Rob Hopkins and The Future of Communities in Practice

For episode 4 of our Community series, we present to you the very
man who changed our own perspective on community living years and
years ago. The co-founder of the Transition Network and
Transition Town Totnes, Mr Rob Hopkins!


To give you a bit of background on Rob, he is the author of
numerous books including, The Transition Handbook, 21
Stories of Transition and most recently, From What Is
to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the
future we want. He presents the podcast series ‘From What If to
What Next‘. In 2012, he was voted one of
the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta
and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals.
Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four
Thought and A Good Read, in the French film
phenomenon Demain and its sequel Apres Demain, and
has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events.


This was by far one of our favourite episodes. The expression
‘you should never meet your heroes’ does not apply here. Rob was
our hero 15 years when we first came across him, and now all
these years later when we finally get to meet him, he is still
our hero!



"At the moment we measure the success of an economy by
how much bigger it is than last year. Imagine with your kids; there
is a while in the evolution of your children where the fact that
they are bigger than they were last year is a good thing. They are
growing in the right direction. If that was the only measure, and
they just kept on growing and growing and growing, till they were
about 50 metres tall… after a little while you would think
something is going really really wrong here. Actually what you want
is for your kids to grow, ideally to slightly shorter than you are!
And then to start growing in different ways; become kinder, wiser,
more skilled, more connected, and more resourceful. We don’t have
that assumption for our economy, we just say - ‘is it bigger than
last year? Grand!’ The fact that cancer rates are rising, anxiety
is rising, and people are less and less able to walk home alone
after dark, all the things that we don’t want to happen in a
society, we don’t measure, we don’t factor them in.”




This quote says it all, he is a creative thinker who lets no
walls or structures limit his imagination and willingness to
strive for a better future. The ultimate doer and who leads by
example. 


We delve into everything from how Totnes became a self-sufficient
transition town to how you as an individual can start thinking
outside the box and become the change you want to see happen to
your own community.


Enjoy!


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