Common Good Collective

Invitation, Reader, Significance Of Place, Structure Of Belonging Permalink

I’m Making Real Change in My City

To make your town strong, build relationships. This piece is called a manifesto, and I think it’s actually a practical guide from someone who has laid a foundation of face-to-face community so that when conflicts arise, they lead to a better city for everyone.

I’m Making Real Change in My City
By Allen Alderman*

*Note to Readers: If you ever wanted to REALLY make a change in your town, instead of just starting a fight, consider this your manifesto. It was submitted by a Strong Towns member who represents their community in local government. The author, who wanted to write freely, requested we publish this column under a pseudonym.

I’m making real change in my city, with more exciting things to come. Do you want your city to be a resilient place built for people? Here’s what is working for me:

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Reader, Structure Of Belonging Permalink

Reflecting on Reconciliation

There is an invitation to reconcile right here, all around us, in each moment.

Some provide an opportunity to reconcile externally by repairing the damage we’ve caused through our political, economic, environmental, or relational acts.

Others give us a chance to reconcile internally through shedding the expectations of others, reframing our circumstances. The pieces below illuminate these opportunities, and just may help you notice some in your own life.

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Meet the Curator: Brodie Theis

Brodie teaches career education courses that help students discover meaningful work that contributes to the common good. Prior to his faculty and consulting work, Brodie spent a decade in real estate development, small business lending, and the tech start-up space. He’s inspired by the cultivation of wonder, the courage to explore, and not knowing.

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Poetry for Building Community, Possibly: Freedom for A New Story, Reader, Structure Of Belonging Permalink

“It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”

Songwriter, author, and activist Andre Henry describes his latest song with the following, “This is the new version of my signature song. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way. The point of the song is that all of these injustices we see in the world are changeable, because of the power of collective action.”

“It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”
By Andre Henry

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Eliminating economic isolation, Imagination: The Prophetic Act of Living an Alternative Narrative, Significance Of Place Permalink

An Unhoused High Schooler’s New Nest

Each of us has navigated this pandemic the best way we know how. Viruses by definition are unpredictable, and fresh data and circumstances have thrown us into confusion more than once.

Each of our pandemic experiences are unique. Camilo is a 16 year old who lives in New York City with his mother and two siblings in a shelter with no Internet. May his account of personal reconciliation and resilience be an inspiration.

Camilo R. (Illustration by João Fazenda for the New Yorker)

As Told To: An Unhoused High Schooler’s New Nest
By Zach Helfand

A year ago, we talked with a fifteen-year-old named Camilo, who lived with his mother and two siblings in a shelter with no Internet. The family shared one unreliable laptop and one cell phone. When they spent a night at the home of friends, to use their Wi-Fi, the shelter kicked them out. Last week, Camilo brought us up to date.

We still don’t have Wi-Fi, but I have a school iPad that has service. Last spring, we moved to a shelter on the Lower East Side. I didn’t like it because I had to share a room, and I need my own space. But I liked the vibe. It was a good neighborhood, next to East River Park. I had a place to jog. I had a place to feed the birds.

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Covenant: Moving from Contract to Commitment, Eliminating economic isolation, Reader Permalink

Helping the Rich Let Go

Over the next 20 years, between $35 trillion and &70 trillion will change hands from baby boomers to millennials globally. This will be the largest intergenerational transfer of private wealth the world has ever seen.

Sometimes a simple reframe helps us consider how we want to exist in the world. For instance, will we consider ourselves “wealth owners” or “wealth holders”?

As wealth changes hands, we have a choice to make both individually and collectively; to further entrench racial and economic inequalities, or alternatively, to build a regenerative economy where wealth is more fairly distributed. The latter option opens the door to reconcile our wrongs through a strategy that addresses damage we’ve caused within our communities and the natural world.

Helping the Rich Let Go
By Chuck Collins

A new generation of wealth advisers helps wealthy people give away their money instead of hoard it.

Over the next 20 years, a minimum of $35 trillion, and up to $70 trillion, in wealth will transfer from the post-World War II generation to the next younger generation. Most of that wealth will flow in the upper canopy of the wealth forest, between family members in the world’s wealthiest 0.1%.

This intergenerational transfer will only further entrench racial and economic inequalities, aided by a veritable army of financial professionals devoted to minimizing taxes and maximizing family inheritances within narrow bloodlines.

But some beneficiaries of this system are working to disrupt it, with the help of financial advisers who have a very different outlook from the rest of their profession. They are redirecting this wealth to solve big problems, like climate disruption and racial inequity. And this has created a new ethos among some of the elite and their financial advisers: “wealth minimization.”

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