We need our neighbors and community to stay healthy, produce jobs, raise
our children, and care for those on the margin. Institutions and
professional services have reached their limit of their ability to help
us.
The consumer society tells us that we are insufficient and that we must
purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside the
community. We have become consumers and clients, not citizens and
neighbors. John McKnight and Peter Block show that we have the capacity
to find real and sustainable satisfaction right in our neighborhood and
community.
This book reports on voluntary, self-organizing structures that focus on
gifts and value hospitality, the welcoming of strangers. It shows how to
reweave our social fabric, especially in our neighborhoods. In this way
we collectively have enough to create a future that works for all.