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Appalachia: An Overview

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After the movement’s start in the UK and Ireland, concerned citizens founded Transition Town organizations across the United States beginning in 2006. Today, the Transition Town movement has found the most traction on the West Coast and in the Northeast, with dozens of community groups in California, Massachusetts, and New York State alone. Nationally, Transition Town organizers have promoted environmental education for the public, mobilized in the face of acute climate crises like the increasing number of California wildfires, and protected food access through community garden space and resources.



Through the Center for Oral History at Virginia Tech, Jessica Taylor and a host of undergraduate and graduate students conducted ten interviews with Transition Town organizers and other environmental activists in the Appalachian mountains of the Eastern US. As the region that has fueled the United States’s twentieth-century industrialization and militarization through its natural resources – most famously, coal – Appalachia is also well-known for iconic national moments of organizing against environmental, health, and labor inequities.


Accordingly, narrators are often involved in a host of organizations and fold organizing around the Transition Town model into other regional initiatives from constructing community gardens to halting construction of a petrochemical hub. While Transition groups have been active in limited areas of the region, and for limited periods, their presence reflects a longstanding and broad tradition of imagining a sustainable and just future. These interviews demonstrate how organizers borrow ideas from Transition Town leaders in the UK and across the US while addressing related problems affecting many Appalachians, like food insecurity and occupation-related health issues.


While Transition Town movements in the United States have ultimately fallen short of the longevity and success seen in other countries, Appalachian narrators remain hopeful. Indeed, they continue to invest in local and regional connections which build resilience and capacity to organize, often in the face of cataclysmic national change. While their work might carry the Transition Town name, it also reflects the acumen and values of prior generations of organizers who protected their communities.

This page has paths:

  1. Southwest France: An Overview Serai'ya Crawley
  2. Taking Action For The Climate Serai'ya Crawley
  3. Facing The Future Serai'ya Crawley
  4. Building Hope Serai'ya Crawley
  5. Importance of Community Serai'ya Crawley
  6. Southwest England: The Interviews Serai'ya Crawley
  7. Appalachia: The Interviews Serai'ya Crawley
  8. Southwest France: The Interviewees Serai'ya Crawley
  9. Overview of Transition Activities Serai'ya Crawley
  10. Southwest England: An Overview Serai'ya Crawley
  11. Appalachia: An Overview Serai'ya Crawley
  12. Connecting With Nature Serai'ya Crawley

Contents of this path:

  1. Oral Histories of The Transition Towns Movement
  2. Overview of Transition Activities
  3. Southwest England: An Overview
  4. Southwest England: The Interviews
  5. Appalachia: An Overview
  6. Appalachia: The Interviews
  7. Southwest France: An Overview
  8. Southwest France: The Interviewees
  9. Taking Action For The Climate
  10. Connecting With Nature
  11. Facing The Future
  12. Importance of Community
  13. Building Hope

This page references: