A review of The Abundant Community

The mantra of the real estate business  is "location, location, location." In this attention-meriting book, the mantra is "local, local, local." John McKnight (professor emeritus at Northwestern University) and Peter Block (partner at Designed Learning in Cincinnati) have both written previously about the nurture of local community. Now they offer a remarkable treatise concerning the crisis of our society and a response to it that summons us back to the neighborhood.

The book's critical edge is its emphasis on "the conversion from citizen to consumer" that has happened in recent times. The antidote that McKnight and Block propose is a reverse process, with consumers retaking their proper roles as citizens.

The terms of the argument are crucial: