Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 1

they all involve creating social capital: developing networks of relationships that weave individuals into groups and communities.

Answer 1

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 2

social capital refers to social networks, norms of reciprocity, mutual assistance, and trustworthiness.

Answer 2

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 3

crime rate in a neighborhood is lowered when neighbors know one another well,

Answer 3

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 4

social capital can be put to morally repugnant purposes as well as admirable ones,

Answer 4

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 5

Bonding social capital is a kind of sociological Super Glue, whereas bridging social capital provides a sociological WD-40.

Answer 5

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 6

If you get sick, the people who bring you chicken soup are likely to represent your bonding social capital. On the other hand, a society that has only bonding social capital will look like Belfast or Bosnia—segregated into mutually hostile camps. So a pluralist democracy requires lots of bridging social capital, not just the bonding variety.

Answer 6

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 7

bridging social capital is harder to create than bonding social capital—after

Answer 7

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 8

Community building sometimes has a warm and fuzzy feeling, a kind of “kumbaya” cuddliness about it.

Answer 8

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 9

Even as the value of social capital has been more and more widely acknowledged, evidence has mounted of a diminution of social capital in the United States.

Answer 9

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 10

the last third of the century witnessed a startling and dismaying reversal of that trend. Beginning, roughly speaking, in the late 1960s,

Answer 10

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 11

We do not yet see evidence of a general resurgence of social connection or involvement in the public life of the community.

Answer 11

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 12

who has seen her neighborhood unravel and then knit itself together;

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 13

social-capital development.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 14

Better Together aims instead to illustrate some of the ways in which Americans in many diverse corners of our society are making progress on the perennial challenge of re-creating new forms of community,

Answer 14

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 15

The U.S. Army uses the term “ground truth” to describe the real experience of soldiers in the field—the moment-by-moment truth of being in combat,

Answer 15

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 16

One lesson is that creating robust social capital takes time and effort.

Answer 16

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 17

it develops through extensive and time-consuming face-to-face conversation between two individuals or among small groups of people.

Answer 17

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 18

we see no way that social capital can be created instantaneously or en masse.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 19

social capital is necessarily a local phenomenon because it is defined by connections among people who know one another.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 20

social capitalists.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 21

social capital is usually developed in pursuit of a particular goal or set of goals and not for its own sake.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 22

For many parents, it was their first real connection with the school, the first time anyone had bothered to ask their opinions. For the teachers, it was a first glimpse of their students’ lives outside school.

Answer 22

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 23

“We make private pain public.” The house meeting was part of the process, a step toward making the pain public in a local group to build the energy and commitment needed to bring that pain—and the actions needed to relieve it—to a wider public stage where officials would have to recognize it and respond.

Answer 23

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 24

Organizing is all about building relationships. It’s not about meetings. These are not counseling sessions. They are not an interview. It’s a conversation. You’re building a relationship here.

Answer 24

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 25

And the only way to do this is to leave yourself open to be changed by the conversation.”4 Unlike activist organizations that develop a public agenda first and then try to attract people who support it,

Answer 25

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 26

Alinsky believed that reform could best be achieved when the citizens of poor and neglected communities organized and exerted power on their own behalf. He saw doing for others as less effective and as a kind of welfare colonialism.

Answer 26

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 27

we are social beings, defined by our relationships with other people—with “family and kin, but also with less familiar people with whom we engage in the day-to-day business of living our lives in a complicated society.”

Answer 27

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 28

How do I get them to follow my agenda?” That’s not organizing. What I mean by organizing is getting you to recognize what’s in your best interest.

Answer 28

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 29

Relationship-building is a way of looking at the world, not just a strategy.

Answer 29

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 30

the core of its school-improvement efforts has been building relationships: between the school and the community; between students and teachers. Relationships are not just the engine of reform, they are one of the goals of reform.

Answer 30

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 31

the IAF organizations see schools, and learning, as embedded in the community, not as isolated institutions that can be fixed by applying the latest philosophy of teaching.13

Answer 31

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 32

“No permanent allies, no permanent enemies” is a core principle.

Answer 32

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 33

Abstract ideas do not connect people, and social action, when it is not rooted in the heart of people’s life experience, withers in the face of opposition and disappointment.

Answer 33

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 34

To be effective, these conversations have to be face-to-face, so people can read each other’s emotions, can express sympathy and work through disagreement together.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 35

the problem with a cell phone is that it makes you think you’ve had a conversation.”)

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 36

When he went to the local Catholic school to enroll my sister, they told him there was no room, not even a desk for her to sit at. He said, ‘If I build a desk, will you take her?’ They agreed. He built a desk big enough for two students, and they admitted her and another girl.”

Answer 36

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 37

Stories build relationships; they knit communities together.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 38

Leaders and organizers are constantly seeking out new leaders that have some energy, the ability to reflect, a sense of humor, some anger and the ability to develop a following.

Answer 38

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 39

When Moses is overwhelmed by the task of leading the Israelites in the desert, Jethro warns him that he will wear himself out and advises him to delegate authority to capable men who will share the burden and resolve disputes in groups of

Answer 39

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 40

When someone gives marching orders and others march, you are unlikely to find living relationships and real community.

Answer 40

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 41

“one-sided relationship” is an oxymoron.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 42

“I don’t move as fast as some people, but I outstay them, I wear them out.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 43

his most important work is “finding new leaders that find new leaders.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 44

Gathering people—and especially finding and developing the leaders who can gather people—is the foundation of IAF work.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 45

“There are two sources of power, organized money and organized people. We don’t have organized money, but we have the people.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 46

The Heartbeat of the Community

Answer 46

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 47

Harold Washington Library Center, opened in 1991, is one of the largest public library buildings in the world.

Answer 47

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 48

“Now people say, ‘I’ll meet you at the library,’ “Ayres says. “It’s a safe place. It reminds me of the old neighborhood grocery store, where the grocer knew everyone and everyone saw their neighbors.”

Answer 48

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 49

neighborhood library as the “heartbeat” of the community.

Answer 49

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 50

I really enjoy coming to a place where such a diverse group interacts positively.”

Answer 50

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 51

the medium is not the message, the message is the message, and it should be communicated in whatever forms touch people most effectively.

Answer 51

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 52

how to turn the “crowd” into a “congregation,” to use Saddleback terms for distinguishing between the visitors, the consumers of comfort and entertainment, and the committed members of the church community. The answer is small groups.

Answer 52

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 53

The idea of being part of a “community” of forty-five thousand calls into question what “community” means.

Answer 53

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 54

In any large organization, people’s sense of loyalty, connection, and identification comes from being part of a smaller team or group who spend enough time together to know and be known to one another.

Answer 54

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 55

Joining a small group is the first, essential step in being part of a megachurch rather than just attending it.

Answer 55

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 56

Lyle Schaller notes, “Most very large congregations affirm the fact that they are a congregation of congregations,

Answer 56

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 57

Atlantic Monthly, Charles Trueheart cites Jim Mellado of Willow Creek on the importance of lay-led “cells” of up to ten people, the small-group cell being “the basic unit of church life.”

Answer 57

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 58

Warren writes, “People are not looking for a friendly church as much as they are looking for friends.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 59

“The average church member knows 67 people in the congregation, whether the church has 200 or 2,000 attending. A member does not have to know everyone in the church in order to feel like it’s their church, but he or she does have to know some people.”8

Answer 59

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 60

the words “Saddleback Church” in small print. Those signs give church members a reason to say hello to their neighbors: “Oh, you go to Saddleback, too?”

Answer 60

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 61

Sharon Carton. “Some people are at that stage where they just need somebody to ask them.”

Answer 61

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 62

Warren cites a biblical foundation for small-group membership. He mentions that the New Testament uses the phrase “one another” more than fifty times, an indication of the importance of human relationships to Christianity.

