One of my favorite stories about community development was told to me by Jim Rouse and his colleagues about what happened at the charrette sponsored by the Rouse Company to design the planned city of Columbia, Maryland.
The president of Rouse had told Jim that this was to be business-like and they did not want any of Jim’s “touchy feely” stuff. So after the meetings grinded on with experts for a few days, the president went to Jim and told him things were not going well, could he start them over again with his “touchy feely” stuff? So Jim opened the next session and explained the reason that they were there was to ask and answer the question “How would we build a community where people were free to love one another?”
