Thoughts on Building Place

July 27, 2026

Stuart Sutton
Secretary, Renaissance Petaluma

I have always believed that citizenship carries responsibilities. Like many people, I have voted, volunteered, attended public meetings, supported local organizations, and cared deeply about the future of my community. I have never thought of citizenship as something passive or merely symbolic. A healthy city depends upon people who are willing to participate in its civic life.

Yet recently I encountered an idea that changed—not my sense of responsibility—but my understanding of the relationship between citizens, government, and the places we call home.

In a recent blog post entitled A City We Build Together, Charles Marohn of Strong Towns writes that "A city is a co-creation, something we build together." Later, he offers an even more profound observation: "A local government is the highest level of coordination for people working together to build a prosperous place."

Those two sentences marked a turning point in my thinking.

The insight was not that citizens should become more engaged. I have believed that for years. The insight was that somewhere along the way many of us have unconsciously begun to think of ourselves as customers of our own cities. We pay taxes. We expect services. When something is broken, we naturally ask why government has not fixed it. Without intending to, we begin evaluating our city the way customers evaluate a business: I pay; you deliver.

Marohn exposed that assumption with a single word—customer. Once I saw it, I could not unsee it.

Customers do not build places. They consume services, evaluate performance, file complaints, and wait for someone else to solve problems. Builders do something entirely different. They notice opportunities. They invest their time, talent, and resources. They strengthen neighborhoods, mentor young people, restore buildings, plant trees, start businesses, organize community events, volunteer, teach, create, encourage, and imagine possibilities that no public agency could ever produce on its own.

None of this diminishes the importance of government. Quite the opposite. Government performs an indispensable role, but its role is different from the one our culture often assigns to it. Government establishes the rule of law, provides public infrastructure, protects the common good, and coordinates the work that only a community acting together can accomplish. As Marohn puts it, local government is "the highest level of coordination for people working together to build a prosperous place."

That is a profoundly different understanding of civic life.

The more I reflected on it, the more I realized that this was not a new idea at all. It is, in many respects, one of the oldest ideas in Western civilization.

Aristotle taught that the purpose of the polis was not merely to enable people to live together, but to enable them to live well together. Citizenship was never understood as a passive status or simply the possession of rights. To be a citizen was to participate in the shared work of shaping the community. The flourishing of the city depended not only upon its laws, but upon the character, wisdom, and active participation of its people.

Centuries later, the civic republics of Renaissance Italy rediscovered that same understanding. The greatness of Florence, Venice, Siena, and countless other cities did not emerge because governments alone made them prosperous. Their remarkable achievements were the product of citizens—merchants, artisans, scholars, architects, patrons, public officials, clergy, and neighbors—who believed that the future of their city was a shared responsibility. The city itself became a common work, something to which every generation was called to contribute.

Jane Jacobs, in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, recovered this ancient insight for the modern city when she reminded us that cities are "co-creations." Charles Marohn has carried that tradition forward by reminding us that government does not build prosperous places by itself. Rather, it coordinates the work of citizens who have accepted responsibility for building them together.

Those ideas found me at exactly the right moment.

For the past year or so, I have been asking what role Renaissance Petaluma should play in the life of Petaluma. I have thought about research, education, public forums, advocacy, partnerships, and civic engagement. Each of those remains important. But Marohn's essay helped me recognize that they are not the purpose. They are the means.

The purpose is helping people rediscover that they are not merely residents of Petaluma. They are builders of Petaluma.

That realization also changed the way I think about Renaissance Petaluma membership. Most organizations invite people to join by asking what benefits they will receive. There is nothing wrong with that, but it seems too small for what Renaissance Petaluma hopes to become. Membership is not primarily about receiving benefits. It is about accepting responsibility. It is a declaration that I do not wish to stand outside my community evaluating it as a customer. I wish to stand within it as a steward, a collaborator, and a builder.

Renaissance Petaluma, then, is not simply another nonprofit organization. It is an invitation to recover an older understanding of citizenship. It invites neighbors, businesses, educators, artists, nonprofits, property owners, developers, public officials, and community leaders to recognize that each has a role in shaping the future of this remarkable place. It encourages us to begin, not with grand plans or ideological battles, but with careful observation, thoughtful conversation, practical action, and the quiet confidence that small acts of stewardship accumulate into lasting prosperity.

Every generation receives a city it did not build. We inherit neighborhoods, streets, schools, businesses, parks, institutions, and traditions shaped by the labor and imagination of those who came before us. In turn, we leave something behind for those who will follow. The question is not whether we will shape Petaluma. The question is how faithfully we will carry that responsibility.

That, to me, is the true meaning of Renaissance Petaluma.

A renaissance is not a government program. It is not a strategic plan. It is the moment when a community rediscovers that its future is shaped by the creativity, responsibility, and initiative of ordinary people. It is the reawakening of an ancient understanding that great cities are not delivered to us; they are built by us.

If Renaissance Petaluma succeeds, it will not be because we persuaded people to support another civic organization. It will be because we helped our neighbors rediscover what Aristotle understood, what the great civic republics of Renaissance Italy embodied, what Jane Jacobs reminded us, and what Charles Marohn has expressed so clearly: that a city is a co-creation, and that each of us has both the privilege and the responsibility of helping to build the place we call home, Petaluma.