Authentic Community Building for Today
Why these case studies of urban and rural Minnesota?
Communities and neighborhood organizations today are contending with one of the most limited resource pools in recent decades, making it nearly impossible to fulfill their missions and basic social needs. In the face of shrinking federal and state government purviews, many communities are taking the lead on critical issues like climate change, and cultural inclusion related to immigration, healthcare, housing, and more.
The burden of carrying our social values forward is now spread too thin and too far. In this context, how do communities leverage and develop their own resources for collective impact? Who does this work, and how can they do it when resources are so tight?
No one person or organization will have the resources to address these structural problems. But together, we have everything we need. In early American life, the barn raising was a critical economic tool for the success of an agrarian society. Does this tradition have relevance for us today?
In Minnesota, two communities that could not be more different — one rural, and one urban — are demonstrating what cooperative community action means in 21st century America. Through two efforts with vastly different goals — a 12,000 square foot renovation of a defunct car dealership, and a 370 acre ecological and innovation district — Minnesota-based communities are demonstrating how to do more with less. Like the traditional barn raising, these projects have forged unlikely partnerships to accomplish enormous goals that will benefit whole communities. These collaborations cut across property lines, and unearth new, previously unrealized resources.
As two of the central actors in these efforts, and as Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellows, Stephen Klimek and James Arentson have come together to share a look under the hood of these projects, and to unveil lessons on 21st century barn raising.
On Thursday, February 15th, 2018, Stephen and James hosted an online conversation, diving deeper into these projects and what other communities can learn about how to leverage and develop their own resources for collective impact. A video recording of this conversation is available below.
