Local Community

My own contribution to this has been to say that yes there is genuine and widespread despair in the US1, but the primary reason isn’t economic2, rather it is because human fulfillment requires more than material wealth, which in our quest for more stuff, we have forgotten. People need physical communities, and while the US excels at material... See more

We find that people in the U.S. who are surrounded by prompts and reminders to participate in generosity-related activities are more likely to participate in them .

Donnelly and Schrantz are arguing for a major shift: “a long-overdue scaled investment in community organizing around the country.” I agree 100%, especially because I concur with them that how we do politics now, as a purely transactional process of extracting votes from people, has contributed to the crisis of democracy and the allure of... See more

To me, the vision is a civic life that invites all people to have the experience of collective life that we've been talking about. This civic life would involve a set of civic institutions that are accessible to all different kinds of people and offer them the opportunity to participate in the transformative work of engaging with their neighbors.... See more

“Our towns are where civic culture is created, for better or worse. As this polarized moment in our national politics has shown, civic culture can be poisoned from the top down. But it can be healed and unpolluted from the bottom up and the inside out. How the residents of Tulsa choose to make a civic culture will of course be different from how... See more

We agree with those who think revitalizing place-based identities and local engagement may help to break down these walls. If we redirect people’s attention back to local politics and working with fellow community members on projects that have a tangible impact, perhaps we can restart a positive feedback loop and regenerate the crosscutting... See more