Amid election deniers and political polarization, it's easy to overlook the times when democracy is actually working. We do that this week in a hopeful conversation about resident-centered government. Elected officials and administrative staff like city planners often have the best intentions when it comes to development and redevelopment, but political and professional incentives push them to pursue projects that lure in outsiders rather than serving people who live in their communities.
Our guest this week is Michelle Wilde Anderson, a professor of property, local government, and environmental justice at Stanford Law School and the author of The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America. The book tells the stories of revitalization efforts in Stockton, California, Josephine, Oregon, Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Detroit, Michigan. In each instance, residents organized to fix small problems that turned into large-scale change. It's a model that anyone can replicate and our democracy will be stronger for it.
The Fight to Save the Town by Michelle Wilde Anderson
Can pranksters save democracy?
Public schools, not government schools
Reforming criminal justice from the inside out
Laboratories of restricting democracy
Danielle Allen on achieving democracy's ideals
Reimagining citizenship in a consumer world
Understanding — and addressing — domestic terrorism
Anne Applebaum on why democracy is not inevitable
The long road to a multiracial democracy
A path forward for social media and democracy
Will Alexei Navalny make Russia more democratic?
Direct democracy's dark side
Check out our partners in The Democracy Group
Extreme maps, extreme politics
American democracy's violent disruption
What neoliberalism left behind [rebroadcast]
How conspiracies are damaging democracy [rebroadcast]
Did democracy work in 2020?
The people want pot
What really motivates Trump supporters
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