Bernard Lietaer - The future of money

After only three years, the community fabric is already strong and goes way beyond what an economic analysis might show about people exchanging goods or services in another way. Neighbours keep abreast of local issues by e-mail, and computer-literate residents offer free Internet lessons to any neighbour wishing to join. Nikolai Vishnesky, 40, who started the e-mail system last year says, 'Now folks can take technology that is usually used for global interaction and make it a local resource.

Neighbours deter crime by patrolling the streets at night, publish a neighbourhood Newsletter, take turns looking after each other's children in play groups, help housebound seniors, grow food on a community farm in Upper Marlboro and greet new neighbours.

Martha Monroe, 38, believes, 'We are unique because in most Washing- ton suburban neighbourhoods, people get home From their job in the city, watch television and go to bed.'

4. Curutiba: the Brazilian city which left the Third World In 1971, Jaime Lerner became mayor of Curitiba, the capital of the south-eastern state of Parana, Brazil. He was an architect by profession. Quite typical of the region, the urban population had mushroomed from 120,000 people in 1942 to over a million when Jaime became mayor. By 1997, the population had reached 2.3 million. Again, quite typically, the majority of these people lived in favelas, shantytowns made out of cardboard and corrugated metal.

One of Jaime Lerner's first big headaches was rubbish. The town rubbish collection trucks could not even get into the favelas because there were no streets wide enough for them. As a consequence, the rubbish just piled up, rodents got into it, and all kinds of diseases broke out. A mountain-sized mess. Because they didn't have the money to apply 'normal' solutions, such as bulldozing the area and