This booklet is written for citizens who care for the well being of their community. It is for those people who want to live in a neighborhood and a city that works for all its citizens and who have the faith and the energy to create such a place. It is for those of us who long for a positive future for the cities and neighborhoods within which we live.
The challenge for every community is not so much to have a vision or a plan or program of what it wants to become, it is to discover and create the means for bringing that vision, or possibility, into being. To state it more precisely, the book is about the methodology for creating a future for our community that is distinct and not predicted by its past.
Creating a future is different than naming a future. The belief is that the way we create conversations that overcome the fragmented nature of our communities is what creates an alternative future. This can be a difficult stance to take for we have a deeply held belief that the way to make a difference in the world is to define problems and needs and then recommend actions to solve those needs. We are all problem solvers, action oriented and results minded. It is illegal in this culture to leave a meeting without a to-do list. We want measurable outcomes and we want them now. What is hard to grasp is that it is this very mindset which prevents anything fundamental from changing.
Learning Change 