As part of its yearlong 50^th anniversary celebration, Strong City Baltimore is publishing a book detailing its program of community organizing for neighborhood change. The volume, titled Building Blocks: Stories of Neighborhood Transformation, will be launched soon at a live-streamed event. Get your copy today! 

“This book is a must-read for anybody who is willing to engage in the long haul of community restoration, instead of hoping for the elusive ‘quick fix.’ It provides a blueprint for the multi-pronged practical, community based steps needed to stabilize and restore ‘middle neighborhoods’ or turn around disinvested communities. Baltimore still has far too many neighborhoods that are at risk or forgotten, and too few successes such as those narrated in this account of how four communities tackled their issues with Strong City’s vigorous community-organizing support.”

— Klaus Philipsen, author of Baltimore: Reinventing an Industrial Legacy City

“It is never been more important than now for Baltimore and other cities across the country to have vital and successful mechanisms of community engagement. Those who wish to build, strengthen and support democratic, accountable, and powerful community organizations need stories of success from which to learn. Too often the stories that are available tell only who was involved and what was accomplished. The stories in Building Blocks, however, take us to the necessary next level; they reveal and delve into the methods of the organizers, the steps and setbacks in the process, the critical characteristics and approaches of those who are catalysts and sponsors. This book not only celebrates decades of success but lays out lessons learned for those who would follow them."

— Joseph B. McNeely, former Executive Director, Central Baltimore Partnership