Elinor Ostrom: Sustainable commons, suckers, and diverse institutions.

Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics for good reason. City Council Member John Gonder wrote about her conceptual framework as well and, as always, we hope his good thoughts continue on from blog pages into council chambers.

Here, in a brief lecture presented by the Stockholm Resilience Centre as part of their Stockholm whiteboard seminars, Ostrom explains "how people can use natural resources in a sustainable way based on the diversity that exists in the world."

Her focus on local knowledge of complex systems and trust as central tenants of successful resource management - and I would add built resources to a long list of natural ones - begs for more universal application. Replace the word "meadow" with "riverfront" or "neighborhood" and she could be talking about metro Louisville as easily as alpine agriculture.

We surely suffer from our share of anti-social types who would make suckers of us in exchange for a quick, short-lived buck, but I've been encouraged as of late by the increasing number of people I've been meeting who see value not just in our physical commons but in the development of community around them. It's that strength in community that will ultimately save us, perhaps from ourselves at times with diversity of thought, but most certainly from petroleum-based replacement schemes and the pernicious, individual selfishness they represent.

As we move away from a model concerned with who's wrong to one of who's most right, Ostrom's explanation, beautiful in its simplicity, is even worthier of engagement in New Albany as well as Stockholm.