One thing I feel is missing from this analysis is that each of us is not tied to place nearly as strongly as a citizen in a new England town would be. In the latter case the personal well being of each citizen was intimately tied to the success of the town. In other words the towns' economy was much more self contained than nearly any modern municipality is. Today, most individual success is tied to multiple communities at multiple scales: e.g. most companies serve non local markets, and job skills are highly transferrable across regions. This means the incentive to participate at a local level is dramatically lower than in a historical new England town.
