Smart Communities: How Citizens and Local Leaders Can Use Strategic Thinking to Build a Brighter Future

I got this book because it is being used as a textbook for a college course I am taking, but once I got into the book, I started enjoying it. Morse is a real excellent writer and she makes the subject matter of creating good communities interesting. Normally, I would dread reading a book for class, but this one is a good read especially for those who wnat to be more involved in making a smart community.

I'm sure that you are busy. I've got a lot of things to do myself, more than I can get done today. And then the time comes when you have to stop being busy, some times you just have to sit and let the batteries recharge. As the old saying goes, sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. And the question has to come up of what can one person, you or me do to make the community we live in a better place. Suzanne Morse's book can't tell you what you can do. But it can tell you what other people like you have done. Will her ideas work in New York City, no. Will they work on the block you live in within New York City, in the neighborhood you live in, yes. Meanwhile I've got to quit writing about this book. I'm going help the local community theater try to get started. I don't know anything about theater, but I can find some way to help, even if it's just sweeping the floor.

This book is an antidote for the cynicism and sense of helplessness that pervades too many of our communities. We are given actual examples of communities builing on their strengths, talents, histories and values to create new energy and optimism. As an amatuer historian, my favorite chapter was the one on preserving the past as a way to begin building the new. Now I have the language to encourage renewal by honoring the past.

I was attracted to this book while looking for insights into strategic thinking for work in another arena. I was not disappointed.Smart Communities offers many very useable ideas for anyone with responsibilities for thinking and acting strategically to enhance our lives together. And that probably includes most everyone. Along with very practical help, the accounts and interpretations of real experiences also offer inspiration and hope.

Finally, an exceedingly hopeful book about how to effect meaningful change in a community, large or small. Here, Dr. Suzanne Morse, in her characteristic lively and to-the-point style, has given us a guide, repleat with documented examples of how to move the needle on those issues we're all too familiar with: poverty, lack of a board base of leadership, chidren's welfare. Armed with more than 10 years of hands on experience working with groups in communities all across the country, Dr. Morse's book, as well as many of her other supportive pieces such as What Works, guarantees us all that we no longer have to start at square one. If you were depressed by Robert Putnam's novel a few years back, Bowling Alone, which bemoaned the lack of citizen involvement in communities today, this book and the work of Dr. Morse will give you not only hope but the tools to join forces with others where you live to make a difference.Read it for the cheer joy of finding out how this is done, and done well.Each chapter ends with, How to Get Started in Your Community, a virtual workbook for action. Her reference section will also help guide you in fruitful directions.Putnam's latest book, Better Together: Restoring the American Community, speaks of a hint that citizens are beginning to "bowl together". Dr. Morse's book is proof that they are and have been doing so effectively for the past decade.Enjoy--an exhilerating read.