Inside Our Towns: Jason Neises
Discussing opportunities, real and perceived challenges in small-town America, and the impact of Community Heart & Soul in Iowa.
Citizen Engagement
27 posts
Story Maps are at the Center of Community Collaboration in Kent, Ohio
New digital tools give communities innovative and engaging ways to tell their own stories. In Kent, Ohio, a community-wide collaboration among Kent State University, Main Street Kent, and the Kent Historical Society & Museum uses story maps to teach residents about the town's rich history.
Never Too Soon: Engaging America’s Youngest Citizens Early and Often
Americans know that retaining their young people requires getting them involved in the civic process early and often.
Fountains of Youth for Towns
The life and spirit of any town or city depend on its ability to attract and retain people. In a time when many worry about brain drain, how communities keep their young people, or bring them back, or attract newcomers illustrates a place's sense of and attention to renewal.
A New Partnership: Community Heart & Soul
Community Heart & Soul and Our Towns Civic Foundation are collaborating to bring national attention to the stories of innovation and renewal in small cities and towns across the United States.
Bucksport Maine Finds Its Heart & Soul
How can person-to-person democracy be revived? A one-time mill town in coastal Maine is a laboratory for a new approach.
A New Way for Californians to Serve
The coronavirus peril is global. Much of the response must, of course, be international or national if it is to matter at all. In the United States, only the federal…
Why Not Dodge? Why Not Stockton?
I mentioned yesterday that several local initiatives could mean as much to their communities or states as the outcome of most national races. The two historical examples I naturally think of are…
Awards for Civic Engagement: 37 New Examples
A big question in national politics this year is what exactly “engagement” means, beyond showing up at rallies. As Yoni Appelbaum pointed out last week, Donald Trump supporters are notable for…
Civic Engagement Talk in America’s Original Engaged Communities
The Chautauqua Institution is one of America’s great centers for civil, cultural, and intellectual engagement. A talk about 21st-century American renewal, at a place whose history traces to a great 19th-century reform movement.
‘Generation Now’—What People Do, When There Seems to Be Nothing to Do
In the next few installments I will be talking about two cities in inland Southern California that have some things in common but have headed in very different directions, and…