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Resurrecting the Club Directory

Club Directories used to be a normal part of civic life. Thanks to some fab partners at the City of Norwalk, I was able to bring this back for my new hometown.

Participatory civic design: You can do it, too!

The folks behind the Manresa Island project are holding public feedback sessions as they finalize their master plan for the site.

I met some real-life Wombles!

I stumbled upon a volunteer trash pickup crew in London—and learned about the mystical cartoon critters their group is named after.

Bike Party

I got roped into hosting a weekly social bike ride every Friday throughout the summer here in Norwalk. I'm so glad I did.

New Work City

I led the charge to build Manhattan's first coworking space—and had a damn good time doing it.

We can't always self-help our way to the answers we need

I love the self-help section. (Your bookstore might call it personal growth now.) It's the first place I head to when I get to the bookstore. The self-help section in any bookstore is packed to the gills with things you can do, by yourself, to improve your life.

Enough Already

I'm tired of having my attention manipulated. Of being robbed of my focus, of being constantly amused and entertained. I'm tired of my natural curiosity being hijacked by those who know they can exploit it to get me to click something, read something, scroll something, extend

Board Game Night: Harder to win than you'd think

I thew a "super casual board game night"—find out what I learned.

Befriend the barista: establish your local network of gathering places

As a curious explorer and potential future community leader, one of your first tasks is to scout your neighborhood.

New to Town Meetup - February 2025

Moving to Norwalk with my wife gave me a perfect chance to try an idea I'd been nurturing for many years: the New to Town Meetup.

We need a Big Hairy Ambitious Goal

We desperately need a Big Hairy Ambitious Goal to aim for when it comes to reversing the trend of growing social isolation. So long as that trend continues downward unabated, bad things are going to keep getting worse. More depression, more early mortality, more toxicity, more decline in healthy democracy.

Are you planning to doomscroll the next four years?

The algorithms will be glad to feed you 1,461 days of outrage. But they’ll only take the attention you let them have.

How I found 14 gathering places in Norwalk as a total newcomer

Identifying good spots in my future new hometown was going to be a priority for me. Here's how we started from scratch, in a town we'd never been to before, and mapped out the potential gathering spaces.

The New to Town Meetup

The premise is dead simple: are you new to to town? Or, at least, do you feel new to town? Meet some of your neighbors and learn what's what at this free event, which happens to be hosted by the coolest cafe-slash-artisanal-shop-slash-gathering-space in town.