I really enjoy the way this guy works. His writing is inspired and apparently from watching this video, his speaking is as well.

We need more analytical thinkers like him around.

After reading and re reading the first chapters of the book I finally decided to scrap the direction and start over. It feels too condescending and self absorbed and needs to be of more value to the reader. I was hoping to be able to make the case for cities and their communities by touting their technical superiority (that sentence came out as a mouthful) But instead I am realizing its best to have more fun with it. That and I finally convinced Jessie (my super cool wife) to write it with me. She and I work very well together but never really dug into the book the first time around.

I recently read Seth Godin’s new book Tribes and was inspired by the way it was written. Instead of the usual chapters lined up with the standard story line succession it was a series of short blurbs about different topics that all came together to make one big story. I like that idea.

But there is one thing that I do not want to change about the book. We still need you to help out in making it come to life. And it in that spirit that I am going to ask your help on picking the topics…

We are thinking of the new concept as a inspiration to make your community better. Giving both examples of people who have built strong communities and ideas and tools for building your own. We want to inspire tighter stronger communities to form around what they feel is right.

It’s a good time in our country, the landscape is starting to be truly shaped from the ground up and there is no better time to step up and build a strong community.

But here is where you come in, we need some examples of people who stepped up and built a community. People who stood for something and brought in others to stand with them, or people who just wanted to have some friends.

Got any good stories for us? Post em here and we will fit them into the book. And don’t worry about having all the details or even making it perfect. Even if you just have an idea that you think needs to be written about. Lets start to flush out some ideas and talk about how to make the world a better place.

Levi

My mornings are very predictable. At six my phone starts its melodic harp sound telling me its time to get up. It pops up with a box that says “Take today and run with it”. I think I thought when I set it up that reading something inspirational would help me be ready to take on the day… But, yeah it pretty much just annoys me at six in the morning. A reminder that later in the day I have more energy than I do this early. But still I wake up and slowly make my way down stairs, turn on the hot water and stare at it while it gets ready to whistle and tell me that it’s now way too hot to drink and I need to wait for it to now cool down again.

I have started drinking irish breakfst tea in the morning instead of coffee. For some reason tea just seems better to me this early. Once my tea is done and firmly in hand I make my way over to the couch where I start working on the Book. I usually sit down and get a good 10 minutes of productivity in right off the bat. But the thing about productivity is that it starts to lead to topics that need research and of coarse I am on my computer anyway so I can hop over and do a little research right here. How perfect is that right? I mean Wikipedia is just a few clicks away and its so easy to find everything about anything…Here is the problem, and its the same every time, I start researching a bit about car sharing or African cultures and boom….30 or 40 minutes has past and I have written exactly nothing.

This post is no different its 6:52 AM meaning that I have been up for 52 minutes. I have my cup of irish breakfast tea and my laptop….And yeah somehow my “research” landed me here at the LJ Urban site where I started writing this blog post, instead of writing on the book. It’s always the same, every time.

I have to go write more. And maybe turn off my internet connection while I am at it.

Levi

I get up every morning to write before the rest of my family to write some on my book. I find that mornings are my most creative times of day. But lately I am running into a wall and I want to see if you can help out.

I need some stories and ideas to help make the points in the book really stick. You read the first few stabs of the first chapter so you most likely have an idea where I am going with the concept…. so?  any thing come to mind that I am missing or need to add?

Anything would help.

Also I found a really cool book about writing that I think everyone should read. It’s called Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott and its the best writing book I have found yet.

Levi

I have to keep saying this in case there is anyone out there that would think that I am posting a finished work here. The things I am posting from the ongoing book project are raw and totally unedited. They are not in any way finished or even close to being grammatically correct. I put them here to get your take on them. Many of you emailed me about the first stab and your comments helped a ton. Thanks so much and keep it up. After reading everything you all had to say I rewrote the opening and think I may have it better now. This is not the whole chapter but rather the opening only. I am still working out how to transition to some of the other points I made in my last go round.

Tell me what you think about it this time…

Chapter 1
Time for a Revolution

Much has been written on the topic of greening America and the need to rethink our way of life in a more sustainable less wasteful manner. We are beginning to understand change is needed and that we are going to be the generation to do it. Much needs to be done on many levels but there is one area of particular interest to me that gets far to little air time. Simply put, suburban life is unsustainable. If everyone on earth were to live in a home like the typical American we would consume 8 earths worth of resources. The system is broken and we need a better way. We need to be the ones who stand up and model not only for future generations here but also for other developing nations the right way to live. Clearly we need to redefine cities and the way we live. The problem is we are just beginning to work on it. I recently heard William McDonough the author of Cradle to Cradle speak and he said this in regards to our current direction: “If you are trying to get from Mexico to Canada and heading South, just slowing down the car will never get you there, you have to stop the car turn it around and start driving North.” [Read more →]

As I have been working on the book I have begun to hate the word “Community” Sort of like when you say the same thing over and over it begins to sound less and less like a word and more like a bunch of weird sounds mashed together….”Rural” is another one that sounds funny to me. “Community” has to many meanings and not enough meat on any of them. I want another word to use something more “connecting people” related but less political sounding than “grass roots” or “camaraderie”…Despite this and other sticky particulars in the process so far I am really enjoying this. I am learning more about myself and my work ethic (or lack thereof) than any other project I have attempted. I think it’s because the process has such a defined start and end that it stands out from the other things I have done in my life as something that I really want to go all the way on.

