Neolocalism and Activating the Urban Landscape: Economics, Social Networks and Creation of Place

This work examined the role of the craft brewers of Florida in creating alternative
economies. This work argues that craft brewers function in ways that they can create a
space in which other, smaller entities might then take advantage. Craft breweries'
expansion, and continued success rests on the ability of the brewer to harness the power
of transformation, the prism effect, or the refaceting of a space with different meanings.
Craft breweries meet many of Jacobs' (1961), as stated in her seminal work, conditions
for diversity in the city, especially in the role of self-government. Craft brewers function
as informal forms of government for communities, by making smaller entities more
visible, by serving as a warrior and weaver for political action in the city, and offering
subversive defiance, by which they subtly challenge the dominant disconnected economic
structure. Craft breweries serve as a way to create an embedded economy, or as a way of
grounding local businesses, social issues, and individual actors together. In this way, the
research addressed deeper ethical issues that transcend the idea of craft brewing in general, that the success of craft brewers reflects a form of activism, and a visible way for
individuals to circumvent the global processes which left them disengaged in their
community.