In Chicago, hope faces some serious enemies. Discrimination by race, economic status and ethnicity has become institutionalized in housing, neighborhood demographics, and political boundaries. Many people are isolated within segregated communities and mindsets and can’t imagine themselves as meaningfully connected to others who are different. Isolation leads to a loss of imagination about what is possible.

Apathy, addiction and violence are symptomatic of the loss of hope. For the most educated, cynicism, which erodes hope and creativity, passes for sophistication. Negative images dominate in the mass media and play an influential role in the cancerous internalization of disorder and decay. All over the world, there is a well-acknowledged "confidence gap" with respect to institutions, politics and leadership. Without confidence in a viable future, personal investment makes no sense.

Freeing our minds and bodies to recover a spirit of hope may require several levels of unlearning. For one, we need to evaluate the discourse of contemporary social, economic and political development work. Deficit-based evaluation, judgment, and labelling ( "poor", "underclass", "lost generation") turn people into objects and victims and hinder the emergence of hope and of community. An imagination movement must shift and re-enchant language to reclaim our creativity and power as subjects who create both words and actions that can enable the greater flourishing of human life.

On another level, we have to work to unlearn the mindset of division and hierarchy which seeks to rank and separate people by race, gender, class, religion, language, culture, and educational attainment. How can we instead generate and practice a language of inclusion and help to create constructive experiences of difference? What experiences stretch a sense of ‘we’ and ‘our’ (instead of reinforcing ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ thinking?) How can we demystify the role and burden of the ‘professional’ in favor of expecting that everyone’s contribution is valuable and necessary to creating a vital future?

The difference between life as a problem to be solved by experts, and life as a mystery to be embraced by everyone, is distinct. Throughout this publication, you will discover how Imagine Chicago is developing frameworks, language and networks to cultivate hope as a resource for public good that involves everyone. The stories and images suggest how hope can come alive and be sustained without institutionalizing it. As you read, notice where resistances arise in you, as well as what inspires you and opens you even more to the powers of imagination and hope.

You must be the change you wish to create in the world.