Reweaving the Social Fabric

Abstract

More than 50 years ago, Saul Alinsky founded the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), now the center of a national network of broad-based, multiethnic, interfaith organizations in primarily poor and moderate income communities. These organizations are renewing their local democracies: fostering the competence and confidence of ordinary citizens so that they can reorganize the relationships of power and politics and restructure the physical and civic infrastructure of their communities. The IAF approach to institutional change recognizes that problems such as poverty and unemployment are not simply matters of income. They are a crushing burden on the soul, and people who suffer under their weight often view themselves as incapable of participating in the civic culture and political community. This sense of self makes broad-based institutions extraordinarily difficult to create. But no transformation of the human spirit can proceed without the development of practical wisdom and meaningful collective action t...