During a recent ride on my local Metro bus, I noticed an advertisement encouraging me to “Get Involved!” “Take The Survey Today!” it beseeched. Apparently, our County Floodplain Management Agency urgently needed my input. I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone from my city neighborhood would feel motivated to participate in something so abstract and removed as county-wide flood plain…
The third in a four-part series diving into the practical nuts and bolts of community engagement processes vis-à-vis community building and intergroup contact. How can community engagement be a counterforce to our increasing social fragmentation, polarization, and loneliness? Taking this challenge to heart will require a shift in community engagement practices. Rather than just soliciting input, we also need to…
This is the second in a four-part series diving into the practical nuts and bolts of community engagement processes vis-à-vis community building and intergroup contact. These will be a bit longer than my typical missives, but they’re packed full of awesome content. Enjoy! In a time of deepening social fragmentation, how do we build common identity amongst diverse residents sharing…
Hi there! This is the first in a three-part series diving into the practical nuts and bolts of community engagement processes vis-à-vis community building and intergroup contact. These will be a bit longer than my typical missives, but they’re packed full of awesome content. Enjoy! In a time of deepening social fragmentation, how do we build common identity amongst diverse…
The English language is a notoriously blunt instrument. It lacks many of the emotive words we find in other languages for complex human feelings and relationships. For example, the Danish hygge (the feeling of coziness from being inside with others), Italian commuovere (having your heart warmed by someone), or Nguni Bantu Ubuntu (being kind to others on account of their…
Those of us who shape the built environment often take pride in our work creating the public living rooms and front porches of civil society. We follow the guiding light of Jane Jacob’s and her seminal 1961 book, Death and Life of Great American Cities, which extols the virtues of vibrant public spaces as an essential component of healthy and…
How do we reverse our troubling slide into tribalism and polarization? How do we create a society where people of different backgrounds and beliefs are tolerant and accepting of one another? How can we convene communities to work together to tackle their shared challenges without devolving into Us vs Them conflict? To find the answers we must dive deep into…
Dog Owners. Park Lovers. Conspiracy Theorists. Community engagement typically involves the participation of many types and groups of people. This is both a wonderful opportunity and a source of potential conflict. To navigate the complex intersection of human behavior and community engagement, it’s helpful to think like a social psychologist. Social psychologists often frame people’s behavior in terms of their…
Do you feel you belong where you live? According to a recent study, 60% of Americans strongly agree to feeling belonging in America, but only 35% strongly agree to feeling belonging in their communities. Let me repeat that: Two out of three of us don’t feel like we belong where we live. That’s shocking, but perhaps not that surprising. This…
How do we create social cohesion but still maintain the strength of our diversity? How do we break down the barriers of tribal partisan identity that are dividing our country? What does mass depolarization look like? There are smart people from many disciplines grappling with these questions. Over the past year I’ve been scouring their writings and talks, looking for…