Answer 62

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 63

the Gospel spread primarily through relationships.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 64

membership at Saddleback passes through an obligatory small-group membership class (“Class 101”),

Answer 64

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 65

the church has small groups and small-group ministries for every conceivable need and talent:

Answer 65

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 66

At Saddleback, says Tim Holcomb, “You are expected to be in community; you can’t live on your own. The purpose of your life is to be in community, to love and to give. When you see community work, it makes you want to be a part of it.”

Answer 66

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 67

Saddleback periodically holds small-group connection sessions, promising, “If you are tired of being a nameless face in the crowd, join us … for one hour and we will help you find a small-group family.”

Answer 67

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 68

He believes that the biggest factor in keeping a group together is affinity: people whose concerns, ages, and backgrounds are similar tend to connect and stay together. Eastman says the groups offer “short-term fellowship that can lead to lifetime relationships.

Answer 68

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 69

It has helped immensely to have people we can have that sense of community with.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 70

“God will always sacrifice short-term comfort for long-term gain,”

Answer 70

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 71

Lyle Schaller writes that “the number-one point of commonality [among very large churches] is absolute clarity about the belief system.

Answer 71

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 72

The structures of small-group education and spiritual development at Saddleback are designed to help people move from “the crowd” of weekend attenders to “the congregation” of those who are actual members of the church to “the committed,” who are committed to spiritual maturity, to “the core” of those active in lay ministry. It is a progression, as church staff also say, from “attendees to army.”

Answer 72

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 73

People come to Saddleback not despite their isolation and materialism but because of them; they are looking for the community and sense of purpose that their materially successful lives lack.

Answer 73

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 74

living a life of “significance instead of success.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 75

All staff are encouraged to contribute at least ten percent of their time to helping other churches.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 76

“If you don’t like fellowship on earth, you’re not going to like heaven.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 77

Only one in four American Protestant churches reports an average worship attendance of more than 140.11

Answer 77

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 78

All Saints, too, has bucked the trend of shrinkage or stagnation in church membership.

Answer 78

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 79

one of the pillars of community building is being heard and telling our stories,”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 80

junior warden Catherine Keig says, “I don’t describe community as sameness; I describe it as difference.”

Answer 80

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 81

Affinity is a more powerful glue than diversity.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 82

worth noting that “communion” and “community” are essentially the same word, having to do with sharing, with joint participation.

Answer 82

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 83

Lyle Schaller explains: Most of us need a point of dependable stability and continuity in our lives.

Answer 83

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 84

There, as at Saddleback, a combination of shared values, shared worship, and small-group connections creates and maintains a church community.

Answer 84

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 85

certainty has a wider appeal than ambiguity,

Answer 85

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 86

Do Something League, a national organization established to encourage community activism and develop leadership skills among young people.

Answer 86

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 87

the first principle of Do Something is youth leadership: letting the young members choose

Answer 87

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 88

In the presidential election of 1972, 42 percent of young people aged 18 to 24 voted, but by 2000 this figure had dropped to 28 percent, the steepest decline of any age cohort.

Answer 88

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 89

civic activism early in life is one of the strongest predictors of later adult involvement.

Answer 89

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 90

scrap the local-chapter model in favor of a school-based one.

Answer 90

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 91

it could tap into existing social groups and existing relationships of trust and cooperation in schools, rather than having to recruit youngsters one by one.

Answer 91

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 92

Do Something would benefit by entering communities through the established institutions of local schools.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 93

taken note of the connections they are making with adults in the community and the ways in which these relationships lead to positive outcomes.

Answer 93

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 94

annual “Kindness and Justice Challenge” in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr.,

Answer 94

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 95

For two weeks, students around the country fill out forms describing every act of kindness they carry out—washing

Answer 95

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 96

Texas Industrial Areas Foundation’s Iron Rule: “Never do anything for anybody that they can do for themselves.”

Answer 96

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 97

the strength of the organization comes from a combination of clarity about its essential principles and behaviors with a willingness to change in light of experience

Answer 97

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 98

redefining education as more active and participatory. This new initiative reflects the same basic beliefs: that the only way to learn participation is to participate; the only way to become a leader is to lead.

Answer 98

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 99

make personal stories and trusting relationships the foundation of collective action and let their agendas arise from thousands of conversations.

Answer 99

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 100

organizing against an “enemy”—a

Answer 100

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 101

“One Book, One Chicago” program designed to encourage city residents to read the same book at the same time,

Answer 101

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 102

improvements that help bring members of a community together sometimes also disrupt or sever old ties.

Answer 102

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 103

institutions increasingly assume that “everybody” uses computers.

Answer 103

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 104

the library is a gathering place, too, like an old town square or the corner grocer Anne Ayres remembers.

Answer 104

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 105

In The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg describes what he calls the “third place,” a place that is neither work nor home where people can spend time together.4

Answer 105

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 106

A good third place makes few demands on the people who gather there, beyond requiring them to abide by some basic local rules

Answer 106

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 107

A third place is a neutral ground where people from different walks of life in the community can meet and get to know one another, having in common perhaps only their desire to frequent this particular place.

Answer 107

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 108

disappearance of many third places in America.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 109

“making private pain public.”)

Answer 109

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 110

describes Chicago as “New York without the attitude”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 111

“hiking the horizontal,” turning that rigid scale on its side so that nothing is categorically above anything else,

Answer 111

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 112

one key to bridging communities and cultures: finding common ground, a meeting place, while recognizing and respecting differences.

Answer 112

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 113

People working together over time is what built connections and understanding.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 114

To make a ribbon that would stretch from bank to bank, from New Hampshire to Maine, project leaders invited people to write stories of the town and the shipyard on lengths of fabric.

Answer 114

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 115

the willingness to trust in an unknown outcome is “an incredible life skill,”

Answer 115

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 116

Decades of “white flight” to the suburbs had reduced the white population (including whites of Hispanic origin) from 95 percent in 1950 to 16 percent in 1980.4 Banks, planners, and government officials saw neighborhoods with increasing nonwhite populations as being in decline almost by definition.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 117

banged on doors and introduced themselves to their neighbors. At countless community meetings, at the multicultural festival, through hard side-by-side labor, they helped people in this place connect and reconnect.

Answer 117

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 118

the so-called neighborhood initiative would be under the control of outside agencies, not the neighborhood,

Answer 118

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 119

Defensive stubbornness seems a more likely reaction to hostile public criticism—certainly a more common one.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 120

if you live in a neighborhood where people care about each other, you can recover from anything,”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 121

credits that increased sense of safety to a renewed sense of community.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 122

the term urban village had acquired currency from a classic study by sociologist Herbert Gans that described the tragic demise of a once vibrant Boston neighborhood gentrified out of existence in the heyday of government-sponsored “urban renewal” of the 1950s.)15

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 123

people are in relationship with one another and everyone has a role in the community,

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 124

“When I first moved to this neighborhood,” Henriquez says, “everybody was a stranger. Nobody said good morning to each other.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 125

Barros counts the fact of returning young adults as an important sign of successful community development. “They come back because of good relationships and opportunities,”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 126

resident Deborah Wilson, who says, “I’d like to thank DSNI for bringing out the activist in me. I didn’t know I had it in me.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 127

getting people together to tell their own stories in their own words seemed to create the mutual understanding and sympathy that made collective action possible.

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 128

development without displacement

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 129

“If that happens twice, people feel they’re not welcome and pull out.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 130

Barros says, “The success of this neighborhood has got to be about the relationships we build, because there are going to be conflicts.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 131

His great skill, according to Grisham, was in bringing people together and introducing them to ideas that he borrowed elsewhere. He was mainly a catalyst; he unlocked other people’s power. “He used the networks around him,”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 132

“It began with an individual,” he says, referring of course to McLean. “It always begins with an individual, but there is no way of predicting who that person will be.”

Answer 132

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 133

He talks to them about the importance of achieving a critical mass of people committed to the same vision of community development, how not much seems to happen until that critical mass is reached but how, when it is, change can come quickly.

