[Dialogue] Minneapolis 50th Celebration & What about the 5th City Model Didn't Work Out?

[James Wiegel]

Sounds like a good event you all had in Minnesota.  I down loaded and read the congressional testimony on the airplane (returning from a 3 day training for 22 people connected with Community Action Agencies across Missouri)

Also, on the plane, started reading Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggeman.

I just get pulled in by the presuppositions and background thinking behind 5th city and the subsequent refinements out of human development projects and replication by ICA's -- I have not read the Dyson's book on Neighborhood Caretakers for a good while, but I remember it fondly myself.  Additionally, as ICA in Phoenix in the 90's we spent several years in research and development to update and refine that work through several grants and program opportunities.  

Thing is, taking that thinking and turning it into some sort of innovation that took hold and grew or spread I just don't see how that has happened.  I don't see where this approach has been put into concrete form that flourished, and continued to grow and spread.  Now, maybe Betty, maybe Bill Schlessinger can point to their work as examples and perhaps there are others as well . . .  however, as I remember, this idea of 5th city was going to be some sort of a social innovation, something that would be picked up and spread as "the way we do things"

Just makes me think, 

Jim Wiegel



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--- On Sat, 6/16/12, Steve Har <stevehar11201 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Steve Har <stevehar11201 at gmail.com>
Subject: Minneapolis 50th Celebration & What about the 5th City Model Didn't Work Out?
To: "dialogue at wedgeblade.net" <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Cc: "James Wiegel" <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>, "JOHN L. EPPS" <jlepps at pc.jaring.my>
Date: Saturday, June 16, 2012, 3:52 PM

Jim and John re 5th City. 

Left wondering what you [or Clint Eastwood] think didn't work out
We didn't directly address your quote [quote below] as an interesting opening for inquiry: What is the future value of the 5th City Model.

Sounds like the Buddhist question: What is the value of a dead cat?

We talked about [in my take]

"Wiegel's Window" -that window on the past/future you opened. Around the question what, if anything in the Vol 2 Bending History that was created in the 20th C has value in the 21st Century; what mission, what community, what enhanced capacity got created that might be in use in 2025. There must be 100's of gems in the new Archives. Which ones are Gems?

Finding Gems for the Future
1st you have to dust off the 20th C dust, then there might be a little gem for the future there. Seems like you have to strip off the nostalgia, the 20th C lingo, recognize real failure and real success before you can spot a "Gem". 

Is 5th City a Gem? Why?
5th City sure was a good dream and innovation.  Does it have any Gem quality value now?

Geography 1st like the 5th City model or Sociality and client centered consulting 1st?
Betty Dyson who at 88 was the oldest person at the celebration talked about being in Iran as a missionary, teaching Academy and more recently doing a community meeting in an Urban High Rise in St.Paul using the 5th city idea. On the way home she talked about starting work with a context and a location, then identify the social processes and pressure points. I'd never thought of that before: geography 1st then social process. 

Mathews's 1st paragraph in the Congressional presentation said get the geography grid done THEN the issues other wise you drown in issues and abstractions. After you have a grid then you get the issues especially the 600 superficial ones that point in the direction of real system level contradictions. 

Re-reading Alasdir MacIntyrre After Virtue. We all live "After Virtue" but not after pretense. 
His solutions: Benedictine community, Trotsky permanent revolution or Homeric ie. mythic and personal stories. Lately he seems to say the only solution to current gridlock is local community reformulation. 

Interesting he seems to land at the same place Mathews does with the 5th City Model. 
Also seems to address the question of whom you facilitate without a local community
-99% OWS people or
-1% people that can afford paid consulting
10,000 disconnected issues

No answer to your implied question about the future value of 5th City, but some interesting questions. A little bit of a ramble after an exciting day with about 25 Mpls people celebrating ICA's 50th.

Do you subscribe to Betty's take on things: geography 1st, sociality 2nd or suffer the confusion of 10,000 things?

Steve

Wiegel's Quote:
The Fifth City model, the neighborhood experiment was a prototype innovation, launched by the Ecumenical Institute in response to mid twentieth century conditions.  Clint Eastwood said, "The old dreams were good dreams.  They didn't work out, but I am glad I had them."

Message from:  Steve's iPad on the St Croix River
Skype:  consultharrington
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