Proximity Principle

David Fleming
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The principle that the way to achieve a reduction in the need for transport is to use space more intelligently, producing goods and services—especially food—where they are needed, rather than having to transport them over long distances.

The objective is to build competence across the whole range of economics and culture, and to enable personal lives to be organised so that extensive routine transport is no longer a necessary condition for meeting material needs, nor for leisure, friendships or work. There is localisation.

Any progress made towards putting the principle into effect before enforced reductions in travel and transport are imposed by oil depletion would be a life-saving benefit. The proximity principle is a central element of the Lean Economy.P107

 

Related entries:

Boundaries and Frontiers, Elegance, Incrementalism, Lean Household, Neotechnic, TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas).

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David Fleming
Dr David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was a cultural historian and economist, based in London, England. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of peak oil's approach and invented the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change. He was also a pioneer of post-growth economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement and the New Economics Foundation, as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association. His wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future', published posthumously in 2016. These in turn inspired the 2020 launches of both BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's feature film about Fleming's perspective and legacy - 'The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?' - and Sterling College's unique 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time' online courses. For more information on all of the above, including Lean Logic, click the little globe below!

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