Seven Great Reasons to Read This Book - The Connected Community

7 Great Reasons to Buy; Read and Pass this book on to friends and neighbors

It’s the ultimate sounding board for neighbors building their communities from the inside out and those working in neighborhood development interested in sustainable, community-driven change.
It’s a guidebook that acts as a compass: offering nine down to earth, practical, yet very powerful tools for discovering, connecting and mobilizing neighborhood assets.
Other community building and asset-based community development books offer valuable ideas about the “what” and the “how” to get going. This book addresses the question “why”? Why build community at a neighborhood scale? The answer is that we have a vital role to play as citizens locally, and if we don’t do that work collectively, it will not get done. There is no institutional or technological replacement for the power of local communities.
It is filled with stories from around the world about how neighbors have joined together to make things better. The stories are shared to make it easy to pick out some of the gems and run with them in your context if they feel relevant to you.
There is a powerful chapter dedicated to professionals and their institutions, which shares some top tips about how they can be supportive of community-driven change.
A group of local neighbors can use the Connected Community Discussion Guide (at the back of the book) as a companion guide through each stage. So as well as reading the book, you can apply the ideas and tools in your neighborhood and then discuss their impact.
You can share your Connected Community stories right here on this website and join a growing movement of people who believe change happens from the ground up when our neighbors and we show up, connect and act powerfully together.