Community Building Blocks

Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we will never truly create a common future and work toward it together. What Peter Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation. How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? What can individuals and formal leaders do to create a place they want to inhabit? We know what healthy communities look like—there are many success stories out there. The challenge is how to create one in our own place. Block helps us see how we can change the existing context of community from one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement to one of possibility, generosity, and gifts. Questions are more important than answers in this effort, which means leadership is not a matter of style or vision but is about getting the right people together in the right way: convening is a more critical skill than commanding. As he explores the nature of community and the dynamics of transformation, Block outlines six kinds of conversation that will create communal accountability and commitment and describes how we can design physical spaces and structures that will themselves foster a sense of belonging. In Community, Peter Block explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.

When a public defender named Jim Sheehan received an unexpected inheritance, he decided to put his money to work for people and the planet. He purchased and renovated a cluster of six buildings in a dilapidated corner of downtown Spokane, Washington and repurposed them for the collective good. For more than twenty years these buildings, now known as the Community Building Campus, have served as an interdisciplinary hub where grassroots leaders run campaigns, build coalitions, host meetings, train activists, and transform their city. One-Block Revolution honors the chorus of diverse changemakers who show up every day to build their community. Part counterculture manifesto and framework for participatory placemaking, part handbook for nonprofits and social enterprises, this anthology tells one of Spokane's most essential stories, while providing inspiration and practical guidance for organizations across the world.

The room is dim, the chairs are in perfectly lined rows. The city planner puts up a color-coded diagram of the street improvement project, dreading the inevitable angry responses. Jana loves her community and is glad to be able to attend the evening meeting, and she has a lot of ideas for community change. But she has a hard time hearing, and can’t see the diagrams clearly. She leaves early. It’s time to imagine a different type of community engagement – one that inspires connection, creativity, and fun. People love their communities and want them to become safer, healthier, more prosperous places. But the standard approach to public meetings somehow makes everyone miserable. Conversations that should be inspiring can become shouting matches. So what would it look like to facilitate truly meaningful discussions between citizens and planners? What if they could be fun? For twenty years, James Rojas and John Kamp have been looking to art, creative expression, and storytelling to shake up the classic community meeting. In Dream Play Build, they share their insights into building common ground and inviting active participation among diverse groups. Their approach, “Place It!,” draws on three methods: the interactive model-building workshop, the pop-up, and site exploration using our senses. Using our hands to build and create is central to what makes us human, helping spark ideas without relying on words to communicate. Deceptively playful, this method is remarkably effective at teasing out community dreams and desires from hands-on activities. Dream Play Build offers wisdom distilled from workshops held around the world, and a deep dive into the transformational approach and results from the South Colton community in southern California. While much of the process was developed through in-person meetings, the book also translates the experience to online engagement--how to make people remember their connections beyond the computer screen. Inspirational and fun, Dream Play Build celebrates the value of engaging with the dreams we have for our communities. Readers will find themselves weaving these artful, playful lessons and methods into their own efforts for making change within the landscape around them.

"A wise man who builds his house on the rock, so that when storms come it will not fall" Matthew 7:24 Building your Community needs to be built on good foundations. In the Community Building Blocks, we dig deep to laying down solid foundations so that the storms that will come will not destroy your community and that it will stand. What is it that we are building and why are we building it We look at important aspects of what is means to be a community. Once the foundations are laid, we set a clear common direction. The vision of your community is gaining a clear vision of where you want to go together as a community, having a common vision which everybody understands, and everybody can find their place and get involved. Establish your vision and set your goals to enable you to reach your vision. After you have set your vision design your structure and establish pillars that will help you to reach your vision.

“A wise man who builds his house on the rock, so that when storms come it will not fall” Matthew 7:24 Building your Community needs to be built on good foundations. In the Community Building Blocks, we dig deep to laying down solid foundations so that the storms that will come will not destroy your community and that it will stand. What is it that we are building and why are we building it?? We look at important aspects of what is means to be a community. Once the foundations are laid, we set a clear common direction. The vision of your community is gaining a clear vision of where you want to go together as a community, having a common vision which everybody understands, and everybody can find their place and get involved. Establish your vision and set your goals to enable you to reach your vision. After you have set your vision design your structure and establish pillars that will help you to reach your vision.

This book reminds us that a neighborhood that can raise a child, provide security, sustain our health, secure our income, and care for our vulnerable people is within the power of our community.