In this video interview, Capacity Building Beyond Community Services, the topic is the meaning of “community” and “neighborhood.”

You can watch the video here, or read the transcript below. Then use the comment section below to let us know what your definition of community and neighborhood is.

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John McKnight (Click to Watch Video)

“Community” is one of those words which is… has a different meaning for almost every person. If I say community and you think of yours, it’s not mine. In fact, if…if you think of community, whatever yours is, it probably isn’t the same as the person that lives next door to you, even somebody in your household. So it isn’t very helpful to say I’m interested in the community, because you could say I’m a member of a community of scholars, and that is historians across the United States.

Geographically it’s unlimited. But the thing we became clear on, I started at the university a program in community studies, so I had to decide pretty specifically what I meant if I was going to study it, and I learned that it’s pretty arbitrary. Therefore, you make up your own definition as to what you mean by community.

And so what we meant. I’m with a group there at the Asset-Based Community Development Institute, and what we meant was a neighborhood, a physical place, not a community of scholars, right? And a small, physical place, a small town or a neighborhood, and that’s what we were focused on when we said community studies, that’s what we meant.

And then, you might say even then how would you define a neighborhood, right? What…what…what is it? And I think the most useful thing that we could do was to listen to people who live there and say, “What neighborhood is this?” That is, a neighborhood is really about a related group of people. And somebody in city hall can draw a line [Laughs] around a part…within the city, but that doesn’t mean the people there would agree that’s their neighborhood.

A neighborhood is defined by the people who live in a place, and so we always follow the local understanding of the residents as to what this neighborhood is or the boundaries, the Van Ryan Expressway over there and, ah, the creek that goes down Mill Street over here and they’d say, generally, “that’s our neighborhood.”

So when we’re thinking about community, we’re thinking about resident-defined place. And the reason for that is because what people feel is their neighborhood is telling you what they’re motivated to do something about.

Source: E. Kvelland from Wikimedia Commons

So it’s the commitment and feeling of a local person’s definition about a place that if you want to see things get organized and things begin to improve, you have to depend on the motives of people to feel an identity with a place. So we’ve always focused on what people think is their neighborhood and understood that the motives people have to act are closely tied to a place that they feel is theirs.

In other words, if you ask me, I live in Chicago, do I want to improve Chicago, which some people would say, “My community is Chicago.” It would be pretty hard for me to say… I might say yes, but I don’t know where’s the handle, what… how am I going to do that, right? But if you said do I want to improve my neighborhood, I’d say yes, and I’d say yes, because it seemed to me doable and I care more strongly about my neighborhood than I do about Chicago. So that’s the way we have understood. It’s a place people feel related to and where they have relationships with each other.

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John McKnight

John McKnight is an expert on communities. An Ohio native who currently lives near Chicago, he has spent decades organizing communities and researching them, primarily in the Windy City itself. In the course of his career, he mobilized neighborhoods during the civil rights movement, wrote several books about community development, created a center for urban affairs at Northwestern University, and even taught the current President a thing or two about advocacy. (Yes, it’s true: way back when, a young and eager Barack Obama interned at McKnight’s training program for community organizers in southeast Chicago). If that’s not enough, he recently co-authored a book called “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.”

State of the Re:Union will be featuring pieces from John McKnight and Peter Block of Abundant Community every other Monday.

There is a great deal written and practiced about creating new conversations, all of which is valuable and holds the same spirit as what is outlined here. For example, for some time there has been an important dialogue movement to help people understand their own mental models and listen more deeply.

Source: Africa Centre

The types of conversations outlined here are a little different in that they are aimed at building community, whereas many of the others are primarily aimed at individual development or improving relationships. Plus these community-building conversations are pointedly designed to confront the issue of accountability and commitment.

To open the community to an alternative future, start with the invitation conversation. Since all the other conversations lead to one another, sequence is not all that critical. It’s important to understand that some are more difficult than others, especially in communities where citizens are just beginning to engage with one another. Certain conversations are high-risk and require a greater level of trust among people than others to have meaning. A good meeting design begins with less-demanding ones and ends with the more-difficult ones.

