Anti-Fragile Playbook
Community Economics
Household enterprise, local commerce, shared resources, and economic reciprocity.
Listen · Learn · Imagine · Act
The Anti-Fragile Playbook Podcast
Conversations about building communities that are more capable of caring for themselves.
Community economic development, local enterprise, self-governance, technology, culture, and the relationships that make meaningful change possible.
These conversations explore the ideas behind the Anti-Fragile Playbook, a joint undertaking of Ruth Glendinning, Kent Dahlgren, and Trudy Martinez.
The podcast archive
Listen to the conversations.
Explore the Anti-Fragile Playbook's published episodes directly through Spotify. This player connects to the show itself, rather than a particular recording, so its available content is maintained by Spotify.
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Why these conversations matter
Community begins with conversation.
Before there is a marketplace, a governance process, or an activation plan, there are people sitting together to discover what matters to them.
Those conversations reveal more than aspirations. They uncover skills, productive resources, relationships, unmet needs, and opportunities that are easily overlooked when development begins with institutions rather than people.
The Anti-Fragile Playbook emerged from the convergence of Ruth Glendinning's Community Renaissance Market and S.L.O.W. Tech economic development model with the technology and human-centered activation work of Kent Dahlgren and Trudy Martinez, who launched 214 Alpha together in 2018.
The purpose is not merely to talk about
stronger communities. It is to develop
the capacity to build them.
Themes of the Playbook
The questions worth exploring.
Culture and Identity
How a community's traditions, skills, and creative capacity contribute to its future.
Self-Governance
Practical tools for making decisions, coordinating resources, and resolving disputes.
Appropriate Technology
Digital tools that strengthen human relationships rather than displacing them.
Community Activation
Moving from dissatisfaction and vision into participation and productive action.
Stewardship
Creating relationships and institutions capable of enduring beyond their founders.
A living experiment
From the conversation to the kitchen table.
In 2009, Ruth Glendinning established the Community Renaissance Market in Austin, creating a shared marketplace that supported more than 90 household-scale businesses.
In 2018, Kent Dahlgren and Trudy Martinez launched 214 Alpha, developing digital infrastructure for community coordination and self-governance.
In 2020, Ruth, Kent, and Trudy joined forces to create the Anti-Fragile Playbook, combining these independently developed bodies of work.
The active Tannehill Marketville Collective pilot continues that experiment today, exploring how existing community resources and local enterprise can become part of a coordinated economic ecosystem.
Continue exploring
More than a podcast.
Foundational Articles
Explore the writing of Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren on community economics, S.L.O.W. Tech, activation, and self-governance.
Browse the Articles →The Tannehill Pilot
Discover how the Playbook's ideas are being tested through an active Austin community marketplace initiative.
Explore Tannehill →Join the conversation
What could your community accomplish with what it already has?
Every useful experiment begins somewhere. Sometimes it begins with a question asked across a kitchen table.
If these ideas resonate, we'd welcome the opportunity to hear what you're building.
Contact the AFP Team →