Early on in our wonderful marriage Jessie and I started a coffee shop in Midtown (Izzador’s Coffee and Tea). The process was similar in that it had a long lead up time and lots of planning and hard work went into getting things just right. But once opened there was no putting it past you, we were now both married to each other and the coffee shop. I often worked from 5 am to very late in the evening. The book seems to be different because once its done its done. Yeah there is promoting it and getting it out there more but you have a finished product in your hand to show for all the hard work. Plus I get to do another project with my wife which is the best part of all this.

But I don’t want to romanticize the process so early on, I am fully aware that this like many other things I have taken on in my life (I sort of gravitate to the hard stuff) will take everything in me to make it happen. And that is OK with me. Because what good would life be without the challenges that help you grow..

I do think it would be nice to talk with someone out there who has done this before…Anyone write a book that wants to tell me about their experience? Email me. I would love to hear what you have been through.

Levi

As I have been working on the book I have been observing spaces and the way we interact in them.  It’s interesting to me to watch people at a coffee shop. Once you enter, things change. It’s like we all have adopted a new reality of how to interact in this place and it’s understood. I am looking for a word to describe what happens to people but can’t find one yet. What they do is start to take walls down. Walls that normally would not allow them to talk with people are gone and there is almost a mini community that is created. We all share the same space for a while and that brings us together. But it wasn’t always that way. Less than 10 years ago we did not have the same category of place in our every day lives. Yeah there were barber shops and morning breakfast joints but in my experience they were more like clubs where you had to belong and then you were welcome to kick back and take off your guard.

I see cities evolving into places where we always are at the “coffee shop”, no matter if we are on the street or in the park we will begin to understand more places in our lives as safe places to take down our guard and make a new friend. Consider this bookshelf in Bonn, Germany (pictured above). In order for this to work there had to be adopted a new set of unspoken rules of conduct to make this work right. What I wonder is what it takes to take a place and put a new social reality in place.

Levi

Ok. This happened really fast. It’s amazing when you have something waiting to come out of you how easy it is. I am putting this up here in its raw form. I only skimmed through it to look for typos and it will be edited many times before making it into the book but I want to get your take on it. There were many kind comments on the post where I talked about this project and I thank you for those. I really appreciate all the support. Now comes the work. (if you are up for it) Let me know what you think of the first chapter.  And please do me a favor and don’t go easy on me – rip it apart. The more you tell me about the problems the better the final product will be.

Book Title (to be determined)

How people fed up with the myth of the suburban dream are finding true community in the heart of the city

By Levi Benkert

Chapter 1

You may argue that you live in an age where true tragedy is scarce and the place you live represents peace, harmony and a largely successful pursuit of happiness. You may feel that in a country such as ours (America) which has largely eradicated racial segregation and successfully built a large middle class our battles are few and even worse only personal. You may even feel as so many do that the fate of each individual rests squarely in his own hands, and that poverty in this place is a choice and not a chance. You may feel that we live in a time and place which is beyond the injustice that people like Dr Martin Luther or Gandhi fought to hard to defeat and that the injustice that these and so many others fought was destroyed and today we enjoy a time with so many battles won behind us that we can look forward to very little turmoil ahead.

But I see things a different way. I see another kind of injustice that exists that very well may be the worst kind. I see instead of blatant abuse or corruption, massive complacency and cancerous self absorption. I see a society of people who not only have bought the lie but feel that they purchased something they want and are willing to defend.  People who have come to believe that the Suburban American dream of a two car garage in a cul-de-sac surrounded by thousands of homes just the same miles from work and anything other than homes and the occasional park is worth fighting for. [Read more →]

I got up early this morning to write and the chapter I am working on is about community and the different ways we all engage with it in our lives. I looked up the word and found a definition I like.

Community; a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

I like the word interdependent.

Levi

I was not sure if I wanted to get on the blog here and start talking about this project until I was further along but I am beginning to think that the benefits of including everyone in the process outweigh the risk of humiliation if this thing were never to get published.

Its a tough thing writing a book and even tougher for someone like me with bad grammar and writing skills (come on, don’t even try and pretend you didn’t notice). But I feel that I have something that needs to be said, and there isn’t any way something like bad spelling is getting in my way. There are plenty of good editors out there who I am sure would agree with my beliefs and want to edit my book for me. (I hope)

I want to write about community, about the kind I think we could have if we tried and what its going to take to get us there. I have seen so many faceless sprawling ticky tacky rows of boxes we are trying to pass off as places to live and have witnessed degrading quality of life and community that I feel something needs to be done and I choose to stand up as someone who is willing to try to make a difference. I know I am far from perfect and can only hope affect change in a few lives but if by writing what I believe I am able to help just a few more people build lives for themselves that are richer and more fulfilling and they in turn can contribute to better places for more people to live. Then I will stand up and take that challenge. Bad spelling and all, I am going to take on the goal of describing a better way to live. [Read more →]