Local Economy

A few years after Judy Wicks opened the White Dog Cafe in West Philadelphia, she hung a sign in her bedroom closet as a daily reminder of what her business could be if she gave it ­creativity and care....

The Highlands neighbourhood lies in northeast Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, overlooking the North Saskatchewan River valley. It’s a mature neighbourhood of Foursquare and various Arts and Crafts style homes, large lots, big trees and beautiful river views, all close by central Edmonton. Annexed by Edmonton in 1912,...

What would make Cincinnati a great city? To explore that question, more than 100 folks from around town gathered with Peter and John to learn about “The Abundant Community.” There is growing buzz around town about civic engagement and how we...

Most Thursday evenings I spend in the garden at Ward and Chandler.* Usually I am by myself, puttering. Last night was different. If you had come by the garden yesterday you would have seen neighbors “shopping” among the rows. In...

These days, the big issues of our time are digested and disseminated by cable news, internet blogs, and tweets—and repeated by everyday people in our common conversations. But the choices about how that digestion happens—about how big stories are...

Pushing my grocery cart down the aisle, I spot on the fruit counter a dozen plastic bags of bananas labeled “Organic, Equal Exchange.” My heart leaps a little. I’d been thrilled, months earlier, when I found my local grocer...

When residents are genuinely at the center of community building, a different process unfolds. Relationships become the centerpiece of the work. This is because for residents community building is personal — it’s about their children, their families, their homes, their neighbors and their streets. It...

  Massachusetts Avenue Park was not a place you'd want to take your kids. Before, the small neighborhood park in the heart of Buffalo's West Side was little more than vacant land with a small playground and a crumbling basketball...

“Too often we have seen Wall Street hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and hollow out communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants,” said United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard in 2009. “We need a new...

Download or listen to John and Peter's March 5 conversation with Mary Nelson on asset-based approaches to building community generally and what makes them effective. Mary is the founder and longtime Director of Bethel New Life, one of the nation's best neighborhood development...