Growing communities for social change is best done gently

That is, to (gently) direct a particular sort of organisational form onto the community, so that the members of the community act toward each other, and toward 'outsiders', in a particular way. (We have masses of evidence from psychology that context is an important factor in shaping behaviour). By structuring 'the system' in a particular way, the members will act in a particular manner. It's like the garden: by imposing a certain sort of organisation at planting time, you will get a certain style of garden growing, and the individual plants will all contribute to the overall design in their own way.

Community development - indeed, life itself - is all in the form, all in the (self-) organisation of the materials, or the citizens.

Once the 'form' is established, the garden, and the community, can be left to get on with it. So our first starting point for establishing a garden, or a community, is simply that old discipline 'design' - with the proviso that we are talking about the design of adaptive, self-organising, sustainable systems, in which the role of the leader or creator is minimal.

None of this, of course, is to deny the value, or the importance, of 'nudging'. Nudging is what the best 'change agents', and gardeners, do to their systems.

You see, a self-organising system, such as a community or a garden, follows a certain 'track' (known theoretically as an 'attractor'). It sets it own pattern, makes its own path, follows its own star.

Trying to change the track of that system, that community, can be very difficult if done against the 'natural flow' of the system. It's like trying to make a wild garden into a formal garden - it requires a great deal of horsepower, and surgery, and expenditure of energy. It's against the 'natural flow' of the garden.

Better to move the community, or the garden, when it is in a state that indicates it is ready to move on to the next level, or system state, or different path. Then, it's a matter of a gentle push, a 'nudge', and the system falls onto the new track easily and naturally.

Knowing when to 'nudge' is a matter of observation, preparedness, and timing - three essential qualities of the good 'change agent', community developer … or gardener.

After all, you don't plant tomatoes in winter.