Systematic civic stewardship is an organizing strategy for dramatically increasing our capacity for innovation, collaboration, and goal-alignment within and across localities worldwide.

Systematic Civic Stewardship for societal renewal within and across cities worldwide

Whether by default or by dint of a Higher Power, via both techno-science and world-spanning bureaucracies, human beings have superseded natural evolution as the driving force for designing our world. We are Prometheus unbound.

Yet despite our powers, or by their misuse, we continue to struggle with persistent problems and are not nearly ready for new choices on the horizon, much less able to use our current capabilities to achieve what is possible. We can destroy the world, drift along in a stalemate of unfulfilled potential, or lead an unprecedented renewal. In any case, the choice is ours.   

The human capability that most fundamentally shapes our current and future condition is our capacity for civic stewardship. The evidence of current problems and direction of global trends, however, show that our current governance system is unfit to respond to today's challenges and unready to lead future renewal. Fortunately, there are emerging examples of a new governance paradigm--here called systematic civic stewardship--that dramatically expands our civic capacity. It promotes societal well being by fostering learning, innovation, and collective action within and across cities worldwide. 

There are many instances of inclusive organizing efforts that have produced social innovations for breakthrough results. But these are relatively rare in practice compared to what is required. We must now become much more intentional and systematic about building civic capacity. And like related challenges that manifest at local and global levels--for example, human rights and the environment--renewing civic capacity at scale calls for a social movement led by citizens in neighborhoods and cities worldwide.  

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This passage is from a work in progress: Systematic Civic Stewardship for Societal Renewal: Exploratory Outline of an Emergent Discipline and Proposal for an Action-Learning Initiative.

For a related TED Prize submission, see the Draft proposal for Civic Shift / Boston.

Published works on related topics appear on Bio & Publications page.