Many might consider the emerging phenomenon of non-profits’ use of new technology a fad, or, at best, just the latest trend. But for the past 8 months, MoveSmart.org has benefited enormously from what we would argue is a movement of social change activists dedicated to using new technologies. In an effort to better understand this nascent movement, writer-blogger-organizer (and friend of MoveSmart.org) Alex Steed is embarking on a 2-month, 30-city tour to meet the millenials of this phenomenon.

From his site:

From October through November 2008, I will travel to over 30 cities across the United States to meet, interview and report how young people are using the Internet to leverage their social and political power. When I was a teenager, I was always inspired by interesting, accessible stories about what other young people were doing to better the world. Now I’m trying to contribute to that same narrative as a self-proclaimed millennial activists. Millennial Activists, also known as Social Citizens, are, according to social entrepreneur and writer Allison Fine, “young people ages 15-29 who practice a nascent model of civic participation that combines immersion in social causes, idealism, digital fluency.”

You can read more, check out the schedule, and help send Alex on this amazing trip at his site. He’ll be in Chicago on October 23rd - 25th; reach out to MoveSmart.org or Alex directly if you’d like to chat while he’s here.

• Our friends at the Neighbors Project have released their very cool “Bodega Party in a Box”. We were priveleged to get one of the first editions and can’t wait to try out a few of the recipes during a convention party this Thursday.

• DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development released their analysis of the diversity of neighborhoods in Chicago. Red Eye has a handy breakdown of the 5 most diverse (in order): Uptown, Rogers Park, Hyde Park, Bridgeport, Albany Park.

• Xavier de Souza Briggs and Peter Drier published a blistering (relatively speaking) response to Hannah Rosin’s “American Murder Mystery” in Shelterforce. The list of endorsers of Briggs and Drier’s “Memphis Murder Mystery? No, Just Mistaken Identity” is a who’s who of housing and poverty social science researchers - more than a few have been quoted in MoveSmart.org’s grant applications and concept papers.

• From the Kirwan Institute:
  On October 2nd and 3rd of 2008 the Institute will hold a convening of advocates, researchers, policy makers, funders and other key stakeholders to explore the racial dimensions of the crisis and identify the critical solutions needed to address this significant civil rights challenge. Subprime lending, surging foreclosures and instability in the housing market threaten to severely widen racial disparities and damage the entire US economy. The Kirwan Institute has launched an outreach, advocacy and research initiative to focus on the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis from a structural perspective. The goal of the initiative is to identify solutions from leading thinkers and key stakeholders in the various domains impacted or implicated by the crisis.

• The New Republic raised a number of eyebrows with their article on “demographic inversion of the American city.” Author Alan Ehrenhalt explains the concept:
  In the past three decades, Chicago has undergone changes that are routinely described as gentrification, but are in fact more complicated and more profound than the process that term suggests. A better description would be “demographic inversion.” Chicago is gradually coming to resemble a traditional European city–Vienna or Paris in the nineteenth century, or, for that matter, Paris today. The poor and the newcomers are living on the outskirts. The people who live near the center–some of them black or Hispanic but most of them white–are those who can afford to do so.

• From the organizers of the National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity: Written testimony from the Chicago hearing is posted at www.prrac.org/projects/fairhousingcommission.php - and video from the event is available at: http://dl.nmmstream.net/media/nfha/flash/150708a/ncfh.html.  Testimony from Houston and agendas for Los Angeles and Boston will be posted soon.

As you can see things look slightly different, but after much fiddling I think most things are back to normal. Some links may be dead or pointing to the wrong place - please browse through our posts or use the search box to find what you’re looking for. We’re working on a much larger update to this site, which should be up in mid-September.

Again, thanks for your patience.