Answer 133

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 134

“There’s a myth that the tornado of ’36 brought Tupelo together and started the turnaround. It didn’t happen that way. That kind of crisis can pull people together for a short time, but they don’t sustain the connection.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 135

“It doesn’t stay in business to make money,” Gray says. “It makes money to stay in business.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 136

“Newspapers help give a community its self-definition,”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 137

“‘There’s an expectation that if you’re enjoying the benefits of being in Tupelo, you’re expected to reinvest in the community,’

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 138

If community means mutual influence and mutual dependence,

Answer 138

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 139

Saddleback Church From Crowd to Congregation

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 140

during the last third of the twentieth century involvement in many religious communities across the country slumped, just as more secular forms of community involvement did.

Answer 140

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 141

between 1960 and 2000 church membership, church attendance, and involvement in church-related groups such as Sunday schools, “church socials,” and the like declined by perhaps one third nationwide. Among the so-called mainline churches (Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and the like) the falloff has been even greater.1

Answer 141

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 142

A sign by the road that curves up from the entrance reads: “First-Time Visitors Use Right Lane for Preferred Parking.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 143

“Our Purposes: Magnification, Membership, Maturity, Ministry, Mission.”

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Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 144

Greeters meet churchgoers at every turn—on the steps, the walkway, at the door to the sanctuary—smiling and shaking hands.

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Question 145

“Welcome to Saddleback. Sit back, relax, and enjoy being here.”

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Question 146

Everything happens exactly on cue, in a perfectly timed and seamless performance.

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Question 147

The Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and Brentwood Baptist in Houston, Texas, have built facilities that are in effect church-centered malls or small towns, with health clubs and athletic facilities, McDonald’s franchises, banks, and other amenities designed to attract people and encourage them to eat, play, and work as well as worship there.2

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Question 148

Jesus drew large crowds by speaking directly to people’s concerns in language they understood, not by insisting on traditional forms of Jewish worship,

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Question 149

“There is no such thing as religious music,” he says, “only religious lyrics.”

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Question 150

his purpose, like David’s, is to reach the people of his generation in their own terms

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Question 151

This style of organizing was slow, because listening to everyone takes time and building trust and relationships takes time.

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Question 152

Union membership in America had peaked in 1954, when nearly one third of all nonfarm workers (32.5 percent) had belonged to a union; by 1998 that figure had nose-dived to 14.1 percent. By the 1990s this dramatic decline was mirrored in virtually all industrialized countries.

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Question 153

That “social thing” is the social-capital heart of this story.

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Question 154

McKenzie expresses: that transmitted information does not ease isolation or connect people in genuine relationships.

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Question 155

Eighty percent of the students are eligible for free lunches, the standard measure of poverty levels in schools.

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Question 156

It is far more compelling to many seniors . . . if they see a chance to do work not as a single volunteer in a school, but as part of a team with a mission.

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Question 157

the design of Experience Corps incorporates elements of social-capital building to magnify the impact of the individual volunteers.

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Question 158

The nationwide Experience Corps network is overseen by Civic Ventures, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to transforming the aging of America into a source of individual and social renewal.”2

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Question 159

“community of practice,” a term that refers to informal groups of people who share knowledge and support one another in their common work. “These are relationships with a purpose,”

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Question 160

he visited a nearby “old people’s home” whose residents, also starved for human contact,

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Question 161

the Foster Grandparents program involves more than twenty-five thousand older Americans relating one-on-one to a hundred thousand children a year. It is, according to Freedman, “a hidden triumph of social policy.”

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Question 162

John Gardner, former secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and founder of Common Cause, deliver a talk entitled “Reinventing Community.”

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Question 163

1988, “The Experience Corps,” that expressed the same idea in a few succinct pages. Gardner’s brief essay argued for an institution that would draw on the “talent, experience, and commitment” of older Americans, providing a mechanism for them to give back to society while enjoying an opportunity for learning and satisfaction for themselves.5

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Question 164

making this a social-capital story of relationship and engagement, not simply a story about a volunteer program. Commitment is one of the principles—the

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Question 165

called for a critical mass of participants in each school because he saw the difference

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Question 166

The program needs to have a presence, and when we have a team of volunteers we create a critical mass of time,

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Question 167

having groups of that size has created a supportive community of peers for the volunteers themselves—an experience very different from the isolation volunteers in schools sometimes experience.

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Question 168

lasting commitment and a sense of genuine participation and connection often depend on having opportunities to develop new skills and take leadership roles. Simply being a “foot soldier” or doing the same thing over and over does not build social capital as readily.

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Question 169

the “old heads” that Elijah Anderson describes in Streetwise—responsible, experienced older adults who befriended and encouraged youths, surrogate parents who passed on their values and understanding but who lost their authority as neighborhoods declined.7

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Question 170

Freedman says, “The porch has moved inside the school.”

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Question 171

Robert Tietze says, “It isn’t just tutoring, it’s community; it’s about working with children to establish relationships that have a social, emotional, and educational impact.”

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Question 172

The relationships also give the children a positive example of what seniors can be like in a culture that sometimes portrays old people as foolish, helpless, or selfish.

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Question 173

reviving the traditional role of elders passing on a community’s history to the youngest generation, bringing their shared heritage to life.

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Question 174

Building that connection to the past

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Question 175

“Social connectedness is the heart of Experience Corps, and the connections radiate in so many directions.”

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Question 176

To signal and reinforce the legitimacy of the volunteer group as a real, functioning part of the school, the Experience Corps insists that volunteers have mailboxes in the school office alongside the teachers’ boxes.

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Question 177

If a school is unwilling or unable to work with us to establish these elements, it may be a sign that the relationship is not going to work, and we will choose not to establish a program at that particular site.”

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Question 178

If support is lacking or halfhearted, the relationship will probably fail.

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Question 179

supporting a sense of community at the school.

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Question 180

being there and connecting person to person created understanding and support.

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Question 181

“giving something back,” in the words so many of the volunteers use when asked why they give three days a week to the program.

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Question 182

In Bowling Alone, Putnam marshals evidence that the postwar baby boom generation does not share that ethic of service to anything like the same degree.

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Question 183

fundamental UPS value that, for many years, no one who left the company for any reason would ever be hired back.

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Question 184

America’s social-capital deficit

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Question 185

The issue of social capital and work has two facets: Work can affect social capital outside the workplace (as, for example, in corporate-sponsored volunteering or workplace flexibility that enables employees to reconcile their professional obligations with their family and community obligations). Work can affect social capital inside the workplace (as, for example, in the ways office architecture or supervisory practices affect relations among coworkers).

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Question 186

UPS is, in fact, an even more interesting story because of the role of social capital within the workplace itself.

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Question 187

UPS does not represent “boutique capitalism,”

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Question 188

UPS has pursued a more social capital–intensive strategy than many comparable firms. UPS management has followed this strategy not out of altruism, but because of a hard-nosed business calculation that it is a good way to make a profit,

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Question 189

Tales of cooperation are part of the company’s folklore.

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Question 190

best advice he got from veterans when he started was “Don’t quit at the end of the day, wait until the next morning.”

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Question 191

The very difficulty of the work draws people together. Being able to “hack it,” showing the strength and persistence the work demands day after day, defines what it means to be “a real UPSer.”

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Question 192

There are other sources of unity, some of them visible and symbolic. Like any uniform, the brown uniform worn by every driver represents membership in a collective enterprise, commonality over individuality. The shared, explicit standards and practices that define many jobs at UPS also contribute to unity.

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Question 193

Ernie Cortés says, “The answer is relationships.”

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Question 194

it does not see electronic (or even phone) communication as a substitute for face-to-face contact.

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Question 195

having clear norms and goals frees up people at all levels to make decisions consistent with accomplishing their tasks.

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Question 196

UPS is no democracy, but trusting the people who do the work to make the decisions necessary to get it done has been part of the company’s culture for a long time.

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Question 197

Leadership development—providing opportunities for people to advance within the company—is a key goal.

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Question 198

organizations that practice “rank and yank”) firing the lowest-rated 10 percent of workers every year, using fear to keep employees up to snuff.

