BOOK REVIEW

Wendy Sarkissian, Dianna Hurford, ChristineWenman: Creative Community Planning:Transformative Engagement Methods for Workingat the Edge

Earthscan, 2010, 310 pp., $ 29.10 (paperback)

Nicolae Cuta

Published online: 7 September 2011

� International Society for Third-Sector Research and The John’s Hopkins University 2011

This book is more than a pleading for the use of creative methods in community

planning; it provides as well a priceless toolbox for the practitioners in the field of

community development, especially for the ones working in the margins or

borderlands of communities, in cross-cultural context. One of the authors, Wendy

Sarkissian, has pioneered innovative planning and development approaches in a

variety of contexts. Dianna Hurford, the other author, has worked as consultant and

research coordinator in the field of affordable housing and homelessness. The

contributor, Christine Wenman, is a community and natural resource planner.

In Creative Community Planning: Transformative Engagement Methods forWorking at the Edge, the authors are approaching both meanings of ‘working at the

edge’, the physical one (working in borderlands, community margins) and the

methodological one as well (using creative, innovative, unconventional community

planning methods). Though the two meanings are different, they are linked in this

book by the hypothesis that in borderlands or community margins—that are

regularly ‘‘places of crossing over and transition, as well as spaces of separation and

alienation’’ (p. 8)—the traditional and prescribed ways of working with commu-

nities do not work and new creative methods are needed. In this respect, the authors

collected from different practitioners’ stories diverse methods for working at the

edge of creative community engagement. These methods are in different stages of

application (some of them are practiced for decades, others are still in the

experimental stages), but all of them are ‘‘illuminating creativity’s essential role in

bridging conflict, changing the flavor of community discussions, opening partic-

ipants to new possibilities and forming lasting partnerships to transform our

communities and our future’’ (p. 5). The mix of methods presented are connecting

Book Review Editor: Silvia Ferreira.

N. Cuta (&)

CRONO - Resources Center for Nonprofits from Oltenia, Str. Vasile Alecsandri, Nr. 162,

200462 Craiova, Romania

e-mail: nicucuta@gmail.com

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DOI 10.1007/s11266-011-9216-2

the tough minded (based on facts and experimentation) and tender minded (based on

beliefs and intuition) to ‘‘build a continuous communication and interaction among

citizens and experts and a knowledge generated and tested in public contexts where

stories have standing alongside scientific models and statistics’’ (p. 7).

These methods are presented by the means of interviews with their creators (Part

2–5) and/or described in detail in Gilt-edged Resources chapter. As an example,

these methods include heartstorming, an original approach to community visioning

practice that is a variation of guided imagery or creative visualization. This method

consists in taking a group on an imaginary passage into the future based on a script

that allows people to experience, feel and see vividly and remember clearly (p. 57).

The ‘‘children’s party’’ (pp. 69–86) consists in creating an unconventional

framework for a planning team that will give permission to the team members to

think beyond accepted and inherent paradigms and to think creatively and laterally

about their work. Engagement with children is based on the fact that children and

youngsters have the ability to tap into creativity and dream about the future without

many of the inhibition adults often have. At Gift-edge Resources chapter two

methods appropriate for this target group are described: Barefoot Mapping, that

enables children and youngsters to articulate and record their views about desirable

and undesirable features of their neighborhood, and A week with a camera, a

wonderful tool for understanding what children value in their neighborhoods.

Finally, in ‘‘processes using embodiment’’, people can move around in space to

represent their views. The example described at Gilt-edged Resources is the

‘‘Embodied Affinity Diagram’’ (p. 209). This method consists in silent brainstorm-

ing and then sorting issues/lessons on individual notes that are tied to balloons.

Though all of these methods were tested in community margins/edges, the

authors are providing some strong reasons for practitioners to try to apply creative

methods in entire communities as well. Nowadays, they argue, not only the margins

of our communities are changing (though there the speed of change is higher) but all

‘‘our habits, our work, our homes and our social circles change’’ (p. 4). Besides,

rational thinking in which traditional community planning is based on ‘‘does not

suffice to solve the problems of our social life’’ (p. 49). As the authors claim, ‘‘the

rational is only one aspect of all the possibilities of the human—useful when dealing

with the known and its conventions. It’s less effective when we are striving to create

something new’’ (p. 70).

And last but not the least, the authors are challenging the community planning

professionals reading this book to use creative methods to align their personal,

professional, creative and rational selves as these are usually split by the recognized

good professional practice that their reputation is based on.

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