In a local community [in the United States] a citizen may concieve of some need whcih is not being met.

What does he do?

He goes across the street and discusses it with his neighbor.

Then what happens?

A committee begins fountioning on behalf of that need….

All of this is done by private citizens on their own initiatives.

—Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
(as quoted by Roberta Brandes Gratz in The Living City)