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Question 199

UPS has what labor economists term a strong “internal labor market.” That is, jobs (including the top jobs) are filled mostly from within.

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Question 200

“occupational community,” that is, relatively dense and cooperative connections among the employees.

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Question 201

the medium is not the message, the message is the message, and it should be communicated in whatever forms touch people most effectively.

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Question 202

how to turn the “crowd” into a “congregation,” to use Saddleback terms for distinguishing between the visitors, the consumers of comfort and entertainment, and the committed members of the church community. The answer is small groups.

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Question 203

The idea of being part of a “community” of forty-five thousand calls into question what “community” means.

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Question 204

In any large organization, people’s sense of loyalty, connection, and identification comes from being part of a smaller team or group who spend enough time together to know and be known to one another.

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Question 205

Joining a small group is the first, essential step in being part of a megachurch rather than just attending it.

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Question 206

Lyle Schaller notes, “Most very large congregations affirm the fact that they are a congregation of congregations,

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Question 207

Atlantic Monthly, Charles Trueheart cites Jim Mellado of Willow Creek on the importance of lay-led “cells” of up to ten people, the small-group cell being “the basic unit of church life.”

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Question 208

Warren writes, “People are not looking for a friendly church as much as they are looking for friends.”

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Question 209

“The average church member knows 67 people in the congregation, whether the church has 200 or 2,000 attending. A member does not have to know everyone in the church in order to feel like it’s their church, but he or she does have to know some people.”8

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Question 210

the words “Saddleback Church” in small print. Those signs give church members a reason to say hello to their neighbors: “Oh, you go to Saddleback, too?”

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Question 211

Sharon Carton. “Some people are at that stage where they just need somebody to ask them.”

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Question 212

Warren cites a biblical foundation for small-group membership. He mentions that the New Testament uses the phrase “one another” more than fifty times, an indication of the importance of human relationships to Christianity.

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Question 213

the Gospel spread primarily through relationships.

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Question 214

membership at Saddleback passes through an obligatory small-group membership class (“Class 101”),

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Question 215

the church has small groups and small-group ministries for every conceivable need and talent:

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Question 216

At Saddleback, says Tim Holcomb, “You are expected to be in community; you can’t live on your own. The purpose of your life is to be in community, to love and to give. When you see community work, it makes you want to be a part of it.”

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Question 217

Saddleback periodically holds small-group connection sessions, promising, “If you are tired of being a nameless face in the crowd, join us … for one hour and we will help you find a small-group family.”

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Question 218

He believes that the biggest factor in keeping a group together is affinity: people whose concerns, ages, and backgrounds are similar tend to connect and stay together. Eastman says the groups offer “short-term fellowship that can lead to lifetime relationships.

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Question 219

It has helped immensely to have people we can have that sense of community with.”

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Question 220

“God will always sacrifice short-term comfort for long-term gain,”

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Question 221

Lyle Schaller writes that “the number-one point of commonality [among very large churches] is absolute clarity about the belief system.

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Question 222

The structures of small-group education and spiritual development at Saddleback are designed to help people move from “the crowd” of weekend attenders to “the congregation” of those who are actual members of the church to “the committed,” who are committed to spiritual maturity, to “the core” of those active in lay ministry. It is a progression, as church staff also say, from “attendees to army.”

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Question 223

People come to Saddleback not despite their isolation and materialism but because of them; they are looking for the community and sense of purpose that their materially successful lives lack.

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Question 224

living a life of “significance instead of success.”

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Question 225

All staff are encouraged to contribute at least ten percent of their time to helping other churches.”

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Question 226

“If you don’t like fellowship on earth, you’re not going to like heaven.”

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Question 227

Only one in four American Protestant churches reports an average worship attendance of more than 140.11

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Question 228

All Saints, too, has bucked the trend of shrinkage or stagnation in church membership.

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Question 229

one of the pillars of community building is being heard and telling our stories,”

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Question 230

junior warden Catherine Keig says, “I don’t describe community as sameness; I describe it as difference.”

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Question 231

Affinity is a more powerful glue than diversity.

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Question 232

worth noting that “communion” and “community” are essentially the same word, having to do with sharing, with joint participation.

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Question 233

Lyle Schaller explains: Most of us need a point of dependable stability and continuity in our lives.

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Question 234

There, as at Saddleback, a combination of shared values, shared worship, and small-group connections creates and maintains a church community.

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Question 235

certainty has a wider appeal than ambiguity,

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Question 236

Do Something League, a national organization established to encourage community activism and develop leadership skills among young people.

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Question 237

the first principle of Do Something is youth leadership: letting the young members choose

Answer 237

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Question 238

In the presidential election of 1972, 42 percent of young people aged 18 to 24 voted, but by 2000 this figure had dropped to 28 percent, the steepest decline of any age cohort.

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Question 239

civic activism early in life is one of the strongest predictors of later adult involvement.

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Question 240

scrap the local-chapter model in favor of a school-based one.

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Question 241

it could tap into existing social groups and existing relationships of trust and cooperation in schools, rather than having to recruit youngsters one by one.

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Question 242

Do Something would benefit by entering communities through the established institutions of local schools.

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Question 243

taken note of the connections they are making with adults in the community and the ways in which these relationships lead to positive outcomes.

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Question 244

annual “Kindness and Justice Challenge” in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr.,

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Question 245

For two weeks, students around the country fill out forms describing every act of kindness they carry out—washing

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Question 246

Texas Industrial Areas Foundation’s Iron Rule: “Never do anything for anybody that they can do for themselves.”

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Question 247

the strength of the organization comes from a combination of clarity about its essential principles and behaviors with a willingness to change in light of experience

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Question 248

redefining education as more active and participatory. This new initiative reflects the same basic beliefs: that the only way to learn participation is to participate; the only way to become a leader is to lead.

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Question 249

make personal stories and trusting relationships the foundation of collective action and let their agendas arise from thousands of conversations.

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Question 250

organizing against an “enemy”—a

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Question 251

Historically, there has been more union democracy and less corruption in UPS locals than in other parts of the Teamsters. I attribute these virtues to the existence of the occupational community.”6

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Question 252

employee-led committees

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Question 253

embody two basic convictions: that the people who understand the work best are the ones who do it, and that people usually respond best to help and advice from their peers.

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Question 254

It’s a home away from home for a lot of them.”

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Question 255

Retention rates among part-time workers have improved, too, from turnover of almost 50 percent in 2001 to less than 30 percent through June of 2002, though it is hard to judge how much that improvement is due to the employee-retention committees’ work.

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Question 256

The experience of UPS reminds us of the important values of an “occupational community” as well as the challenges of fostering it in an increasingly competitive global economy.

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Question 257

they are stories of social connection formed in familiar ways: people who live or work in close proximity to one another meeting and talking, discovering common interests and mutual concerns.

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Question 258

Net-based community.) Proponents of these communities have argued that ties of mutual interest mean more than the accident of physical proximity.

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Question 259

Internet-based connections can be broadly divided into those that link you to people you already know and may have met face-to-face (such as e-mail) and those that link you to people whom you don’t know and who may even be anonymous (such as chat rooms).

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Question 260

e-ties to people whom you also know offline constitute a kind of alloy that combines the advantages of both computer-based and face-to-face connections.

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Question 261

Like the telephone, these forms of electronic communication can strengthen, broaden, and deepen existing personal ties.

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Question 262

One woman told me that she reads our lists just for the personal stories. It’s a window into what’s going on around her, and it provides a sense of connection and intimacy with others. That’s the common theme: What’s going on around us?

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Question 263

Newmark believes that the physical proximity of the people who visit craigslist, the fact that they all know and experience the same metropolitan area, is crucial to the sense of community it generates.

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Question 264

the localness of the craigslist sites is what keeps them alive and growing and what makes it possible for people to feel a community connection online.

Answer 264

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Question 265

The idea that people might be around is more important than actual face-to-face contact.

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Question 266

Written messages lack the physical expressions and gestures that are such an important part of face-to-face conversation, clarifying and deepening the meanings of the words while adding their own unspoken meaning and providing an instantaneous response to what is being said.

