Sources: Block Party Guide, Oakland CA and Block Party Planning Tips from Block Party NYC. These resources include forms and other tools. For local restrictions and guides, try searching the term “block party permit” and the name of your city/town. Click on this, for example.
10 Reasons To Have a Block Party

To have fun – [...]

from Community Change: Theories, Practice, and Evidence (pdf). Amie M. Schuck and Dennis P. Rosenbaum. Edited by Karen Fulbright-Anderson and Patricia Auspos. The Aspen Institute.
The community policing era, roughly 1970 to the present, is arguably only the third period in the history of American police reform, following the political era, 1840s–1920s, and the reform era, [...]

from Community Change: Theories, Practice, and Evidence (pdf). Amie M. Schuck and Dennis P. Rosenbaum. Edited by Karen Fulbright-Anderson and Patricia Auspos. The Aspen Institute.
Neighborhood watch/block groups. Neighborhood Watch or Block Watch programs have been the primary form of collective citizen crime prevention over the last twenty-five years. Neighborhood watch-type activities are intended to provide [...]

Crime is a serious and costly social problem that touches every neighborhood in this country. The knowledge base for developing effective neighborhood crime prevention initiatives has expanded significantly in recent years. When targeting these processes, certain interventions have been fairly successful in reducing the prevalence of crime in specific areas. Whether this knowledge can be [...]

United We Serve Brings Catholics and Muslims Together
Serve.gov – This year during Ramadan, right before the start of the United We Serve Interfaith Week of Service, the Interfaith Committee at my church, St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington, Virginia, organized an iftar (dinner to break the Ramadan fast) for members of local Muslim communities. [...]

Acclaimed conductor brings music education to neighborhood kids

Twin Cities Planet – Mckenzie Martin – In 2008, Alsop founded OrchKids, an after-school music education program in low-income neighborhoods throughout the city. Through the program, students learn musicianship with the goal of improving the students’ social, academic and behavioral skills. Last year, 30 students participated in OrchKids, [...]

Lots of good stories on last night’s night out (although some got rained out and moved down)
Neighbors gather to celebrate National Night Out
San Antonio Express – Eva Ruth Moravec, Valentino Lucio – Allie Hostetter looked around the Calvary Temple parking lot as hundreds gathered to watch a local elementary school choir, grabbed a bite [...]

Community turns out to support local farm through lean year

Lincoln Journal – Raphaella Cruz – Laughter, bluegrass music and the sweet smell of flowers drifted across Blue Heron Organic Farm on Saturday during the farm’s Fall Festival and Fundraiser. Intermittently pouring and sprinkling rain didn’t seem to have any effect on visitors who picked bouquets [...]

Making Community Happen Here

Richmond Times Dispatch – David T. Anderson – What if we brought together a disparate group of people who serve wide-ranging needs through a variety of institutions, and the families they serve, and worked together to build community? An expanding group of local people is doing just that, and last [...]

They have no badges, no guns, and no arrest powers.
But what they lack in law enforcement authority, they make up for in knowledge of their neighborhoods.
They are the members of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office community safety teams, and they have quietly become their neighborhoods’ watchdogs, identifying issues and raising concerns that don’t necessarily show [...]