1.    Invitation conversation. Transformation occurs through choice, not mandate. Invitation is the call to create an alternative future. What is the invitation we can make to support people to participate and own the relationships, tasks, and process that lead to success?
2.   Possibility conversation. This focuses on what we want our future to be as opposed to problem solving the past. It frees people to innovate, challenge the status quo, break new ground and create new futures that make a difference.
3.    Ownership conversation. This conversation focuses on whose organization or task is this? It asks: How have I contributed to creating current reality? Confusion, blame and waiting for someone else to change are a defense against ownership and personal power.
4.    Dissent conversation. This gives people the space to say no. If you can’t say no, your yes has no meaning. Give people a chance to express their doubts and reservations, as a way of clarifying their roles, needs and yearnings within the vision and mission. Genuine commitment begins with doubt, and no is an expression of people finding their space and role in the strategy.
5.   Commitment conversation. This conversation is about making promises to peers about your contribution to the success. It asks: What promise am I willing to make to this enterprise? And, what price am I willing to pay for success? It is a promise for the sake of a larger purpose, not for personal return.
6.    Gifts conversation. Rather than focus on deficiencies and weaknesses, we focus on the gifts and assets we bring and capitalize on those to make the best and highest contribution. Confront people with their core gifts that can make the difference and change lives.

Other conversations may also be important, but these six are vital to shift to a future where each citizen, each neighbor, each individual chooses to take responsibility and own their role in shaping the future.

Peter Block co-authored the book “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.” He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops to build the skills outlined in his books. He is the author of Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Answer to How Is Yes, and Community. He is the recipient of numerous awards, most recently the Organization Development Network’s 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award.

State of the Re:Union will be featuring pieces from John McKnight and Peter Block of Abundant Community every other Monday.

I’m a coffee snob. It’s my only addiction. My co-workers have a Caffè Americano to thank each and every day for ushering me through my metamorphosis from curmudgeonly troll man to moderately friendly human being. The coffeehouse culture is also near and dear to my heart. I ran a coffeehouse a little more than ten years ago and made some extremely significant connections that I still enjoy. It was a tremendous place for building meaningful community. The employees knew the customers, the customers knew each other . . . it became a cultural hub where local musicians played and artists displayed their work. And while the technology over the last decade has changed the game and made wireless internet just about omnipresent, people did bring their laptops and work in. But I can’t recall it creating an environment of silent silos. Everyone regularly interacted. I miss that place.

That experience more than ten years ago, is pretty much the antithesis to my experience now. While I’m sure those community building coffeehouses still exist throughout the country, it seems the steady flow of traffic that I encounter on a daily basis is in one of two camps, the grab and go folks or the cordoned off lost in the laptop crowd. It’s really quiet with the only sounds coming from the cash register and espresso machine. Don’t get me wrong, quiet and peaceful is never a bad thing, but I think about how I see a lot of the same faces on both sides of the counter, but don’t know anybody’s name or see any of the regulars interacting.

As I stopped to pick up my morning life blood today, I started thinking about this concept and wondered if there were coffeehouses that decided they simply weren’t going to cater to either of the aforementioned camps. A simple Google search turned up Tazza Bakery Enoteca in Brooklyn, New York. Their website is a simple, one-page explanation of who they are that includes a downloadable menu, but more importantly, laying out what they offer, what you can expect. There is one section in particular that caught my attention:

“No cell phones. No wireless DSL. You come to Tazza to relax and relax you will. These are The Heights, after all… The heights of having your own little place: Tazza.”

18th Street Coffee House in Santa Monica, California, and Virgil’s House in Saratoga Springs, New York, are others that I’ve found that seem to have similar no laptop, no cell phone policies. Coffeehouses, can make an ideal work environment and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I wonder how much more sequestered we can possibly become. Some may say it’s a time and place for everything type of thing, but it seems that the nose in a laptop is far more prevalent than a face-to-face conversation.

We Want to Know:

• Is there a coffeehouse in your life that you stop by regularly? Do you know the staff and the other regulars?
• What do you think about the places with no laptop or cell phone policies? Do you know of other places like that?

Start the conversation below!

*Top photo from Wikimedia Commons by Arria Belli
*Home page featured photo from Flickr Commons by Toshihiro Oimatsu