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Question 267

In face-to-face conversation, we also get signals we use to judge our contributions:

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Question 268

Lacking all of the elements of conversation except the words, the exchanges of messages in the craigslist discussion forums are more fragile than “real” conversations.

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Question 269

“when you overlay an electronic community directly on top of a physical community, that creates a very powerful social pressure to be civil. If you’re going to yell at somebody on the ’net, or flame them out, you may run into them at the grocery store, and they may turn out to be your neighbor.”5

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Question 270

building trust and goodwill is not easy in the largely anonymous, easy-in, easy-out, surf-by world of pure cyberspace.

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Question 271

“the culture of trust we’ve built is a really big deal. We have to re-earn that every day.”6

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Question 272

However much craigslist may be a community itself, it unquestionably functions as a tool to create community by bringing people together,

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Question 273

Created in 1985, the WELL was exhibit A in Howard Rheingold’s argument in The Virtual Community that electronic meeting places can be genuine communities.7

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Question 274

The idea of paying to meet people is unsettling.

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Question 275

communities generally define themselves by both what they are and what they are not, by the norms that represent common community behavior,

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Question 276

William A. Galston, in “(How) Does the Internet Affect Community?

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Question 277

“Internet groups rely to an unusual degree on norms that evolve through iteration over time and are enforced through moral suasion and group disapproval of conspicuous violators . . . the medium is capable of promoting a kind of socialization and moral learning through mutual adjustment.”10

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Question 278

People started telling me that they felt connected in some kind of community sense. I used to be doctrinaire about definitions and I didn’t feel it was a community site, but I eventually said, if people feel connected, it must be a community.

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Question 279

In the “all power to the people” era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such experiments in neighborhood decentralization were not uncommon in urban America.

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Question 280

in America in the 1970s and 1980s, as Putnam reported in Bowling Alone, public meetings emptied, local organizations atrophied, and “good-government” groups expired. In Portland, by contrast, in these same years civic activism boomed.

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Question 281

Portland in the early 1970s was essentially identical to that in comparable cities, but twenty years later, Portlanders of all walks of life were three or four times more likely to be involved in civic life as their counterparts elsewhere in America.

Answer 281

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Question 282

Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, tells the story of citizen activists in Manhattan who headed off plans to extend Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park.

Answer 282

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Question 283

people here “trust government because they are government.

Answer 283

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Question 284

Two things stand out about the Portland experience: first, the skill, persistence, and reach of Portland’s activist community, and second, the evolving capacity of public officials and government to respond and adapt.

Answer 284

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Question 285

because the city was fairly homogeneous racially and economically, it was easier for many residents to think of themselves as members of one community and to avoid divisions along lines of race, income, and inner-city-versus-suburbs that have hindered efforts to unify other cities.

Answer 285

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Question 286

you find in Portland “a remarkable number of people who think it’s possible to do things.”

Answer 286

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Question 287

(During Goldschmidt’s term as mayor, the city established a blanket insurance policy to cover block parties throughout the city so that neighborhood groups would not need to apply for permits or worry about liability.)

Answer 287

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Question 288

density of neighborhoods close to downtown encourages connections among neighbors, saying, “If you live close to people, you have to know them.”

Answer 288

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Question 289

identifies communication as an essential contributor both to a sense of community and to community involvement.

Answer 289

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Question 290

“Communication defines community,”

Answer 290

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Question 291

how many people were watching TV, distracted by stories and events that had little to do with their own lives or their own community.

Answer 291

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Question 292

A critical mass of citizens is involved, so involvement becomes the norm here, just as disengagement has become the norm elsewhere. Referring to The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell’s book

Answer 292

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Question 293

people being successful at it, you have visible proof that it can be done.”

Answer 293

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Question 294

community commitment.”

Answer 294

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Question 295

listening to people’s stories was essential.

Answer 295

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Question 296

the government learned (or learned again) that genuinely responding to citizens’ demands that they be included in the process was the key.

Answer 296

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Question 297

More grassroots activism has (often through conflict) led to more responsive public institutions, and more responsive institutions have in turn evoked more activism.

Answer 297

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Question 298

political scientist Jeffrey Berry and his colleagues found in their 1993 study of Portland and three other cities, “increased participation and stronger neighborhood associations tend to reduce the gap between citizens and their government, not increase it.”25

Answer 298

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Question 299

For people who are less outgoing, community seems closed or actually is closed.

Answer 299

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Question 300

A small plaque inside City Hall answers the question of how you get to City Hall: “By raising your hand.”

Answer 300

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Question 301

This style of organizing was slow, because listening to everyone takes time and building trust and relationships takes time.

Answer 301

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Question 302

Union membership in America had peaked in 1954, when nearly one third of all nonfarm workers (32.5 percent) had belonged to a union; by 1998 that figure had nose-dived to 14.1 percent. By the 1990s this dramatic decline was mirrored in virtually all industrialized countries.

Answer 302

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Question 303

That “social thing” is the social-capital heart of this story.

Answer 303

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Question 304

McKenzie expresses: that transmitted information does not ease isolation or connect people in genuine relationships.

Answer 304

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Question 305

Eighty percent of the students are eligible for free lunches, the standard measure of poverty levels in schools.

Answer 305

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Question 306

It is far more compelling to many seniors . . . if they see a chance to do work not as a single volunteer in a school, but as part of a team with a mission.

Answer 306

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Question 307

the design of Experience Corps incorporates elements of social-capital building to magnify the impact of the individual volunteers.

Answer 307

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 308

The nationwide Experience Corps network is overseen by Civic Ventures, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to transforming the aging of America into a source of individual and social renewal.”2

Answer 308

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Question 309

“community of practice,” a term that refers to informal groups of people who share knowledge and support one another in their common work. “These are relationships with a purpose,”

Answer 309

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Question 310

he visited a nearby “old people’s home” whose residents, also starved for human contact,

Answer 310

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Question 311

the Foster Grandparents program involves more than twenty-five thousand older Americans relating one-on-one to a hundred thousand children a year. It is, according to Freedman, “a hidden triumph of social policy.”

Answer 311

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Question 312

John Gardner, former secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and founder of Common Cause, deliver a talk entitled “Reinventing Community.”

Answer 312

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Question 313

1988, “The Experience Corps,” that expressed the same idea in a few succinct pages. Gardner’s brief essay argued for an institution that would draw on the “talent, experience, and commitment” of older Americans, providing a mechanism for them to give back to society while enjoying an opportunity for learning and satisfaction for themselves.5

Answer 313

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Question 314

making this a social-capital story of relationship and engagement, not simply a story about a volunteer program. Commitment is one of the principles—the

Answer 314

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Question 315

called for a critical mass of participants in each school because he saw the difference

Answer 315

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Question 316

The program needs to have a presence, and when we have a team of volunteers we create a critical mass of time,

Answer 316

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Question 317

having groups of that size has created a supportive community of peers for the volunteers themselves—an experience very different from the isolation volunteers in schools sometimes experience.

Answer 317

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Question 318

lasting commitment and a sense of genuine participation and connection often depend on having opportunities to develop new skills and take leadership roles. Simply being a “foot soldier” or doing the same thing over and over does not build social capital as readily.

Answer 318

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Question 319

the “old heads” that Elijah Anderson describes in Streetwise—responsible, experienced older adults who befriended and encouraged youths, surrogate parents who passed on their values and understanding but who lost their authority as neighborhoods declined.7

Answer 319

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Question 320

Freedman says, “The porch has moved inside the school.”

Answer 320

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Question 321

Robert Tietze says, “It isn’t just tutoring, it’s community; it’s about working with children to establish relationships that have a social, emotional, and educational impact.”

Answer 321

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Question 322

The relationships also give the children a positive example of what seniors can be like in a culture that sometimes portrays old people as foolish, helpless, or selfish.

Answer 322

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Question 323

reviving the traditional role of elders passing on a community’s history to the youngest generation, bringing their shared heritage to life.

