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…
“I am large, I contain multitudes.” said Walt Whitman in his poem, “Song of Myself.” Was Whitman ahead of his time in understanding the extraordinary fact that non-human cells compose more than half the body? More likely, he was giving voice to the complexity of being human and the fluidity of our sense of self. Because within each of us…
Communal batch cooking, collaborative childcare, repair cafes, street festivals, teen trade schools, small business incubation, community gardens. Such low-threshold and low-commitment opportunities draw people into participating in civic life without requiring copious time or energy. They provide opportunities to connect with new people and build a sense of belonging. And they contribute to a network of mutual benefit supporting those…
Have you ever seen a community-driven project fail to get off the ground, or fall apart in progress? Sadly, this is often the fate of many well-intentioned community efforts. Why do these projects fail? It’s a daunting list. Participatory City, the community-building model I’ve been writing about for the last couple of posts, has assembled a powerfully concise and insightful…
In my last post I sung the praises and promise of Participatory City, a UK-based model for strengthening communities by “mainstreaming practical participation.” It’s one of the most exciting and innovative initiatives I’ve seen. I also discussed one striking statistic from Participatory City’s research: 60% of people are willing to work together to improve their neighborhood, but only 3% ever…