Getting Started
A few weeks, Gretchen and I invited our mayor, Letty Hardi, to speak to the residents of our condo building.
Unless you live in Falls Church VA, the specifics of what happened that evening shouldn’t be of much interest you.
But, if you read on, you just might see what I have in mind when I talk about peacebuilding that starts at home.
And you just might see something that you can do in your own home town—a point that I will come back to at the end, because what Letty and her friends (now including us) have done in what we foncly call “the little city”ppppppp can be adapted for use just about anywhere.
Falls Church Moves Forward
First, though, trust me. You need to learn just a little bit about Falls Church and its remarkable mayor.
As regular readers know, we moved into a new condo complex last summer. Although we only moved eight blocks and didn’t even have to change our zip code, we did move into the City of Falls Church.
At 2.2 square miles, it is the smallest autonomous jurisdiction in Virginia. Even though we only have about 15,000 residents, the city government is responsible for most local services, including the school system, zoning, the library, urban planning, parks and recreation, and even our stellar farmers market which takes place in the city hall parking lot every Saturday.
Although that is not why we moved here, Falls Church has become a model of what a small city can be like at least as far as a peacebuilder is concerned.
It hasn’t always been that way. We are in the South, so Falls Church has a segregated past whose impact can still be seen in everything from residential patterns to housing prices.
More important today is a series remarkable turnarounds it has made in its nearly eighty years as an autonomous city.
The most recent one began when Letty and others in her generation got involved in civic life in the early 2010s. There were some specific issues that convinced them that they had to do something. A failing water system. An aging high school that had to be replaced (the building we live in sits on the old school’s site and our patio overlooks the new one), affordable housing, the environment, and the triple banes of much of suburban life—traffic, commuting, and parking.
To make a long and, for most readers, not very relevant story short, the city government is now filled with people like Letty who are putting in place all sorts of interesting initiatives, ranging from alternatives to leaf raking to a general plan to expand the city not by annexing new territory but by building a lot of mixed use, multiple family communities like ours that will turn Falls Church into a walkable, self-contained, welcoming Little City.
I could go on and on with the details that would undoubtedly bore you—though you can come visit and stay in the lovely new hotel that was built next door to us that sits where the old high school’s athletic fields used to be.
But that’s not the point.
All of this became possible because Letty and her friends bit the clichéd bullet and got involved. She was elected to the City Council a decade ago. A bunch of her friends ran for office, too. Others joined local commissions, only some of which are organized by the city council.
Then, during the pandemic, she and a number of her friends (including our friend Pete Davis, co-producer of Join or Die) began meeting in their collective driveways (remember social distancing?) and came up with the idea of Falls Church Forward.
In fact, when we moved into the city (and Pete had already moved to Baltimore), he told us about Falls Church Forward. So, we went to its annual potluck, met Letty and a couple of other city leaders, and got involved ourselves now serving as its ambassadors to the complex that we live in (hence the gathering).
We only moved a few blocks. In fact, oud old house was closer to the farmers market than our condo is. But we have come to feel the vibes of living in the little city with its burgeoning culture of engagement. It isn’t just us. We discovered at our evening with Letty that a couple of our new neighbors had attended the Civics Boot Camp that Falls Church Forward had organized at the new high school. There is real excitement about the complex being built next door to ours (actually not in the city of Falls Church) and the one planned across the street, which is in the city.
People are talking about how pedestrian access to the Metro will change, what will happen to Lazy Mike’s Deli and other businesses that might have to relocate, and whether the neighborhood strip mall with its supermarket and restaurants and Tae Kwan Do studio can survive.
And whether or not they are part of Falls Church Forward or came to our evening with Letty, it is clear that our neighbors feel that they can make a difference, whether they have heard about Letty of Falls Church Forward or no.
Beyond Falls Church
Now, let me get back to the real reason I wrote this piece which is implicit in the preceding paragraph.
Letty and her pals are amazing.
But, in at least one important way, they aren’t amazing or even unusual.
A decade ago, she was a suburban mother of three who worked for a bank and lived in Falls Church mostly because her husband had grown up here.
At that time, the problems with the water system and high school that were specific to Falls Church led her and her friends to get involved. Together, they built a community that crosses generational and class and racial lines in ways that are specific to Falls Church and the fact that it is an affluent suburb in the Washington DC area and the like.
There is no reason why you and your friends couldn’t become the Falls Church Forward and Letty Hardis of your home town or neighborhood.
The issues that get you involved will be different, because the Little City is one of a kind.
But, what would happen if you started with one or two of the issues in your town or even your neighborhood that bug you and your friends?
Your equivalent of our decrepit water system or aging high school or real estate market that was pricing out people who didn’t have six figure salaries or streets known for their gridlock?
What are the op ramps you can take to see your influence grow the way Falls Church Forward has?
In fact, you don’t even have to ask those questions in isolation or start from scratch, because there are organizations helping people like you do just that.
·Better Together America is helping local communities create civic hubs like Falls Church Forward
·Some of us in Falls Church and Better Together America communities are in the Connective Tissue network that asks , among other things, What will it take to seed and cultivate our generational project of civic and communal renewal?
·Since Letty visited our bulding, Gretchen and I went to a gathering around what its organizer, Alexandra Hudson, calls a Civic Renaissance which I will write about next in a post that will carry a similar message
This is What Peacebuilding Starts at Home Looks like
I’m a professional peacebuilder. As regular readers know, we at the Alliance for Peacebuilding are running a campaign we are calling Peacebuilding Starts at Home, for which I wrote my most recent book (a link to it as at the end).
As we see things, what Letty and Falls Church Forward do is peacebuilding because they are betting at the root causes of the problems that we face in the Little City. Put simply, as I’ve said dozens of times in these posts, the United States will not be a peaceful country until it finds ways of addressing all of underlying “wicked” problems.
Letty and Falls Church Forward only focus on—and should only focus on—what happens in our tiney corner of the world.
But, putting on my AfP hat, we can help spread good ideas like theirs around the country.
So, if you have even some vague ideas about what might work wherever you are, we would love to help you get started or build on what you have already done.
Just send me an email and we’ll find time to talk.
In the meantime, check out my book in which Falls Church Forward makes a bit m’ore than a cameo appearance.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Alliance for Peacebuilding or its members.