Answer 323

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 324

Building that connection to the past

Answer 324

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 325

“Social connectedness is the heart of Experience Corps, and the connections radiate in so many directions.”

Answer 325

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Question 326

To signal and reinforce the legitimacy of the volunteer group as a real, functioning part of the school, the Experience Corps insists that volunteers have mailboxes in the school office alongside the teachers’ boxes.

Answer 326

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Question 327

If a school is unwilling or unable to work with us to establish these elements, it may be a sign that the relationship is not going to work, and we will choose not to establish a program at that particular site.”

Answer 327

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Question 328

If support is lacking or halfhearted, the relationship will probably fail.

Answer 328

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 329

supporting a sense of community at the school.

Answer 329

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 330

being there and connecting person to person created understanding and support.

Answer 330

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Question 331

“giving something back,” in the words so many of the volunteers use when asked why they give three days a week to the program.

Answer 331

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Question 332

In Bowling Alone, Putnam marshals evidence that the postwar baby boom generation does not share that ethic of service to anything like the same degree.

Answer 332

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 333

fundamental UPS value that, for many years, no one who left the company for any reason would ever be hired back.

Answer 333

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 334

America’s social-capital deficit

Answer 334

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 335

The issue of social capital and work has two facets: Work can affect social capital outside the workplace (as, for example, in corporate-sponsored volunteering or workplace flexibility that enables employees to reconcile their professional obligations with their family and community obligations). Work can affect social capital inside the workplace (as, for example, in the ways office architecture or supervisory practices affect relations among coworkers).

Answer 335

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Question 336

UPS is, in fact, an even more interesting story because of the role of social capital within the workplace itself.

Answer 336

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 337

UPS does not represent “boutique capitalism,”

Answer 337

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 338

UPS has pursued a more social capital–intensive strategy than many comparable firms. UPS management has followed this strategy not out of altruism, but because of a hard-nosed business calculation that it is a good way to make a profit,

Answer 338

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Question 339

Tales of cooperation are part of the company’s folklore.

Answer 339

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Question 340

best advice he got from veterans when he started was “Don’t quit at the end of the day, wait until the next morning.”

Answer 340

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 341

The very difficulty of the work draws people together. Being able to “hack it,” showing the strength and persistence the work demands day after day, defines what it means to be “a real UPSer.”

Answer 341

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 342

There are other sources of unity, some of them visible and symbolic. Like any uniform, the brown uniform worn by every driver represents membership in a collective enterprise, commonality over individuality. The shared, explicit standards and practices that define many jobs at UPS also contribute to unity.

Answer 342

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 343

Ernie Cortés says, “The answer is relationships.”

Answer 343

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 344

it does not see electronic (or even phone) communication as a substitute for face-to-face contact.

Answer 344

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 345

having clear norms and goals frees up people at all levels to make decisions consistent with accomplishing their tasks.

Answer 345

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 346

UPS is no democracy, but trusting the people who do the work to make the decisions necessary to get it done has been part of the company’s culture for a long time.

Answer 346

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 347

Leadership development—providing opportunities for people to advance within the company—is a key goal.

Answer 347

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 348

organizations that practice “rank and yank”) firing the lowest-rated 10 percent of workers every year, using fear to keep employees up to snuff.

Answer 348

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 349

UPS has what labor economists term a strong “internal labor market.” That is, jobs (including the top jobs) are filled mostly from within.

Answer 349

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 350

“occupational community,” that is, relatively dense and cooperative connections among the employees.

Answer 350

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Question 351

“they’re not really residents; they don’t pay taxes; they’re not committed to the neighborhood.”

Answer 351

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Question 352

the values of privatism.”27

Answer 352

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 353

no one sets out to “build social capital.”

Answer 353

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 354

The more neighbors who know one another by name, the fewer crimes a neighborhood as a whole will suffer.

Answer 354

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 355

Society as a whole benefits enormously from the social ties forged by those who choose connective strategies in pursuit of their particular goals.1

Answer 355

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 356

our hope is that these stories will offer encouragement and insights for anyone contemplating a “social-capital strategy” for his or her substantive problem, be it cleaning up a polluted river, improving the lot of undocumented immigrants, or attacking public corruption.

Answer 356

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 357

social-capital building is demonstrably hampered by urban sprawl and by the increasingly complex schedules of two-career families.2

Answer 357

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 358

neither public policies on transportation and housing nor private firms’ policies on release time for community service appear anywhere in our stories.

Answer 358

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 359

Education itself is often the most powerful predictor of high levels of social capital. Educated people and educated communities have skills and resources that enable them to form and exploit social networks more readily, whereas less educated communities have to struggle harder to do so.

Answer 359

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Question 360

almost invisible in the background—government policies were crucial to the substantive results achieved in many cases.

Answer 360

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 361

misguided public policies can also weaken or destroy social capital.

Answer 361

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 362

it helps to be blessed with “true believers” in positions of power: individuals committed to grassroots participation who will follow the social-capital route through all its apparent meanderings.

Answer 362

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Question 363

interpersonal connections and civic engagement among ordinary citizens were essential to making participatory democracy work.

Answer 363

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 364

We have discovered no simple rules for social-capital building.

Answer 364

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 365

smaller is better for social-capital creation.

Answer 365

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 366

Researchers have repeatedly found that social capital is higher in smaller settings—smaller schools, smaller towns, smaller countries, and so on.4

Answer 366

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 367

One-on-one, face-to-face communication is more effective at building relationships and creating empathy and understanding than remote, impersonal communication.

Answer 367

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 368

the more extensive interchange that is possible in smaller groups makes it possible to discover unexpected mutuality even in the face of difference. Small size also makes individual responsibility for maintaining the group intensely clear,

Answer 368

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Question 369

Smaller groups also offer easier footholds for initial steps.

Answer 369

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 370

participants sit and talk in groups of six to ten are the fundamental building blocks

Answer 370

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 371

Gladys McKenzie says, “We don’t want to be pen pals. We want to connect with a face.” “They knew my shoe size,” Joyce Guarnieri jokes.

Answer 371

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 372

it seems that the relative absence of face-to-face contact associated with the craigslist Web site limits the amount of real and sustainable social capital it can create.

Answer 372

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 373

learning about other people’s lives through the site gives users a “sense of community,” but can this “sense” spill over into material support or helpful interventions in the same way that lunchtime parking lot conversations between UPS workers do? The evidence is debatable.

Answer 373

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Question 374

The need for redundancy of contact to foster virtuous circles of mutual responsibility means that not only size but density matters.

Answer 374

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 375

In sum, smaller is better for forging and sustaining connections. On the other hand, bigger is better for critical mass, power, and diversity.

Answer 375

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 376

community building benefits from a sense on the part of participants that they are a part of something important and growing.

Answer 376

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Question 377

federation: nesting small groups within larger groups.5 Small groups within larger organizations can foster the personal relationships that would not be so easily formed within the larger organization alone.

Answer 377

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 378

This “nested,” federal strategy is especially effective when (as in Saddleback and All Saints) members can participate in more than one small group, thus weaving personal ties among the small groups and reinforcing a sense of identity with the larger whole.

Answer 378

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 379

create a cellular structure with smaller groups linked to form a larger, more encompassing one.

Answer 379

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 380

Organizational choices that facilitate “mixing” and “bridging” among small groups can harness the benefits of both intimacy and breadth.

Answer 380

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 381

“bonding social capital” (ties that link individuals or groups with much in common) and “bridging social capital” (ties that link individuals or groups across a greater social distance).

Answer 381

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 382

Social-capital strategists need to pay special attention to the tougher task of fostering social ties that reach across social divisions.

Answer 382

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 383

Bridging is not about “Kumbaya” cuddling. It is about coming together to argue, as much as to share.

Answer 383

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 384

confirm that homogeneity makes connective strategies easier.

Answer 384

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 385

bridging ties are harder to build than bonding ones.

Answer 385

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 386

(if your curb is my curb, your eyesore is my eyesore), might seem to have made collaboration an obvious choice there.

