1. Ithaca, New York

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

The point of Hours is, first of all, to add to the local money supply and keep local wealth circulating within the community and immediate region (they're valid within a 20-mile radius of central Ithaca) rather than being siphoned away to corporate headquarters elsewhere. But Glover will bend your ear on a whole panoply of additional benefits. 'Banking is a scam in which people with authorized signatures make huge profits by not working.' he says. 'A lot of conservatives were fed up with the banking system even before we were. So here in Ithaca we decided to start our own game.' By trading with Hours, Ithacans declare their allegiance to their town and add a touch of warmth to microeconomics. As Glover puts it, 'The Hours system dramatically expands and acts as a banner for our sense of community.'

In her office not far from the Route 13 strip, Linda Daybill, president of the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, is telling me about her job interview: 'They asked me if I would accept Ithaca Hours as payment for chamber membership dues if I were president. I took a deep breath and said yes. I'm pretty sure that's what got me the job.'

Daybill, whom Glover describes as 'cool,' is clearly not your average Chamber of Commerce president. She talks about the need to find ways to support Ithaca's poor as welfare reform hits. She reminds me that Girlfriends magazine recently rated Ithaca as one of the most lesbian-friendly places in America. She calls Ithaca 'a community of passionate people' who sometimes find compromise difficult but who make civic life an invigorating challenge. 'Politics is serious here,' she says, 'but it's also part of our fun. Other towns have major-league sports; we have activism.'

Daybill also talks candidly about what she considers to be one of Ithaca's major problems: underemployment. 'We suffer from the ëtrailing spouse' phenomenon-the spouse of a Cornell faculty member or student who is overeducated, overqualified, but willing to accept a low-paying job,' she says. 'It creates a downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on qualifications, so there simply aren't enough entry-level jobs for the nonñcollege bound.'

Paul Mazarella, who runs Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services, a low-interest lender that rehabs decaying housing stock and helps poor families buy homes, agrees that the gap between the poorer townsfolk and privileged if simplicity-craving alternative types is real. 'People who are really poor have fewer choices than basically privileged people with intact families and good educations who may be living on $14,000 a year,' he says.

Be that as it may, the underemployed alternative types have done much of the work in crafting a massive network of small nonprofit social service agencies, alternative health care providers, healers, mediators, and teachers of every stripe that actually-or potentially-benefit the whole community. Organizations like Recycle Ithaca's Bicycles and Recycle Ithaca's Computers connect low-income kids with used equipment. The Alternatives Federal Credit Union makes loans to people other banks wouldn't touch. The Homebased Microenterprise Network supports and promotes the hundreds of tiny businesses in town. The Ithaca Health Fund, now being organized, will be a local alternative to the big health insurers. Offender Aid and Restoration (OAR) pairs accused criminals and convicts with counselors.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print