1. Ithaca, New York

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So while much of Ithaca remains a traditional clapboard Upstate town, where the 'townies' eat porkchops(!) at the Royal Palms restaurant and the Birkenstockers nosh organically at Moosewood, the strength and savvy of the alternative presence has brought down many of the barriers between the cultures. Tompkins County Trust (founded in 1831), Ithaca's oldest bank, provided funding for EcoVillage-and brags about it in its publicity. The Farmer's Market, which runs from April to December every year and brings together 'straight' farmers, small organic growers, and local craftspeople was described to me as a 'happening,' the 'showcase and heartbeat of the spirit of Ithaca,' and 'a place where everybody goes.'

The supermarket-sized Green Star Co-Op is another place where everybody, or nearly everybody, comes together under the alternative aegis. To wander its bright, well-stocked aisles with manager Laura Peters is a real education in local empowerment. Every Ithaca-produced foodstuff is carefully labeled as such, and it's quite a cornucopia: BGH-free milk from several area farms, Miami transplant Susie Gutierrez's line of seitan (wheat gluten) goodies, organic chicken raised by a former engineer and his partner, a onetime scholar of Japanese history. 'We'll move other stuff off the shelves to make room for locally produced food,' says Peters.

And then there's the Ithaca Hours system. To get the lowdown on it, I met Glover for lunch at Viva Taqueria. (This informal downtown Mexican cafe's 'business-as-usual' rival, Taco Bell, recently closed its doors. Glover claims it as a victory for the Ithaca spirit; a more mainstream Ithacan I talked to cited the absence of a drive-thru window.) Glover's seemingly boundless energy has helped boost Ithaca's famed local currency into something of a national and international phenomenon since he founded the system in 1991. Ithaca Hours are now accepted along with Uncle Sam's banknotes in some 350 local businesses (and not only alternative ones). The $60,000 in Hours issued in the last five and a half years have been traded by some 2,000 people, generating an estimated $2 million in commerce since the little blue-, yellow-, orange-, and pink-tinged notes first appeared. There are now some 30 other local currency systems across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, all patterned after Ithaca's program; publications from the Observer of London to Coin World have extolled its virtues.

Despite the name, the Hours system is not a time-barter scheme (in which an individual performs a certain number of hours of work, then receives scrip entitling him or her to an equivalent amount of time from someone else). Ithaca Hours can be used just like dollars-for labor, or pizza, or swimming lessons. Some people even take part of their pay in Hours or accept change in Hours at businesses. Glover's organization circulates the money by issuing two Hours (equivalent to $20) to every individual or business willing to be listed in the group's newspaper, Hour Town, as Hours accepters. It also makes outright grants to worthy groups around town. All accepters have a vote on Hours policy (including the decision to put more Hours in circulation), which is set at monthly Barter Potlucks.

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