Suzanne W. Morse.
Smart Communities: How
Citizens and Local Leaders Can Use Strategic Thinking to Build a Brighter
Future.
This is a wise book. Beginning with the preface, it stresses the complexity and interrelatedness of community problems: “The first step for any community member to take is to find out the extent of the problem and then probe its impact on other issues, such as jobs, social services, and crime.” No quick fixes, no “three simple rules,” it is written for people who are committed to their community, who will be around over the long haul. While it is well-informed (almost all of the current major writers are referenced), it is plainly written and uses stories to carry much of its message.
The book is divided into eight chapters, an introduction and a consideration of the seven key issues for managing changes in the community. Those seven chapters are: Investing right the first time, Working together, Building on community strengths, Practicing democracy, Preserving the past, Growing leaders, and Inventing a broader future. The chapters follow a general pattern of framing the issue, conceptual discussion of the issue, several short case studies, and lessons learned. Suzanne Morse is the Executive Director of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, and she draws on the extensive experience of the Partnership for the cases she recounts here.
In the course of the book, she pulls together many of the strategies for community development that have each been developed separately. Morse draws on Jane Jacobs when she states that “Places that can establish strong identities for themselves while developing relationships with their neighbors hold the greatest promise for economic, social, and civic success” (p. 3). She draws on Richard Florida when she states that “…a sustainable and competitive economic advantage is rooted in tapping the unique benefits of location” (p. 7). She echoes Charles Landry and Robert Putnam when she argues that “investment capital” comes in different forms, including human, social, and civic capital. She builds on Bellah when she states that “(t)he key to community success is a habit of working together. The entire chapter on Building on Community Strengths draws on Kretzmann & McKnight’s “asset-based community development.” I hear echoes of Gutmann & Thompson in her argument that “(t)he core of our democracy is the opportunity to discuss and decide what is in the public’s interest” (p. 119). She refers to Malcolm Gladwell’s “tipping point” in her discussion of community leadership. Her references to the work of others is not pedantic—she borrows ideas easily, but always stays focused on the issue she is developing and the stories that illustrate the point.
Along the way, she develops several ideas and images of her own. She stresses that that community building should not force a choice between people or place, process or outcome; it must be both and all together. This insight is not unique (it is, after all, the heart of dialectical argument), but it is often forgotten as we—experts, activists, and community members alike—focus on our “one, best” solution. She also develops the image of community action as a “jazz, the music of conversation.” In community conversation, as in jazz music, each player must be willing to play with a common theme, invite the participation and interaction of the rest of the combo, and respect the individual contribution of each of the other players. And in her discussion of community leadership, she talks of replacing “leadership pyramids” with “leadership plazas.” The image is a powerful way to express the nature of leadership in a democratic setting.
As with any writing, there are some issues I wish had been developed more fully. In her discussion on preserving the past, she focuses on the community’s need to keep the spaces and places that capture its history. But she does not consider how to balance the community’s need against the individual’s rights (and property rights are heavily privileged in our Constitution). For example, she proposes waiting periods before “historically significant” buildings can be demolished (not just buildings on the Register of Historic Places, as she makes clear in the case studies, but also buildings that at least some of the community hold dear even without any previous designation). She does not recognize that there might well be opportunity costs for the private property owner in such a case, although she argues later for a broad-based committee to consider “the opportunity costs of lost buildings, green space, and even stands of trees.” Also, throughout the book, she tends to anthropomorphize “the community” as an actor, rather than the artifact of individual action. This leads to overly-easy assertions that we should, for example, “examine the community’s expectations for leadership”—as if the community’s expectations are singular or coherent, rather than what often appear to be ill-defined and contradictory expectations (take, for example, any recent electoral race).
As she states in the title, this is book is aimed at citizens and local leaders. While based on research, it is not primarily a work of scholarship. I would (and am) use it for a lower-level undergraduate class. And I would (and am) use it in my own service work in the community. I would refer to it in my advanced classes, and I would give it to me graduate students to encourage them to engage in service to their own communities.
Tony Filipovitch. Ph.D.
Works Cited:
Robert Bellah, et alii. 1985. Habits of the Heart. NY: Harper & Row.
Richard Florida. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. NY: Basic Books.
Malcolm Gladwell. 2000. The
Tipping Point.
Amy Guttman & Dennis Thompson. 1996. Democracy and Disagreement.
Jane Jacobs. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. NY: Random House.
John Kretzmann & John McKnight. 1997. Building Communities from the Inside Out.
Charles Landry. 2000.
The
Robert Putnam, et alii. 2003. Better Together. NY: Simon & Schuster.