Transition Towns start off when a small collection of individuals within a community come together with a shared concern.

They begin by forming an initiating group with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative. A Transition Initiative is a community working together to look at problems squarely in the eye and address them.

After going through a comprehensive and creative process of: awareness raising, connecting with existing groups in the community, building bridges to local government, forming groups to look at all the key areas of life and kicking off projects aimed at building people’s understanding of resilience, 15-20 year projects are formed.

This results in a coordinated range of projects across all  areas of life that strives to rebuild the resilience towns have lost as a result of problems such as cheap oil and carbon emissions.

The communities also recognise two crucial points: that they immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there’s no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope, if we collectively plan and act early enough there’s every likelihood that we can create a way of living that’s significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment.

Examples of existing Transition Towns can be found here. From the UK to Australia to New Zealand to Italy to Japan, Transition Towns are currently evolving everywhere.

http://www.transitiontowns.org/