Going Public — This Week's Insights
“Pick your interest or public passion. Evaluate the ways the market culture and bureaucratic culture have performed. And then just try to convince me that there is not a role for crafty and capable leaders, well organized and comfortable with power, rooted in a third sector that is working at its relational best.”
- Mike Gecan, Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to to Citizen Action, page 173
Some of the policy references in this chapter reflect the circumstances of the early twenty-first century, and perhaps we would think differently about these questions today. But Gecan’s point in this chapter is not the specific policies that he discusses, but rather that, whatever the particular circumstances of the moment, a well-organized relationally based group of leaders and organizers has a great deal to contribute to civic problem-solving, in ways that market and bureaucracy cannot.
Reading what he says about the need for innovative solutions in housing, the ongoing work in Brooklyn of the Nehemiah Homes project is obviously top of mind. If we could do such a project in Jersey City, it would do so much to create the kind of strong community for ordinary people for which EBC has been working for in Brooklyn for over forty years. This is part of what we hoped for ten years ago when we worked to make sure that Bayfront would be at least 35% affordable. It is what we still hope to do with our ongoing work on affordable housing.
This is part of what our April 2026 action was about: Bishop Rodriguez talked about how Bayfront is sacred ground, and the city must keep its promises on affordable housing. The predecessor organization of Jersey City Together, Interfaith Community Organization, started working on building affordable housing back in the 1980s. The city offered the organization chromium contaminated ground, and the leaders worked for decades to get that ground cleaned up. Rev. Willard Ashley told the story of this work at our action.
As Gecan closes out the book I'm struck by the timeline that has unfolded it since he wrote the book in 2002. It's not just all the things we can read about in the newspapers, though that's notable (and, I'd add, overwhelming as I reflect on it).
No, what I reflect on is my own personal change. I got married in 2005 and then had kids in 2009 and 2011. So my timeline - and I'm sure many others - anchors around those major personal moments, and how priorities shifted because of it.
In 2005, my husband and I needed a place to root down and think about our shared future; that place was Jersey City. In 2009, my first child was born and then 13 months later, my second child. Jersey City has been, and continues to be, our home for countless reasons that relate primarily to our children. Everything orients around self-interest.
Our self-interest will orient us to where we are, and want to be, relationally. We have agency as civic actors. Who we want to be, where we want to venture, and, importantly, the impact we want to to impart, is something we can help shape.
Go for it. You'll be surprised where you may end up!
This Week's Action
