Guides

Four guides into the commons, each written around one kind of work: an editorial point of view, the practices and tools that fit it, stories of real blocks that tried them, and prompts to build your own. Start with the one closest to what you're trying to do.

• Community-Building on Your Block

  Block parties, welcome wagons, tool libraries — the practices that make a block a neighborhood, and where to start.

• Civic Media for Your Neighborhood

  How information becomes care work at neighborhood scale — ten recipes and the worksheets to plan yours.

• Building Power with Your Neighbors

  Organizing in the Ganz tradition, hung on six questions — who are my people, what do we care about, what could we do together?

• Civic Tech at Neighborhood Scale

  Open tools remixable for your block — maps, ballots, mutual-aid stacks — and the design lessons from a decade of neighborhood tech.