When pundits refer to the death of community, they are speaking of a number of social ills, which include, but are not limited to, the general increase in isolation and cynicism of our citizens, widespread concerns about declining political participation and membership in civic organizations, and periodic outbursts of small town violence. Making a Place for Community argues that this death of community is being caused by contemporary policies that, if not changed, will continue to foster the decline of community. Increased capital flow between nations is not at the root of the problem, however, increased capital flow within our nation is. Small towns shouldn't have to hope for a prison to open nearby and downtown centers shouldn't sit empty as suburban sparwl encroaches, but they do and it's a result of widely agreed upon public policies.

When pundits refer to the death of community, they are speaking of a number of social ills, which include, but are not limited to, the general increase in isolation and cynicism of our citizens, widespread concerns about declining political participation and membership in civic organizations, and periodic outbursts of small town violence. Making a Place for Community argues that this death of community is being caused by contemporary policies that, if not changed, will continue to foster the decline of community. Increased capital flow between nations is not at the root of the problem, however, increased capital flow within our nation is. Small towns shouldn't have to hope for a prison to open nearby and downtown centers shouldn't sit empty as suburban sparwl encroaches, but they do and it's a result of widely agreed upon public policies.

Cohousing offers an end to the isolation of the single family suburban home. Balancing community and personal privacy, cohousing is a chance to create a modern village in an urban or rural setting. Residents own their own homes and can gather in common areas to share meals and socialize. An increasingly popular form of housing in both Europe and North America, cohousing addresses and alleviates many of the demands and pressures of modern life - everything from day care to aging at home is easier with the help of your neighbors. As pioneers in the development of cohousing in North America, Chris and Kelly ScottHanson offer individuals and new groups a wealth of information and practical hints on how the process works. The Cohousing Handbook covers every element that goes into the creation of a cohousing project, including group processes, land acquisition, finance and budgets, construction, development professionals, design considerations, permits, approvals and membership. This revised and updated edition includes an expanded marketing chapter as well as a foreword by Gifford Pinchot. A source of comfort and inspiration for those who want to create their ideal community, The Cohousing Handbook is a ground-breaking and practical guide to building a better society one neighborhood at a time - a must-have for the growing number of people who want to create a cohousing community.

Throughout history and around the world, community members have come together to build places, be it settlers constructing log cabins in nineteenth-century Canada, an artist group creating a waterfront gathering place along the Danube in Budapest, or residents helping revive small-town main streets in the United States. What all these projects have in common is that they involve local volunteers in the construction of public and community places; they are community-built. Although much attention has been given to specific community-built movements such as public murals and community gardens, little has been given to defining community-built as a whole. This volume provides a preliminary description of community-built practices with examples from the disciplines of urban design, historic preservation, and community art. Taken as a whole, these community-built projects illustrate how the process of local involvement in adapting, building, and preserving a built environment can strengthen communities and create places that are intimately tied to local needs, culture, and community. The lessons learned from this volume can provide community planners, grassroots facilitators, and participants with an understanding of what can lead to successful community-built art, construction, preservation, and placemaking.

Community Visioning for Place Making is a groundbreaking guide to engaging with communities in order to design better public spaces. It provides a toolkit to encourage and assist organizations, municipalities, and neighborhoods in organizing visually based community participation workshops, used to evaluate their existing community and translate images into plans that embody their ideal characteristics of places and spaces. The book is based on results generated from hundreds of public participation visioning sessions in a broad range of cities and regions, portraying images of what people liked and disliked. These community visioning sessions have been instrumental in generating policies, physical plans, recommendations, and codes for adoption and implementation in a range of urban, suburban, and rural spaces, and the book serves as a bottom-up tool for designers and public officials to make decisions that make their communities more appealing. The book will appeal to community and neighborhood organizations, professional planners, social and psychological professionals, policy analysts, architects, urban designers, engineers, and municipal officials seeking an alternative vision for their future.

In this book, Ralph Peterson helps teachers see what it is they do when they bring students together to make a community.

Place- and community-based education – an approach to teaching and learning that starts with the local – addresses two critical gaps in the experience of many children now growing up in the United States: contact with the natural world and contact with community. It offers a way to extend young people’s attention beyond the classroom to the world as it actually is, and to engage them in the process of devising solutions to the social and environmental problems they will confront as adults. This approach can increase students’ engagement with learning and enhance their academic achievement. Envisioned as a primer and guide for educators and members of the public interested in incorporating the local into schools in their own communities, this book explains the purpose and nature of place- and community-based education and provides multiple examples of its practice. The detailed descriptions of learning experiences set both within and beyond the classroom will help readers begin the process of advocating for or incorporating local content and experiences into their schools.

Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest explores an annual interstate tug-of-war between two small towns along the Mississippi River. In this book, Johnston examines how media shapes place and identity of people at this festival. In writing this book, he conducted analysis of a ten year period of media coverage, and found that the experience people have while attending Tug Fest is quite different than what is said in classic novels about life on the Mississippi River.

While an increasing number of universities have or are committed to engaging their campuses in their surrounding communities, many recognize they lack the strategic focus and resources to maximize and sustain their impact on those communities. Place-based community engagement provides a powerful way to creatively connect campus and community to foster positive social transformation.In developing community engagement strategies, most universities and community organizations face significant challenges in deciding who to partner with and why. Frequently this leads universities and community organizations to say “yes” to too many opportunities which significantly limit their ability to pursue long-term impact. Focusing on an established geographic area can make it much easier to decide where to deploy resources and which partnerships to prioritize and thus increase their ability to form strong and sustainable partnerships that are of greater value to all stakeholders.This book presents the emerging model of place-based community engagement as a powerful process for attaining more positive and enduring results in their local communities as well as stimulating wider engagement by campus constituencies. Drawing upon the concept of collective impact and using data-driven decision making, place-based initiatives build long-term partnerships based upon a shared vision. Done thoughtfully, these place-based initiatives have attained impressive results.Drawing upon the case studies of five institutions that have implemented place-based community engagement initiatives, the authors provide guidance on the opportunities, challenges, and considerations involved in putting a place-based approach into effect. By sharing the experiences of these five institutions, they describe in detail the routes each took to turn their place-based initiatives from concept to reality, and the results they achieved.