Putting Faith in Neighborhoods : Making Cities Work Through Grassroots Citizenship

In this book on successful urban empowerment, former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith describes how he devolved key decisionmaking from city officials to grass-roots leaders and worked closely with neighborhood-based organizations to affect change. The book shows how a wide array of initiatives, from Goldsmith's pioneering work with Indianapolis faith-based organizations to his early successes in competitive contracting for city services, served to empower neighborhoods. As a way of illustrating Goldsmith's empowerment initiatives, the book also contains an in-depth case study of three Indianapolis neighborhoods by Hudson Institute research fellow Ryan Streeter.