Answer 386

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 387

Shared space may be a necessary condition for bridging, but it is not sufficient, as any observer of dining halls in formally integrated U.S. high schools and colleges knows.

Answer 387

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 388

Birds of a feather flock together, folk wisdom tells us, but you don’t need to be an ornithologist to know there’s more to birds than feathers.

Answer 388

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Question 389

“diversity” is sometimes a code word referring to racial identity and nothing else.

Answer 389

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Question 390

there are therefore multiple potential dimensions of similarity. Groups that bond along some axes can bridge along others.

Answer 390

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 391

Crafting cross-cutting identities is a powerful way to enable connection across perceived diversity. That is, bridging may depend on finding, emphasizing, or creating a new dimension of similarity within which bonding can occur. One often underestimated technique for creating new identities and bridging social distance, as well as for helping to create social capital in other ways, is telling stories.

Answer 391

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 392

Using Stories to Build Connections

Answer 392

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 393

Organizing is about transforming private aches and pains into a shared vision of collective action.

Answer 393

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 394

“interest articulation” and “interest aggregation” (to use jargon from political science) emerged from carefully nurtured conversations among ordinary folks.

Answer 394

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 395

Civic idealism can be an asset in community building, but creating social capital means recognizing people’s interests and needs (including their need for fun and fellowship), not just their ideals.

Answer 395

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Question 396

Social capital is not just about broccoli, but about chocolates, too.

Answer 396

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Question 397

Community builders need to start with what the participants really care about, not some external agenda.

Answer 397

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 398

Stories help people to construct and reconstruct their interests.

Answer 398

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 399

Personal narratives are a uniquely powerful medium for expressing needs and building bonds. People like to tell their own stories; most like to listen to others’ as well.

Answer 399

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 400

Telling and listening to stories creates empathy and helps people find the things they have in common, which then eases the formation of enduring groups and networks.

Answer 400

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 401

Historically, there has been more union democracy and less corruption in UPS locals than in other parts of the Teamsters. I attribute these virtues to the existence of the occupational community.”6

Answer 401

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 402

employee-led committees

Answer 402

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 403

embody two basic convictions: that the people who understand the work best are the ones who do it, and that people usually respond best to help and advice from their peers.

Answer 403

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 404

It’s a home away from home for a lot of them.”

Answer 404

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 405

Retention rates among part-time workers have improved, too, from turnover of almost 50 percent in 2001 to less than 30 percent through June of 2002, though it is hard to judge how much that improvement is due to the employee-retention committees’ work.

Answer 405

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 406

The experience of UPS reminds us of the important values of an “occupational community” as well as the challenges of fostering it in an increasingly competitive global economy.

Answer 406

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 407

they are stories of social connection formed in familiar ways: people who live or work in close proximity to one another meeting and talking, discovering common interests and mutual concerns.

Answer 407

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 408

Net-based community.) Proponents of these communities have argued that ties of mutual interest mean more than the accident of physical proximity.

Answer 408

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 409

Internet-based connections can be broadly divided into those that link you to people you already know and may have met face-to-face (such as e-mail) and those that link you to people whom you don’t know and who may even be anonymous (such as chat rooms).

Answer 409

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Question 410

e-ties to people whom you also know offline constitute a kind of alloy that combines the advantages of both computer-based and face-to-face connections.

Answer 410

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 411

Like the telephone, these forms of electronic communication can strengthen, broaden, and deepen existing personal ties.

Answer 411

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 412

One woman told me that she reads our lists just for the personal stories. It’s a window into what’s going on around her, and it provides a sense of connection and intimacy with others. That’s the common theme: What’s going on around us?

Answer 412

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 413

Newmark believes that the physical proximity of the people who visit craigslist, the fact that they all know and experience the same metropolitan area, is crucial to the sense of community it generates.

Answer 413

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 414

the localness of the craigslist sites is what keeps them alive and growing and what makes it possible for people to feel a community connection online.

Answer 414

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 415

The idea that people might be around is more important than actual face-to-face contact.

Answer 415

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 416

Written messages lack the physical expressions and gestures that are such an important part of face-to-face conversation, clarifying and deepening the meanings of the words while adding their own unspoken meaning and providing an instantaneous response to what is being said.

Answer 416

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 417

In face-to-face conversation, we also get signals we use to judge our contributions:

Answer 417

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 418

Lacking all of the elements of conversation except the words, the exchanges of messages in the craigslist discussion forums are more fragile than “real” conversations.

Answer 418

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 419

“when you overlay an electronic community directly on top of a physical community, that creates a very powerful social pressure to be civil. If you’re going to yell at somebody on the ’net, or flame them out, you may run into them at the grocery store, and they may turn out to be your neighbor.”5

Answer 419

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 420

building trust and goodwill is not easy in the largely anonymous, easy-in, easy-out, surf-by world of pure cyberspace.

Answer 420

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 421

“the culture of trust we’ve built is a really big deal. We have to re-earn that every day.”6

Answer 421

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 422

However much craigslist may be a community itself, it unquestionably functions as a tool to create community by bringing people together,

Answer 422

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 423

Created in 1985, the WELL was exhibit A in Howard Rheingold’s argument in The Virtual Community that electronic meeting places can be genuine communities.7

Answer 423

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 424

The idea of paying to meet people is unsettling.

Answer 424

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 425

communities generally define themselves by both what they are and what they are not, by the norms that represent common community behavior,

Answer 425

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 426

William A. Galston, in “(How) Does the Internet Affect Community?

Answer 426

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 427

“Internet groups rely to an unusual degree on norms that evolve through iteration over time and are enforced through moral suasion and group disapproval of conspicuous violators . . . the medium is capable of promoting a kind of socialization and moral learning through mutual adjustment.”10

Answer 427

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 428

People started telling me that they felt connected in some kind of community sense. I used to be doctrinaire about definitions and I didn’t feel it was a community site, but I eventually said, if people feel connected, it must be a community.

Answer 428

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 429

In the “all power to the people” era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such experiments in neighborhood decentralization were not uncommon in urban America.

Answer 429

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 430

in America in the 1970s and 1980s, as Putnam reported in Bowling Alone, public meetings emptied, local organizations atrophied, and “good-government” groups expired. In Portland, by contrast, in these same years civic activism boomed.

Answer 430

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 431

Portland in the early 1970s was essentially identical to that in comparable cities, but twenty years later, Portlanders of all walks of life were three or four times more likely to be involved in civic life as their counterparts elsewhere in America.

Answer 431

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 432

Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, tells the story of citizen activists in Manhattan who headed off plans to extend Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park.

Answer 432

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 433

people here “trust government because they are government.

Answer 433

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 434

Two things stand out about the Portland experience: first, the skill, persistence, and reach of Portland’s activist community, and second, the evolving capacity of public officials and government to respond and adapt.

Answer 434

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 435

because the city was fairly homogeneous racially and economically, it was easier for many residents to think of themselves as members of one community and to avoid divisions along lines of race, income, and inner-city-versus-suburbs that have hindered efforts to unify other cities.

Answer 435

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 436

you find in Portland “a remarkable number of people who think it’s possible to do things.”

Answer 436

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 437

(During Goldschmidt’s term as mayor, the city established a blanket insurance policy to cover block parties throughout the city so that neighborhood groups would not need to apply for permits or worry about liability.)

Answer 437

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 438

density of neighborhoods close to downtown encourages connections among neighbors, saying, “If you live close to people, you have to know them.”

Answer 438

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 439

identifies communication as an essential contributor both to a sense of community and to community involvement.

Answer 439

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 440

“Communication defines community,”

Answer 440

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 441

how many people were watching TV, distracted by stories and events that had little to do with their own lives or their own community.

Answer 441

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 442

A critical mass of citizens is involved, so involvement becomes the norm here, just as disengagement has become the norm elsewhere. Referring to The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell’s book

Answer 442

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 443

people being successful at it, you have visible proof that it can be done.”

Answer 443

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 444

community commitment.”

