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	<title>A Smaller Circle</title>
	<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com</link>
	<description>Our absorbing, exasperating, and absolutely necessary search for community</description>
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		<title>The Company Town &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A new book called The Company Store is reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, presumably given space (something that&#8217;s now in very short supply because of the demise of so many review sections) because it is a history of American business. But the book sounds like more than that, relevant to today&#8217;s debates about corporate [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=166</link>
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		<title>Neighborly exchanges via the Web</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The exchanges detailed in this article in the New York Times involve money, which is frowned upon by some who think everything neighborly should be given away free. But barter as well as monetary exchange i&#8217;s traditional neighborhood behavior. Hiring the neighbor&#8217;s kid to mow the lawn or babysit, buying eggs from someone up the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=160</link>
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		<title>Virtual farm games: dangerous community</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Online addiction worse when game brings &#8220;a sense of community.&#8221; And while WoW differs from these social-farming games, in Van Cleave&#8217;s opinion, they&#8217;re not all that different. &#8220;In my mind, these games pose a bigger problem, because of that sense of community and belonging that they bring. Those are the games that are the most [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=150</link>
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		<title>Dogs aren’t cure-all for loneliness</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Pets are all too important in some people&#8217;s lives, and as real-life community ties decline it seems that more people are getting dogs. I wanted to see what research there is about this, and was glad to find a rational discussion at a site for dog lovers &#8211; a dog blog. The writer says that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=148</link>
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		<title>My New York neighborhood</title>
		<description><![CDATA[As I write a book I describe as a tale of two villages, Camberwell and Great Barrington, I am glad to have yet a third village to use as another point of reference. And this one is actually called a village, though it&#8217;s even more urban than Camberwell, my London neighborhood. Over the past few [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=138</link>
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		<title>Sprawl and the Decline of Social Capital &#8211; and Health</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Hardly a surprise that commuting leads to a decline in physical and social health, but the important point is that commutes are the result of how we design cities, site industry, and create new housing. Major political will is needed to make changes, and that requires a better understanding of community on the part of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=136</link>
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		<title>The book I haven&#8217;t finished at Amazon.co.uk, 1993 and 1999</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I came across old listings some time ago and wrote to Random Century in London, asking them to tidy things up. This is better: there&#8217;s no cover showing up! But I am embarrassed to see those dates and to remember that I was supposed to have this book published in 1993. The 1999 hardcover is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=134</link>
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		<title>Rural revival: Effingham, IL</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I remember hearing from Sonya Solomon that Illinois had a lot of interest in rural revival, and here a program that is trying to address directly the demise of a sense of community: Stewardson villagers are looking to mimic the success of other small towns in the area, such as Dieterich and neighboring Strasburg, in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=132</link>
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		<title>&#8220;In the Berkshires, Eating Locally Is a Tradition&#8221; Really?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Activists have a Peter Pan mentality: they often think that if we just believe, it&#8217;ll come true. This is a nice idea but it is totally incorrect: “The Berkshires are really on the cusp of breaking into a more sustainable economy, via local foods and agriculture,” she said. The result is not just an invigorated [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=130</link>
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		<title>SE5 Forum for Camberwell</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m finding terrific websites for my old, and former, neighborhood, including SE5 Forum for Camberwell. Odd, isn&#8217;t it that Great Barrington has nothing like this? Maybe not: Great Barrington has a year-round population of only 7,700, where Camberwell has 37,000. Demographics matter. Density creates new possibilities and provides what we used to talk about a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asmallercircle.com/?p=128</link>
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