Before You Act: The Importance of Alignment
(Source: Unsplash/Victor Loh.)
At Strong Town’s 2023 National Gathering, those who attended the keynote speech were fortunate to hear from author, neighborhood revivalist, and real estate developer Majora Carter. Listening to her share about growing up in the South Bronx, leaving for college, coming home, and eventually leading several projects to revitalize her neighborhood left me inspired, but also a little intimidated. Was this the gold standard of what it meant to be a local advocate: committing to one neighborhood or city for decades, opening businesses, establishing several nonprofits, and revitalizing parks?
On the train ride that weekend to see my mom, I tuned in to this feeling of intimidation and its accompanying anxiety, curious to see what insights might exist beyond those uncomfortable feelings. Watching the trees fly by my window, it eventually became clear to me that, while Ms. Carter embodies so much of what I admire and so much of what it means to be a good neighborhood steward, I don’t think I could be her. I realized that city stewardship would look different for me, at least at this time in my life, in the particular city I live in (i.e., Waco, Texas).
To put it bluntly: I know my city has a lot of problems, but I’m not a fixer.
The Changemakers Ecosystem
Maybe not being a fixer makes me lazy or easily discouraged. Maybe it makes me flaky and non-committal. Or maybe it just makes me different; maybe I fill a different role in the “changemaker’s ecosystem.” I came up with this phrase as a way of describing the fact that meaningful change in our communities requires a diverse group of uniquely skilled individuals to come together around a shared goal. We need people who are good at keeping notes at meetings, people who love public speaking, people who can run numbers and interpret complex academic studies, people who are good at social media, and so on.
We can’t all be all of these things, and half the battle to taking meaningful action in your city is knowing which role you fill. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are you great at, what should you leave to someone else? It can be uncomfortable to realize that one role doesn’t fit me as well as another, that there’s a gap between the ideal “me” in my head and the reality of who I actually am with my limits and weaknesses. We all want to be heroes, but maybe heroism doesn’t look the same for all of us. And that’s okay, because if we’re all trying to be heroes in the same kind of way, maybe there’s a lot that won’t get done.
So how do you know which role is yours to fill?
Take the Time To Find Alignment
Sometimes, as people who love their towns and neighborhoods, it’s easy to get excited (or depressed) about all the problems that need fixing. It’s also easy to get overwhelmed, thinking we have to become experts at everything. If we’re not intentional, we can suddenly find ourselves spread in too many directions at once or, worse, paralyzed by the overload of tasks.
One thing I’m learning from interviewing active citizens on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast is the value of alignment—of knowing what kinds of projects truly align with your strengths, values, and interests and being content to focus on those. Here are three practical questions to help you identify what alignment might look like for you:
1. Which activities generate their own energy, and which feel like a chore?
For me, reading about laws, economic policy, or political history related to cities is interesting and valuable, but I have the hardest time in the world remembering what I’ve learned. I desperately wish I was the kind of person who can rattle off historical facts and economic data at the drop of a hat. But despite how hard I try, I cannot for the life of me pay attention long enough or remember enough of what I’ve learned to really excel in this space. So after years of trying, I’ve accepted that I’m probably not cut out to be a policy wonk.
2. Where have you excelled in the past?
Looking at your life holistically: look for patterns that reveal what you might be good at, what you find yourself doing over and over again. For me, writing has been an ever-present activity since I was a little girl, so it’s no surprise that I find myself writing about cities on a weekly basis. I’m also unafraid of public speaking or of explaining cities in interesting ways to people who are curious. This isn’t a surprise: since second grade, I thought I would be a teacher. So perhaps education and writing are strong points for me.
3. Which topics keep your interest for a long time?
When it comes to thinking about cities, I find myself jazzed up about mixed-modal transit, safe streets, and zoning reform. Sometimes I feel guilty because I think I should also care about more things like the way trees are planted in cities (this gets my husband riled up) or improving local food supply. I 100% understand why these issues matter and rationally, I do care about them, but they don’t keep me up at night the way unsafe pedestrian crossings or land-wasting parking lots do. And that’s okay. Honestly, it’s probably a grace that you can’t care equally about every problem, otherwise you just might go crazy. Be humble enough to accept your limits and home in on the issues that light up your world.
These are just three steps; I’m sure there are more. But hopefully these can help you identify where in the changemakers ecosystem you fit. Personally, it’s been a great relief to realize that I could let go of the pressure to be a fixer. I’m probably not going to be the one to fix Waco. But I am great at organizing, educating, and bringing people together, so I’m learning to lean more into those strengths and imagine how they might inform the kind of meaningful action I take. It’s taken the pressure off and freed up a lot of valuable energy to think about what I can offer rather than what I can’t.
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A graduate of The King's College and former journalist, Tiffany Owens Reed is a New Yorker at heart, currently living in Texas. In addition to writing for Strong Towns and freelancing as a project manager, she reads, writes, and curates content for Cities Decoded, an educational platform designed to help ordinary people understand cities. Explore free resources here and follow her on Instagram @citiesdecoded.