The New Barn-Raising: Sustaining community and civic assets in Minneapolis–St. Paul, Detroit and Baltimore

This account distils the key messages from a free online toolkit, The New Barn-Raising, published in May 2014. The toolkit draws on the author’s research in three US cities — specifically Baltimore, Minneapolis–St. Paul and Detroit. The focus of the research was ways to sustain community and civic assets that have long received a great deal of financial support from government — notably parks, libraries, recreation centres, senior centres, theatres, art galleries, and museums. The paper looks at the raising of three things — awareness, money and (volunteer) help. On awareness, the assertion is that asset support groups can best make the case for assets continuously and collectively rather than simply pursuing 11th-hour protests against cuts. The asset offer should also be marketed to the public. On money, there are many tax mechanisms available to US local government/voters to support assets, but there are benefits for assets of support also coming from communities, business and charitable foundations. Such partnerships can bring increased awareness, innovation and governance. On help, there are some possibilities to fill jobs that have had their funding cut, but there are various limits on what volunteers can do. Volunteers can supplement but not supplant professional staff.