Boise
is rising

Civic writing for a city remembering what it's here to build

For those ready to participate in building what comes next.

Subscribe for Updates

Boise is not just growing.

It's unfolding — into complexity, tension, and potential.

This moment asks more of us than speed or opinion. It asks for coherence.

What if:

civic life could feel sacred again?

a city could be designed for human flourishing?

the way we organize ourselves could restore meaning, beauty, and genuine community?

Boise Rising begins with writing that helps our city think more clearly and lead more humanely.

But it's building toward something larger—new ways of creating the environments where people become who they're meant to be.

Essays that ask real questions. Reflections on leadership, space, rhythm, trust. Signals from the civic ground.

Vector

The Civic

Groundwork

The blog is the foundation.

Each essay examines how communities develop the capacity for wisdom, beauty, and coherence. Recent pieces have explored how neighborhoods develop trust, what integrated civic leadership looks like, and why small gestures accumulate into lasting culture.
Rectangle 23
Rectangle 24
Rectangle 25
Group 17

But civic systems are more than words on a page

Group 18

They’re the underlying structures that shape how we live together —

from the design of public spaces to the way decisions get made, from how we recognize contribution to how we create environments that inspire our best selves.

The writing published here is laying groundwork for innovations in governance, community building, and place-making that could transform how cities work.

Not through politics, but through demonstration.

Group 17

Not by reforming what exists, but by building what's possible.

Group 18
Front porch of a historic North End Boise home at dusk, with warm interior lights visible through windows and a clear path leading from the sidewalk to the entry.

The Ordering Principle

Long, empty institutional hallway with fluorescent ceiling lights, closed doors on both sides, and worn floors.

The Parasite Principle

A grainy black and white photograph of a vintage wooden metronome resting on concrete. Its metal arm is frozen at the far left extreme of its swing, away from the center position, illustrating the concept of mechanical tension.

The Heartbeat Principle

Early-morning aerial view of downtown Boise with construction cranes and an unfinished building frame rising above tree-lined neighborhoods.

Boise’s Threshold Moment

Historic brick and stone multifamily building in Boise's North End at golden hour. The wide, clean sidewalk is lined with mature trees and lush green groundcover, leading past classic columned porches under a warm dusk light.

The Monopoly on Charm

The Park That Almost Wasn’t

A high-angle drone photograph of Boise’s residential neighborhoods and mature tree canopy, representing the stable physical foundation required for a healthy city.

The Precondition: Why Beauty Is Not a Luxury

A high-altitude drone view of a straight Boise arterial road stretching toward a hazy mountain horizon, representing civic direction and orientation.

The Burden of Sight

Archival black and white photograph of early settlers working together to frame a building in the Boise foothills, illustrating the collective effort of the Pioneer archetype versus the isolation of the Lone Ranger.

The Pioneer and the Lone Ranger

Night shot of a Boise craftsman bungalow in winter with warm light glowing from a front window, contrasting the cold snow outside with the sacred space inside.

The Ritual Container: Why We Need Sacred Space

Vector

WHY NOW

Cities don't develop character by accident.

They become places worth inhabiting through thousands of daily choices made by citizens who understand that individual actions shape collective outcomes.

Boise has the foundation for something rare—a city that combines opportunity with genuine community, innovation with care for place, growth with soul. But realizing that potential requires new forms of civic intelligence and new models for how communities organize themselves.

The old systems are too slow, too compromised, too disconnected from what people actually need. The future belongs to those who can build better alternatives—not through force, but through superior beauty, functionality, and meaning.

This is where it starts:

with citizens learning to think and act beyond the usual divides, creating the culture that makes everything else possible.

Vector

THE FIRST BUILDERS

Group 17

Citizens ready to become leaders.

Group 18

Anyone who senses that something deeper is possible in how we organize civic life—and that the current ways of doing things aren’t adequate to what’s trying to emerge.

Early adopters who want to participate in building new models. Citizens ready to become leaders.

People who believe that the way we live together can be fundamentally reimagined. Anyone willing to do the patient work of creating culture that lasts.

Subscribe for Updates

City council members balancing competing priorities.

Neighbors who know that community doesn't just happen.

Business owners building enterprises that serve both profit and place.

Technologists interested in governance innovation.

Teachers and parents creating environments where children thrive.

Designers thinking about sacred space.

Vector (1)

The Practice

of Coherence

The writing models the kind of integrated thinking that complex challenges require — moving beyond ideological positions toward synthesis, beyond criticism toward creation, beyond individual success toward collective flourishing.

We publish 2–3 substantial essays each month that develop the intellectual and cultural foundation for more beautiful, coherent, and meaningful civic systems.

Each piece builds toward a larger vision: 
communities organized around truth, goodness, and beauty as functional design principles.

Places where excellence becomes contagious and leadership emerges naturally from wisdom and service.

Group 17

The goal is not just better ideas, but better infrastructure for how those ideas become reality

Group 18
Vector (6)

WHAT’S COMING

The blog is Stage One.

As this foundation solidifies, Boise Rising will expand into:

icon

Community Labs

Testing new approaches
to neighborhood organization,
decision-making, and resource sharing

icon design initiatives

Design Initiatives

Creating spaces and systems
that support human flourishing
at every scale

icon (2)

Leadership Development

Cultivating the integrated civic intelligence our moment requires

icon (3)

Technology Integration

Exploring how emerging tools can enhance trust, coordination, and collective wisdom

Group 17

We're not just writing about better civic systems. We're building them.

Group 18

BOISE – IDAHO

SUBSCRIBE FOR UPDATES

This is an invitation to participate in something that starts with ideas but doesn’t end there.

To help build the cultural substrate for what Boise could become, and what other cities might learn from our experiment.

A new essay delivered every week, plus occasional updates on projects and initiatives as they develop.

Subscribe
Subscribe