An Invitation to Submit and Introduction to the Book, Policy and Initiative Reviews Section

So many of us are suffering, in ways that are poorly understood, from scarcities of key assets and essentials of community well-being;

So many of us are setting higher aspirations for our own individual and group abilities to control our physical and mental health, to improve our own lives and thrive under difficult conditions;

So many of us are hitting new lows in the sense of trust we have in our governments and our neighbours and the control we feel we have over decisions and actions being taken all around us, that are not serving our interests or those of communities we care about;

So many of us are heartened by a sense of gaining new leverage in debate from new findings of connections among forces that appear disparate but that we know are connected to community well-being, from urban design, to health, to economic development, to crime and marginalization, to sociability, and beyond;

So many of us feel a keen sense of defeat when considering our societal failure to meet the grand goals of the previous generation, such as the Kyoto Protocol (of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and are skeptical of the seriousness of such efforts to mobilize leaders across big cultural divides to reach shared goals;

So many of us feel motivated by the striking of global commitments to meet new grand societal goals, such as the Paris Climate Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; and feel compelled to push for the kind of common purpose that such goals generate for other areas of global significance, such as the treatment of refugees and displaced persons, religious freedom, and freedom from sexual and racial violence. All these trends are pulling our field in new directions and pulling new people and energy into the orbit of our field to study and practice. As daunting as this embarrassment of hopes and fears, failures and possibilities may be, there is no alternative to reading and thinking more, reinforcing habits of critique and dialogue, working to integrate the lessons of our actions into reflections, and conversely, to mobilize our knowledge into action. This is the purpose we have established for this reviews section.