness
• resilience
• competence
• interdependence
• dignity
• local belonging

A localized life says:

My survival, well-being, and identity should not depend entirely on distant systems I do not control.
I want my life to be tied to a real place, real people, and real skills.

Simple Lifestyle Model

You can organize your life around this formula:

Local food + local relationships + local skills + local spending + local usefulness + reduced dependency = localized living

First 10 Steps to Begin Immediately

1. Track every purchase for 30 days
2. Shift one food source to local this week
3. Visit a farmers market and talk to producers
4. Start a small garden, even in containers
5. Learn one repair skill this month
6. Cut nonessential online shopping sharply
7. Buy one needed item secondhand locally
8. Make a list of useful people and skills in your area
9. Choose one practical skill you will become known for
10. Build your life around place, not convenience

In case you have not noticed, a central part of building your life around a specific place is getting to know the people around you. This of course is much different from our modern culture where people live in the same house for years and never know their neighbors. Everyone is always in a hurry and pressed for time. People depend on technology more than taking with someone face to face. 

This is the exact opposite of what I experienced growing up in Tennessee and Georgia. This is the exact opposite of what I have experienced every time I have lived in a small community outside the United States. This is also the exact opposite of where we now live in Colorado. 

In all of these examples, when I was growing up, when I’ve live outside the country, and where we live now, we know everyone around us. Consequently, we are well integrated into the community. We help each other when needed. We share skills. We communicate regularly. We are at each others houses on a regular basis. If there is ever any sort of an emergency, help is not far away. And this is how it should be. 

All of us should build a lifestyle where it makes no difference what is going on in some country on the other side of the planet. It shouldn’t make a difference whether there is a war, a natural disaster, or the global supply chain completely shuts down. We should be able to manage our lives the way we want without any sort of outside interference. And that is why you build your life around place, not convenience.