“’Placemaking’ is both an overarching idea and a hands-on tool for improving a neighborhood, city or region. It has the potential to be one of the most transformative ideas of this century.” -Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago (read more about placemaking)

Thank you to trainers Jonathan Bucki, Louis Alemayehu, Ethel Cote and to Joanna Kohler at Kohler Productions for this stirring video from the training in Minneapolis/St. Paul in March. Watch the video for a peak at Transition Training from the Midwest.

The poetry opens with a quote read by Louis from Haki Madhubuti's The Book of Life, a poet out of Chicago who was one of the pillars of the Black Arts Movement. The longer piece is a small section of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, paraphrased by Louis.