The Johnson House in Sandwich

10/27/2026

I have been thinking about Halloween decorations lately.

Not the decorations themselves, but what they mean. When you put a giant spider on your front lawn or line your porch with skeleton families, you are not doing that for yourself. You cannot even see it from inside your house. You are doing it for the people who walk by. For the kids on your block. For your neighbors.

Decorating the outside of your house is one of the least selfish acts in a neighborhood. It is a gesture. It is fun and silly and a little whimsical. It says I want the people who share this street with me to enjoy where they live.

That is civic health in its simplest form. Not a plan. Not a budget. Just a person deciding that the experience of their neighbors matters.

Look around your block this week. Who has their lights on? Who put out the pumpkins? That is your community showing itself to you.

10/12/2026

Haven't posted much on house projects lately.....but finally got all old drafty single pane basement windows replaced with custom glass block. Hats off to Robert Randerson for his expertise in getting the project completed. Added another mulch bed in the front where despite my most valiant efforts, grass refused to grow. Thanks to Megan Zaleski for all her assistance. And now the first of the interior design projects. Had office ceiling repaired from roof leak, painted and replaced mundane ceiling fan with a chandelier and ceiling medallion. And now the tedious wall paper removal. Old oil cloth painted over....time, patience and tenacity....not my first rodeo with this....

10/05/2026

Regular old residents are way down the list of people we think about when running our communities.

Big businesses drive most decisions. Especially those located in some other town. Because we love big businesses, we put to work a whole cadre of experts and give them the community keys to try and entice the big business folks.

Then comes the tourist. If they come to town, things are going to be real cool. So we put together another team focused entirely on what tourists want and how to get them to drop off their cash.

We go through enormous effort trying to get people to our towns. But the strange thing is, there are already a bunch of people that live there. Every town. You can tell because when you drive around you can see their houses and apartments. They have already made the decision to call your town home.

What if we made them a priority?

What if we treated them as well as we treat the out-of-towner?

Funny enough, the places we love to visit are the places that are also the nicest to live. The towns that put residents first are winning on every single front. Strong tourism, high quality of life, high property values, thriving local businesses.

It turns out, when you take care of the people who already live there, everyone else wants to show up too.

09/25/2026

09/21/2026

We only have two tools to encourage better behavior in a community.

Incentives and consequences.

That's it. Every employer, parent, and pet owner knows this. You encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior. Those are your options.

Most cities only use one. They offer incentives and hope for the best. And then they're shocked when a property owner who has an axe to grind with the city, or lives out of state and doesn't care, or just can't be bothered, ignores every incentive they offer.

Not everyone is motivated by money. Some people need consequences.

09/16/2026

Every town that turned itself around started the same way.

One person who refused to accept decline.

Not a mayor. Not a developer. Not a consultant. Just someone who looked around at what was happening and decided he/she weren't okay with it.

He/she pulled some weeds. He/she organized a cleanup. He/she opened a business when everyone said it wouldn't work. He/she showed up to council and kept showing up.

And slowly, other people noticed. Then joined. Then the momentum built.

Our city needs more people like this. I have been doing it for years. It works!

Please join in!!

09/15/2026

You know what kills anxiety?

Doing something.

Not thinking about doing something. Not planning to do something. Not meeting about doing something.

Actually doing it.

The same is true for our community. The towns that are stuck are stuck because everyone is waiting for someone else to go first. Waiting for permission. Waiting for the perfect plan. Waiting for the right moment.

The right moment is now. The perfect plan is starting. The permission you need is your own.

Do something. Someone has to. I have for years and still am!! Join me!!

08/31/2026

The problem isn’t that the “wrong” people are downtown. The problem is that everyone else isn’t there.

A healthy meadow contains weeds as well as flowers and no one thinks twice about the weeds. But when something is wrong with the soil, only weeds grow and we can spot that something is out of balance.

Downtown is where people should gravitate. The heart of the community. The question shouldn’t be how do we get certain people out of downtown, but why isn’t everyone convening there?

When everyone is enjoying the center of the community, those who might be struggling don’t stand out so much. They are just as much a part of the community as anyone else.

The real question is what happened to the healthy balance of people. And why aren’t we asking it.