Answer 444

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 445

listening to people’s stories was essential.

Answer 445

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 446

the government learned (or learned again) that genuinely responding to citizens’ demands that they be included in the process was the key.

Answer 446

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 447

More grassroots activism has (often through conflict) led to more responsive public institutions, and more responsive institutions have in turn evoked more activism.

Answer 447

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 448

political scientist Jeffrey Berry and his colleagues found in their 1993 study of Portland and three other cities, “increased participation and stronger neighborhood associations tend to reduce the gap between citizens and their government, not increase it.”25

Answer 448

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 449

For people who are less outgoing, community seems closed or actually is closed.

Answer 449

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 450

A small plaque inside City Hall answers the question of how you get to City Hall: “By raising your hand.”

Answer 450

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 451

three different sorts of narratives play roles in building and sustaining connection: “I” stories, “we” stories, and “they” stories.

Answer 451

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 452

Eliciting personal narratives can be an “easy-on ramp” for recruiting or integrating new members into an organization. By revealing vulnerabilities and creating empathy, “I” stories build trust.

Answer 452

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 453

Finding commonalities among “I” stories is a powerful technique. Reframing individual trajectories as a collective tale can create the crosscutting identities that turn bridging distance into bonding ties. We tell our own stories, and through our stories we redefine who “we” are.

Answer 453

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 454

At both Saddleback and All Saints, members of small groups are encouraged to share their “spiritual autobiographies” as a key tool for transcending differences.

Answer 454

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 455

If “I” stories are essential to building new connections, “we” stories are equally valuable in sustaining those connections. Recounting how “we” overcame past obstacles and achieved unexpected successes reinforces shared identity and frames strategic choices for the future.

Answer 455

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 456

Sometimes it is argued that collective identity necessarily implies exclusion, that every “we” requires a “they.”

Answer 456

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 457

Having an enemy can help to create social capital.

Answer 457

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 458

In Bowling Alone, Putnam reported that World War II played an important role in creating the “long civic generation.”

Answer 458

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 459

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, trust among Americans of all races and ethnicities shot upward.12

Answer 459

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 460

Community organizers from Saul Alinsky on the left to Ralph Reed on the right have recognized the usefulness of identifying an enemy. As Reed once noted, “It’s no accident that it’s called ‘Mothers Against Drunk Driving,’ not ‘Mothers for Sober Driving.’”

Answer 460

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 461

Social capitalists cannot shun conflict.

Answer 461

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 462

given the role that “enemies” play in many theoretical accounts of community building, we were surprised to notice that in many of our cases—the Shipyard Project, Do Something, Experience Corps, the Chicago libraries, craigslist, Tupelo—it is virtually impossible to discern any enemy at all against whom the organizers sought to rally support.

Answer 462

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 463

in many of our stories, participants have forged strong bonds of connection without demonizing anyone.

Answer 463

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 464

Real social change takes time—lots of it.

Answer 464

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 465

Max Weber, the distinguished social theorist.

Answer 465

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 466

Social and political change, he explained, requires “a strong and slow boring of hard boards.”

Answer 466

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 467

Successful community builders in our cases, too, recognize that crafting lasting relationships and mutual trust takes time.

Answer 467

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 468

Paula Rais observed, “You need time to meet, to get to know one another and trust each other, to let common issues bubble to the surface.”

Answer 468

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 469

Building social capital is neither all-or-nothing nor once-and-for-all. It is incremental and cumulative.

Answer 469

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 470

Rick Warren has built the Saddleback congregation one family at a time, working each newcomer through a gradual process of affiliation, moving steadily from casual visitor to Crowd (regular attenders) to Congregation (baptized members), to Committed (tithing activists), and finally to Core (those dedicated to ministering to others).

Answer 470

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 471

The path to success through connective strategies can be long. This means it is all the more important to take aim at concrete, discrete, and feasible targets along the way. In the cases above we saw small victories—the

Answer 471

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 472

Each small victory must be seen as a bite-size version of the larger vision.

Answer 472

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 473

social scientists and historians recently have called our attention to “path dependence,” that is, where you can go and how to get there depend on which path brought you here.

Answer 473

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 474

Because building social capital and trust is cumulative, social life is replete with vicious circles. Weak social capital fosters the symptoms of social disintegration, such as crime and poverty, and those symptoms in turn further undermine social connections.

Answer 474

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 475

social capital where it is most needed leads naturally to the strategy, visible in many of our cases, of “recycling” whatever shards of social connectivity are available, that is, reusing existing social networks by directing them to new purposes.

Answer 475

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 476

“All organizing is reorganizing.”

Answer 476

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 477

ideological commitment and objective self-interest are less powerful predictors of who gets involved than are preexisting friendship networks.14

Answer 477

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 478

“Find existing networks that can be recycled” is thus one important lesson for social capitalists.

Answer 478

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 479

Movements that rely on that approach, however, need a complementary strategy for encouraging “walk-ins” and for reaching out to the socially disconnected.

Answer 479

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 480

The path-dependent character of social-capital building means that in many ways success breeds success.

Answer 480

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 481

Trust is a sociological breeder reactor.

Answer 481

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 482

“development without displacement.”

Answer 482

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 483

Tupelo, as we have seen, now grapples with the challenges posed not by poverty but by economic development. When people are no longer poor, the idea of shared fate (and shared solutions) is less persuasive. Mutual dependency is less visible and less urgent.

Answer 483

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 484

A special challenge for social movements is how to sustain momentum through the inevitable periods of leadership transition. This is, of course, a classic organizational dilemma, what Max Weber termed the “routinization of charisma.” One key is to develop grassroots leaders with autonomy—not just a single general and a mass of foot soldiers.

Answer 484

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 485

Part of the challenge comes from organizational fatigue and entropy—the difficulty of maintaining momentum once the excitement of early achievements is past. Part of the challenge comes from expansion and turnover, as people originally fired up by a unique vision are succeeded by people who have joined an ongoing enterprise.

Answer 485

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 486

Creating Common Spaces: Urban Planning, Local Media, and Technology

Answer 486

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 487

one key to creating social capital is to build in redundancy of contact.

Answer 487

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 488

Common spaces for commonplace encounters are prerequisites for common conversations and common debate. Furthermore, networks that intersect and circles that overlap reinforce a sense of reciprocal obligation and extend the boundaries of empathy.

Answer 488

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 489

Sociologists refer to this aspect of social networks as “multistrandedness”: how many different layers of connection do they unite? When you frequently encounter the same person at the market and the ball field and a political rally, your ties with her are multistranded.

Answer 489

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 490

they allow participants to recognize affiliations they share with folks they see every day, opening the door to the conversations that can turn shared interests or common membership into personal connection.

Answer 490

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 491

Urban planning, architecture, and technology can each foster redundancy and multistrandedness by creating opportunities for encounters that knit together existing ties.

Answer 491

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 492

leaders recognized the importance of shared space for building community.

Answer 492

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 493

(designed to foster common conversations and repeated encounters).

Answer 493

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 494

Saving “inefficient” local post offices would have made more sense if their contribution to community building had been part of the cost-benefit equation.

Answer 494

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 495

they provide a common space for common arguments.

Answer 495

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 496

new communications technologies to be most important as support and stimulus for long-standing forms of community, rather than as instigators of radically new “virtual communities”

Answer 496

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 497

Craigslist, too, is both a crossroads and a clearinghouse for a physical community: the greater Bay Area.

Answer 497

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 498

Computer-based technology matters not because it can create some new and separate form of virtual community, but because it can broaden and deepen and strengthen our physical communities.

Answer 498

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 499

Like plazas and parks, local newspapers, and neighborhood libraries, Internet technology could create social spaces within which we see how our numerous networks of interest and interaction overlap and intersect.

Answer 499

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein

Question 500

Over the past generation, America’s communities have undergone profound social and cultural changes, which meant that as the new millennium dawned, we were no longer building the dense webs of encounter and participation so vital to the health of ourselves, our families, and our polities.

Answer 500

Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein