All around the world, people are coming together in their localities to imagine and create new possibilities for their collective future. Despite their differences in age, background and perspective, what they share is a faith in community and in its civic spirit, the idea that together, using our minds, hearts and hands, we can help to shape the world we live in. Powerfully, perhaps unknowingly, they are the leadership of a new movement — a movement of social imagination.

‘Imagine’ — the word itself — calls us to connect to potential, wonder, the power and the beauty of the unknown. It arouses within each of us feelings of hope and opens a limitless space of creativity and possibility. Imagination is the realm of the future, utterly democratic, not determined by current arrangements. As a movement, imagination draws upon peoples’ deepest urge to be connected and to contribute to a larger purpose. It brings people together meaningfully to talk and listen with one another, to share their personal and collective aspirations. Such communion is generating the energy and commitment required for transforming dreams into realities.

Imagine Chicago sees itself as a catalyst in this movement, one of the sparks to light the kindling already in place in peoples’ minds and spirits. Our work over the last ten years has supported the organic sprouting of Imagine initiatives on six continents. While each self-organized Imagine effort is distinct, since it is responding to its own unique context, all the efforts reveal a few common convictions: that human beings can unite around shared meaning; that each person’s contribution is vital to a flourishing community; and that creating a culture of public learning and civic engagement that connects generations and cultures is at the heart of self- and social transformation. These beliefs translate into positive and inspiring images, ideas and actions.

What makes imagination so important today are the same factors that challenge it. Violence and terror, massive inequalities, the widespread destruction of nature, the alienation of human beings from each other and from themselves, the extinction of diverse languages, cultures and ways of meaning-making, the colonization of images by mass media: these forces threaten human society, human sensitivity and human sensibility at an unparalleled scale and pace. When Imagine Chicago was gearing up in 1993, Yankelovich Associates reported that 85% of Americans had lost confidence in the future. Even citizens of the world’s superpower feel victimized and lack confidence in their leaders.

The existence of injustice offers a constant invitation to work towards justice. Ronald Marstin defines justice as "fundamentally a matter of who is included and whom we can tolerate neglecting." Imagine Chicago believes that the city’s vitality depends on creating an economy in which everyone’s contribution is valued. A movement of imagination is necessarily inclusive: Each and every human being possesses the enormous gift of imagination. No matter what institutional authorities like the media, market or schools tell us, imagination (like learning) is neither a commodity nor is it scarce. In fact, the movement relies upon the power of our collective imagination. Our tremendous human diversity — the variety of dynamic identities we possess — is vital for both the conversations and the actions of creating a positive future. The greater the diversity of the people involved, the stronger the movement of imagination, and the more likely a balanced and just future for ourselves and our children.

Like imagination itself, this movement has not been planned or controlled, nor can it be. Rather, it is part of a growing culture of civic spirit manifesting itself in a variety of forms: eco-cities, intentional communities, learning cities… People all over the world are forming vital connections between being, thinking and doing, in order to support a more just present and future.