The Place Game: How We Make the Community the Expert
The Place Game is a tool for evaluating any public space—a park, a square, a market, a street, even a street corner—and examining it through guided observation strategies.
building resilient communities
Compost Capitalism
‘The pain we feel is capitalism dying.’ The words left an impression on me I think because they describe that strange, existential ache that we probably have all felt at some time or another, when contemplating how we should live our lives in a world that seems so tragically off track.
My Foreword for ‘Rising to the Challenge: the Transition Movement and People of Faith
Ruah Swennerfelt’s book is a hugely important contribution to the growing literature on Transition.
Wurruk’an: Seeding a New Earth Story
The low-impact way of life that is emerging at Wurruk’an has been captured on film as part of a documentary called A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity, written and produced by Jordan Osmond (Happen Films) and Samuel Alexander (Simplicity Institute).
Building Community, One Bench at a Time
Can putting a bench on the sidewalk create community? Can it change the world?
“No Single Project is the Magic Acorn…”
We need to think more like a forest than a single tree!
Beyond the Footprint
To be sustainable as a global village — to be able to keep all of our human and ecological systems healthy — we also need to aggressively identify and bring to market a wide range of affordable, ecologically-sound development strategies in the highly-populated, emerging nations.
Regional Cities and the Curse of “Glocality”
One of the essential themes in my continuing study of and reflection upon the character and dilemmas of mid-sized cities is their "regional" character, and the temptation which exists for such cities to pretend that they–or to aspire to convince themselves and others that they are about to become–players in the global economy.
City Repair: From Illegal Street Painting to City-Sanctioned Placemaking
We’re part of something so much larger than ourselves and it feels like an absolute gift to be alive in this time.
Becoming Bluegill
Staying put fosters both conservation and conversation with place.
Resilience + Resistance: A Recipe for Justice and Sustainability
In the face of climate change, we have the dual challenge of both resisting new fossil fuel infrastructure projects and building a resilient, sustainable and equitable economy in the shell of the old.
Can We Build a Movement for Structural Economic Change? We Must
It would appear that new economy activists and community economic development still live in largely separate worlds.
