Videos

Learning from Other Neighborhoods

Who did it? Are they like me? John tells why these questions home in on reasons why learning from other neighborhoods is more effective in community building than professional intervention.

Running time: 2:27 | Home page photo: Tonpp1

The Club Is Not the Club

There's more to your local book club, dog club or poker club than books, dogs or cards. Peter reminds us of the power such associations can bring into neighborhood life. All we have to do is ask.

Running time 1:03 | Home page photo: Schani

This Land Is My Land

John tells of wonderful possibilities like community ovens when neighbors decide for themselves how to use public lands.

Running time: 2:56 | Home page photo: Friends of Dufferin Park

Edgar Cahn Interview with Jon Snow

Jon Snow’s interview with Edgar on the U.K.’s Community Channel is a great introduction to Edgar Cahn and his work, especially what time banking is and how time banks work.

Running time 6:14

The Point Is the Place

Peter explains that the more we know and care about the place where we are, the more likely we are to do the functions that neighborhoods are meant to do.

Running time 1:15 | Home page photo: See-ming Lee

Citizen Cop Out

So many community meetings are often a time of blaming and finger-pointing — a way for citizens to cop out. John asks in this short clip, What would you do differently?

Running time: 2:00 | Home page photo: Jennifer Kumar

Our Abundant Communities: Neighborly Nourishment in the Wilderness

Videos of John, Peter and Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann in action at the 2011 Willson Lectures at Trinity University, San Antonio, explore themes of power and patriarchy; human fallibility and gifts; and accumulation and abundance in building and sustaining community.

Capacity Building Beyond Community Services

John explores the differences between “care” and “service” in this segment from his video interview with The Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities and explains why systems cannot provide care.

ABCD 101

A great introduction to the concepts and techniques of asset based community development. In this four-part video, filmed at Manchester Community College, John explains the five basic ABCD building blocks, how to do neighborhood asset mapping, and other principles and practices that set ABCD apart from traditional needs-based community development approaches.

Running times: Part One 20:48 | Part Two 21:01 | Part Three 20:25 | Part Four 8:02

The Right Way to Read

John tells the story of a neighbor who had been told that her four-year-old who already knew how to read would have to be “broken of that” when she entered kindergarten as an example of how institutions and professionals whose own ideas of “how you do things right” intrudes on the natural, necessary functions of families and neighbors to be important teachers of their own children.

Running time: 3:43 | Home page photo: San Jose, CA Library

Surprising Lessons from a Potlatch

John was invited to a potlatch with four bands of the Kawkiutl people in British Columbia. In his video, he tells of their unique way of resolving disputes by giving gifts to one another.

That night, he learned something even more surprising: How "helpers" helped to kill the tribe's culture.

Running time: 6:22