Book author and think-tank founder Rich Harwood had a central message for a large audience at the Tomorrow Plan Speaker Series at the State Historical Building.

In so many ways, he said, Washington, D.C., is so polarized and out of kilter that it is up to local communities and specific-goal efforts like Greater Des Moines’ Capital Crossroads to turn things around. And he’s about hope. 

“Far too often in too many American communities we have made broken promises rooted in false hope,” said Harwood, author of “Stepping Forward: A Positive, Practical Path to Transform Our Communities and Our Lives” and founder and president of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. 

“And what we have in response is a cynical public that does not believe what we say we’re going to do. We in this room have a fundamental choice today. Will we be purveyors of authentic hope and deliver on our promises? Or will we continue to make false promises to people and pledges and promises we know we can’t keep and should never have made in the first place? If we want more hopeful communities, we need to build hope for everyone, not just for some of us, and community. People want to know, is ‘community’ for all of us, or just for some of us?”

See a video of his noon-hour presentation.