Big Ideas, Small Places

nyc taxi

There are certain things that still feel instinctively right to me in New York.

Riding the subway.

Eating pizza while standing.

Getting coffee from a street cart.

Ducking into the Plaza to use the bathroom. The walk across Central Park can be daunting.

Even spotting the occasional celebrity walking a dog like they're just another New Yorker can feel a little "wowza" and "uh huh, whatever" at the same time.

For twelve years, this was simply life.

Coming back for the She Should Run Local Leader Lab National Summit felt familiar. Comforting, even.

What surprised me wasn't New York.

It was the conversation.

I spent two days with women from nearly every corner of the country talking about civic literacy, neighborhood leadership, local voter engagement, and strengthening democracy.

It all felt appropriately New York. Big ideas. Big dreams. Big ambition.

New York has always struck me as wonderfully Capricornian that way.

And yet, the more we talked, the more everything kept returning to something remarkably small.

Neighborhoods.

Town Halls

Community centers.

Local activation.

The panelists spoke about elections.

The practitioners spoke about relationships.

women in conference

Somewhere between the two, it occurred to me: We often think systems change happens at the scale of cities, states, and nations.

The summit reminded me that it begins in neighborhoods.

In libraries.

In gardens.

On front porches.

In conversations.

Around dinner tables.

And, of course, at the polls.

The city may make the headlines. Neighborhoods make the city.

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Further Watching: She Should Run June Summit (YouTube)