Cause we all have so much time to read!

I’ve been using the COMM-ORG site for years and their associated listserv is one of the best managed i know. While there certainly are distinctions to be drawn between “community organizing” and “community development” there is an awful lot of overlap of the two fields. It is a US-based site and the context for most of the essays is the US. Nonetheless, there is much of relevance to our work in Canada. COMM-ORG includes a page of essays (organized by year and going back to 1995 – pretty impressive). The most recent is “Organizing in the Obama Years: A Progressive Moment or a New Progressive Era?” by Peter Dreier; a timely piece that i find illuminates much of what has gone on south fo the border this past few years. And some of the essays i’ve used over the years include:

• Communities Engaged in Resisting Violence by Ann Russo & Melissa Spatz
• Concepts for Revisioning Power for Justice, Equality and Peace by Valerie Miller, et al
• There is Power in Coalition: A Framework for Analysing the Practice of Union-Community Coalitions by Amanda Tattersall

There is also a page of syllabi on a tantalizing range of subjects including community development, community infrastructure, community organizing and social work, and much more.