Care of People on the Margin

Ian Edwards is nervous about the world he’s leaving his 14-year-old son, particularly the divisiveness he sees happening at an increasingly disturbing rate with all kinds of people. “It seems much greater than when I was younger,” the Boulder, Colorado...

Gerard’s story says more than all the speaking, action steps and theory some of us spend our time on. On the professional question, we all speak for the citizen, but every place needs someone like Gerard, paid to create...

Local governments everywhere tend to think of their jurisdictions as places and people with needs. They seek to address these needs by relying on tax revenues and bureaucratic expertise. Such a top-down approach may be appropriate at times, but...

Jim Diers has been called "the Albert Einstein of local government" and "the Pied Piper of the Seattle Neighborhood movement." Not without reason. Experience his energy and insights in video highlights from one of his 2012 Neighborhood Strengthening presentations...

Jim Diers has been called "the Albert Einstein of local government" and "the Pied Piper of the Seattle Neighborhood movement." Not without reason. Experience his energy and insights in video highlights from one of his 2012 Neighborhood Strengthening presentations...

Anna D’Aste makes and teaches ceramic art on 12th Street in the ""Village of the Arts" in Bradenton, FL. She  was part of the original group of artists who moved into the neighborhood 13 years ago to start the Village. When...

Bob Stilger has a forty year relationship with Japan and, in the wake of the massive destruction since March 2011, has returned to work around the country as a witness and listener. In this recent post from his blog,...

Government is not the biggest threat to community life, as it was thought to be when the First Amendment to the Constitution was drafted. John and Peter reflect on how today’s “imperial institutions” of the not-for-profit world and corporate...

“I get the jitters asserting that helping can be harmful,” says Maurice Lim Miller, founder and CEO of the Family Independence Initiative, in his Huffington Post blog post When Helping Doesn’t Help. Lim Miller takes John McKnight’s well-known position that...