I can hardly believe it’s taken me so long to write this. I suppose it’s cos I didn’t want my trip to the US to be truly over. But until it’s finished I can’t write anything else so… That last day in America I had almost no pages left in the notebook I’d been filling for 10 days. I didn’t think it would matter because it was Saturday, I had to leave for the airport at 4pm and I planned to wander the city and maybe see a museum. No more meetings left. But I went to Starbucks for breakfast… Read more…

Friday 18th November 2011 Jim Field (left), Director of Organizing at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, says he’s from the Alinsky generation and gives me a copy of the 1972 Playboy interview. He says lots of the first wave of organisers had taken vows of poverty and chastity which made the life easier. Jim was studying to be a Catholic priest but had been inspired by St Damian (who helped lepers) and took an internship at a school of nursing in 1968. That summer he dated an African American woman and the couple were stunned by the hostility everywhere… Read more…

This is my public apology for not yet having emailed to thank all the wonderful people I met in Chicago (I’ve started it on the train home tonight). The last two days of my trip (18/19th Nov) involved even more rushing around, but thankfully more of it on the brilliant El trains/subway rather than Shanks’ pony. First up, Phil Nyden at the Centre for Urban Research & Learning at Loyola University, one of those academics that makes you acutely grateful for education, for allowing people like him to be working collaboratively with communities like those I’ve glimpsed in Chicago. He’s… Read more…

I’m back in the UK now but determined to finish this blog account of my trip to the US to explore community organising. I ran 3.5k on a treadmill today and all the way I was thinking about my much more exciting (and exhausting) Thursday in Chicago A/D/J – Congress Plaza Hotel where I was staying. Hotel workers have been on strike since June 2003 B – Ogilvie Transporation Centre – where I met Ken Rolling from Community Learning Partnership at 9am C – Hull-House museum on South Halsted, a museum in the original building of one of the first… Read more…

Weds 16th November 2011 After a misleadingly warm day yesterday, now it’s sunny but cold like Chicago’s meant to be. Today’s dollops of inspiration come from Jeff Pinzino at National People’s Action (NPA) Joanna Brown, Logan Square Neighbourhood Association Malcolm Bush, formerly of Woodstock Institute, a contact through the world of community finance. Founded by legendary organizer Shel Trapp and neighbourhood activist Gail Cincotta, NPA is 40 years old. It emerged from the experience of ‘panic peddling’ (unscrupulous real estate agents frightening white people into selling their properties cheap in advance of black in-migration and then selling them to black… Read more…

Tues 15th November 2011 A beautiful sunny, warm day in ultra-civilised Chicago began with a wander in Grant Park. Everything takes just a bit longer than you expect because of waiting to cross the enormous roads. So then I hurried to the Metra to head southwards only to discover one of those things that everyone knows and no-one tells you: while the CTA El trains are superb and as frequent as London tubes, the Metra is a rarified form of transit for those people who don’t mind waiting 40 minutes for the next one! So I had to rush straight… Read more…

On my last day in Detroit I spent the morning exploring the regenerated riverfront. A lot of effort, good intentions and money has gone in and there are some lovely touches – the framed artworks, the bird-filled wetland area and especially the beautiful maps integrated into paving and shelters. But overall it was a typical example of physical regeneration that goes no way towards bringing back the life and soul of the place. The cafe, the information point and the carousel were all closed, despite the sign that gave opening hours and the other sign that said all profits from… Read more…

Sunday, 13th November 2011   I was so delighted to get a call on Sunday morning from Rich Feldman of the Boggs Centre for Nurturing Community Leadership. He had received last night’s email and could meet me today and hoped that Grace may also be able to meet me. He sent over some reading, including a YouTube link to Grace’s message to Occupy Wall Street and a great list of contacts for the positive community in Detroit.   The Centre is in a house in east Detroit, in what would be a ‘nice neighbourhood’ if half the properties weren’t abandoned…. Read more…

10pm, Sat 12th November 2011 Never let taxi drivers influence your view of a place! Their livelihood depends on scaring you out of your wits. I already knew Detroit was a strange place but I was determined to give it a chance. As Jerry Herron, Director of American Studies at Wayne State University puts it “Nowhere else has American modernity so completely had its way with people and place alike”. So much so that some of the basics of civilisation have been removed – the car is so dominant that the only shuttle services from the airport are run by… Read more…

Friday 11th November 2011, Veterans’ Day   Up early to make my way to East Harlem where the Center for Neighborhood Leadership/Public Allies training would take place at the sparkly new Hunter School of Social Work building. The bright white atrium – incongruous in its scruffy, colourful surroundings – is due to become a gallery for local artwork. Upstairs in a classroom space the 10 CNL apprentices and their fellows from Public Allies gathered for their monthly joint training session. Hector Soto, the larger than life director of CNL, and Marissa Guiterrez-Vicario from Public Allies New York welcomed me with… Read more…