Building Commons and Community

Title: Building Commons and Community

Author: Karl Linn

ISBN: 978-0-9766054-7-8

Format: Hardback, 224 pages, 10" x 8.5", 379 color photographs.

Available: Now

Price: $29.95

 

   

Building Commons and Community documents 45 years of the late Karl Linn’s legacy creating neighborhood spaces for communities and by communities. In this richly-illustrated landscape-format hardcover book, Linn presents his philosophies and practical wisdom to help people use the resources they find in their own surroundings to create welcoming shared spaces.

Colorful photo-essay case studies of projects that cross boundaries between professional design and neighborhood activism provide inspiration and guidance for citizens and professionals who wish to collaborate to strengthen communities. Projects include community gardens, playgrounds, parks and other gathering places built on derelict or unused property by the people who use them.

Landscape architect and child psychologist Karl Linn (1923-2005) was a beloved, down-to-earth, visionary leader of grassroots community building, who brought life to economically disenfranchised neighborhoods in cities from Boston to Berkeley. His book documents the creativity and ingenuity of working-class citizens, students and volunteer professionals who transformed derelict vacant lots and drab institutional settings into colorful and lively community commons in Boston, New York, Newark, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Louisville KY, Pittsburgh, Columbus OH, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco and Berkeley.

The book is indexed and offers a foreword by eco-philosopher and author Joanna R. Macy, and an epilogue by environmental and social justice leader Carl Anthony, plus an extensive addendum of resources for creating community commons.

Advance Praise:

“Karl Linn's compassion, humanity and insight into what makes good community design—and what, in fact, makes community itself—is exactly what much of the world needs to develop if we are to evolve beyond our current frightful state of affairs. He saw the need for space and safety, beauty and joy in people's lives—especially the lives of poor children—and he filled it by the truckload. His was a quietly heroic life, lived close to the root of what really matters: an understanding that the happiness and peace we create for others is, delightfully, our own.”
— Alice Walker, author, The Color Purple

“There was only one Karl Linn—a master at using design to create community and empower people.”
— Chester Hartman, founder, Poverty & Race Research Action Council