08/27/2026

So much of what makes people appreciate their community is beauty.

We place a considerable amount of value on aesthetics. Humans have a greater sense of attachment to places that are pretty. We seek out charming environments and will pay more to visit them or live in them.

Yet most communities don't have a single organization advocating for good aesthetics. Not one person whose job it is to ask whether what gets built is actually worth caring about.

Which is why most towns never see anything attractive built.

Years ago I was involved with my local preservation organization. It was time to replace the old wooden sign in front of the organization's prized property. We ended up in a heated argument about whether to replace it with a plastic sign. Equal proponents on each side. It left me astonished. I had assumed that preservation minded people were also concerned with quality design.

Preservation matters. It is fundamental to the revitalization of any community. But we cannot overlook how much it matters that the built environment, whether ancient or brand new, is lovable and charming. People derive a sense of attachment from things they find attractive. And a building has a much better chance of growing old if it's pretty.

Whether new or old, beauty is timeless.

08/17/2026

Most American cities have been in decline for at least 40 years, some as long as 70. To think things will get fixed in the short run is some real magical thinking, but the key to remember is this, we don’t have to make everything right, we just have to make things better.

Improvement is about trajectories, it's about momentum. The results will come, don’t worry too much about them. Focus on the process. Do the work, be relentless, and the outcomes will take care of themselves.

Most of us understand that anything that promises a cure or improvement without effort is a scam and that the only way to address our problems or progress in our lives is to put in the work. Though somehow when it comes to our civic life, we completely abandoned this obvious truth. I know I have hammered this point home before, but like my own advice, I am just going to keep with it until it sticks.

The decline of a community cannot be turned around with one big project, no more so than people can lose weight by consuming a pill.

There are some hard truths we know about ourselves that we can apply to the places we live. And because these truths are applicable to us as individuals, they will always be true to the places we call home.

Nothing comes easy, there are no shortcuts. There is one and only way to get better, and it's by putting in the work. You can have the best plan in the world, the best coach, or the best trainer, but at the end of the day- if each individual isn’t willing to commit to a sustained effort, it's meaningless.

Let's look at some examples.

Lose weight - eat less, do more exercise.
Have more money - buy less, earn more.
Find more friends - look at screens less, engage in new activities.

It's a pretty simple formula when it comes to self-improvement. Stop doing the detrimental thing and start doing the thing that helps you get better. Crazy enough- this is also the secret to community revitalization.

Here’s a simple methodology I suggest for those wanting to improve their community. Start removing the things that are ugly and start replacing them with things that are attractive. Just as we are all a composite of all the decisions we make, our cities are a composite of all the physical features that make it up.

A town, village, hamlet, or city is just some buildings, benches, sidewalks and streets. Take away the physical items and you have a field or a parking lot. So the way to get better is to improve all of the elements that make up a place. As each piece improves, the place improves. There is simply no other way about it.

This is why trajectories matter. It doesn’t take all that much to change them. When conditions have been declining for so long, it's actually quite easy to turn a trajectory around. The act of doing nothing brings about decline and decline is depressing and fosters apathy. But improvement, oh boy! Everyone loves improvement, it’s exciting and gets everyone all fired up.

When a thing stops deteriorating and starts getting better, well we all feel a little spark and a little excitement. We all find ourselves caring a little more, maybe even feeling a bit of affection. It’s fun to see things improve. Cleaning the house feels good, but home improvements are the stuff of dreams! Staying in shape is excellent, but losing weight or building muscle? Hubba hubba!

We have to look around at our towns and be honest about what looks like crap. If decline is still occurring, your trajectory is headed in the wrong direction. Stop it. Halt it. Fix it. Look at all of the components that make up your place and start improving them. You can’t fix them all at once, but you can start fixing them one by one. And with each item improved, the sum total gets a little bit better…thus a trajectory shifted. A momentum born.

Look at all the pieces that make up your place and start improving them. Big or small, they all need attention, they all need shined up and cared for. Revitalization isn’t about silver bullets and big quick fixes. It’s about a thousand small projects. It’s about making one improvement today so that you create a little momentum, a little positivity, a little belief that tomorrow, it can be done again. Repeat this over and over again and you will find yourself living in an entirely different place than when you started. It only takes a bit of effort.