Centralization is a problem when it permits:
- top-down decision-making to trump community rights
- corporations to monopolize resources, products, markets
- the creation of large scale facilities and/or long-distance distribution systems that are unsustainable.
This problematic kind of centralization is what we are confronted with. Some examples. Federal decisions regarding eminent domain and corporate primacy. A few large corporations controlling food production, from seeds to market share. Massive coal and nuclear power plants distributing electricity via high voltage power lines.
Centralization generated from the bottom-up, based on sharing of grassroots initiatives and approaches, is another matter. Such can permit cooperation and coordination, thereby allowing communities to be more ecologically integrated into the regional environment.