Association

Interview with Peter Block

I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter about how we understand and enact community within the framework of our lives that exist in place-based communities, taking into account the complexities of our simultaneous allegiances to multiple communities. Peter also...

PlacerSustain: One Community’s Exploration of the Possibility of a Sustainable Future

We are in the midst of a global transformative change in what it means to be a "Community," and in particular, a Sustainable Community. At the heart of this change is the growing recognition that personal, social, and cultural...

Third Place Commons: The Heart of Community

I live in Lake Forest Park—a town of about 12,000 people on the very northern edge of Seattle, Washington. That we are a town at all is an accident.  Lake Forest Park began as a real estate development located...

Interview with John McKnight

I had the pleasure of interviewing John about how we understand and enact community within the framework of our lives that exist in place-based communities, taking into account the complexities of our simultaneous allegiances to multiple communities. John also...

The Neighborhood Café and Other Hospitable Places

 “Friendship is dependent on combining enough gifts among a group of people that the properties of association and hospitality can be manifested.” — The Abundant Community Have you ever been to a place where it just feels wonderfully good to spend...

Wiser Together: Partnering Across Generations

Tucked away in the small Appalachian community of Burnsville, North Carolina, is a family farm and a place of meeting that has recently become the new home base for Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, co-founders of the World Café....

Milwaukee: Transformation in Process

Marquette University has launched a series of workshops aimed at uniting Milwaukee residents and institutions in guided conversations that foster community collaboration and progress. Called the Community Transformation Project, the program began nine years ago with a study group that...

The Golden Girls 2.0

In many cultures, the home is a place where family gathers. It is common practice to have multi-generations living under one roof, unlike the typical American makeup of nuclear family unit. Many members of the extended family household will...

The Value of Public Service

We find ourselves today as public sector leaders working in an era of dynamic global economics, stormy political discourse and facing yet another crisis in confidence in our public institutions. Memories of 9-11 sacrifices of public servants have faded...

What Is Enough?

To set the stage for his 2012 budget message, Alachua County, FL Manager Randall Reid quotes Lao Tzu: “Great trouble comes from not knowing what is enough . . .” The challenge for citizens today, he says, is to decide...

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The Biggest Question You Can Ask in Life

A Buddhist teacher once nudged me along the path by rephrasing a question my mind kept posing to itself....