I’ve had a good and busy week so far, one filled with reminders of why it is I do what I do, and how exactly we have to go about doing it. This goes beyond the day-to-day tasks of work and hockey and other activities, as the world around me finds ways to take small steps forward in a very long game.

This article by George Monbiot, a British activist and radical, circulated through my planning network earlier this week. Monbiot makes a  case that caters to left-leaning readers (this is The Guardian, after all), but it goes deeper, reaching toward a sphere of life both sides of the political spectrum have come to neglect. He’s talking about building “thick” networks of people to share things and ideas and generally just support each other, allowing them to escape the anomie of lonely modern lives and bring up the standard of living. He also makes the necessary point that a large welfare state can indeed “leave people dependent, isolated, and highly vulnerable to cuts.” This isn’t government-driven at all. Regulation alone won’t save us. Monbiot follows up his diagnosis with a refreshing array of real-world examples of British communities pulling together to build participatory little democracies that make life happier for a lot of people. To underscore the nonpartisan nature of the pitch, this actually sounds a lot like the “Big Society” that Tory ex-Prime Minister David Cameron gave some attention, even if it was never central to his agenda. Influential Britons left and right seem to understand what their politics has been missing.

If only we could say the same of the American system these days. But, instead of looking to party brass or public intellectuals, maybe we can look a little closer to home.

Take Monday’s Duluth News Tribune story on the new OMC Smokehouse in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Alone, the lede here doesn’t seem too unique: some successful local restaurateurs have decided to open up a second  restaurant. But this is more than that. The Hanson family’s first restaurant, Duluth Grill, is both a social and culinary institution. Sure, Duluth Grill checks all those eco-friendly and locally-sourced boxes, which any localist will like. But it’s so remarkably popular because it makes damn good food, and anyone who goes there can just taste the difference between it and the competition. I’m not sure anywhere better encapsulates Duluth than Duluth Grill, with its lack of pretention (a former Denny’s!), broader ethos, and ability to deliver a remarkably good product.

Duluth Grill and OMC Smokehouse don’t aspire to just make good food, though; their success in the kitchen allows them to take the lead in the building of one of those dense networks. They’re part of a broader project to remake a neighborhood, and to give life to an area that still feels decidedly Rust Belt. The decision to locate OMC right on Superior Street in Lincoln Park underscores a commitment: this neighborhood can once again be a thriving hub of business, and the leadership from places like Duluth Grill, Frost River Trading Company, and Bent Paddle. The city, with its loan programs targeting local business growth, gets it. This is a chance to revitalize a neighborhood in the best sense of that phrase, and to fill it with new life.

Sticking with Lincoln Park, another DNT article over the weekend highlighted the efforts to bring teachers into students’ homes and build community schools in ISD 709. This is a welcome change of pace from talking about the existence of the gap between the east and west side schools, and a foray into actually doing something to address it. Schools can only do so much with the cards they’re dealt; as I’ve noted before, the west side schools actually don’t do terribly considering the poverty, barriers, and broken homes that plague too many of their students. That reality, however, is no excuse for not trying to do everything within their power to improve outcomes, and this effort to get teachers into homes is an excellent step toward creating a community that can prove demography is not destiny. It’s a simple but crucial step, one that acknowledges the value of humanity and building ties over cramming people into a something formulaic and hoping it spits out good little workers in the end.

These are examples from just one neighborhood, but they go to show why I love this city, and why, for all its travails, it seems to be the perfect place to build the dense sort of community that can withstand any manner of swings beyond. The challenges, which range from that divided school system to a sudden spate of gun violence to a political consensus that seems to be breaking down as a center-left and an activist left left stake out territory, are all real. But these are little ways to build networks that can help to alleviate all of these troubles, and they can bring anyone on board because the basic tenets that support them–cleaned-up neighborhoods, good food, better student-teacher relationships, free chances to learn things, easier access to capital–are things that anyone can support.

I know a lot of people seem to be coming to this sort of worldview in reaction to our new President and his agenda, to the extent that we can distinguish one. I’m fine with that; I welcome fellow travelers however they come. That said, I do want to make something clear: personally, I’m not advocating for positions like this in reaction to broader national trends. I’m doing this because I fundamentally believe it is the right way to do things, no matter who is in power and what is going on in Washington. The intimacy of local politics (in the broad meaning of the word, covering any manner of relationships among people) will always have greater effect over the lives of people than the diktats of an increasingly powerful executive and unelected court system and a occasional input from a rump Congress. Taking part in these seemingly small activities will do much more to make things happen in actual human lives than posting another freaking article on Facebook about why the politicians you dislike are unlikable. (Over the past few weeks, I’ve stopped checking the news more than once a day, and find that I’m just as informed and now have far better uses for my time than I did before.)

Keep it simple. Start local. Start with what you can control. Make some sort of commitment in the next week. It doesn’t take much.