36 Questions for Civic Love

Try it for yourself by checking out English online version or Spanish online version!

You can also download your own English and Spanish toolkits!

If you have attended one of our events on civic love, please fill out this survey.

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In 1997, psychologist Arthur Aron explored whether intimacy between two perfect strangers could be accelerated by asking each other a set of 36 questions. We adapted his questions for use in a new kind of social experiment, aimed at helping us all fall in civic love. 

What is civic love? In her manifesto for 21st century activism, Detroit-based organizer Grace Lee Boggs implored, “We urgently need to bring to our communities the limitless capacity to love, serve, and create for and with each other.” It is from this directive that the National Public Housing Museum created its conception of Civic Love.

Civic Love is one’s love for society, expressed through a commitment to the common good. It is a belief in the idea that we’re all better off, when we are all better off. We manifest Civic Love through all kinds of actions—volunteering, marching, speaking against systemic injustice, making reparations—and always with the love itself is the emotional heart of the work.

Everywhere we learn that love is important, and yet we are bombarded by its failure…This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that love will prevail. We still believe in love’s promise. - bell hooks

We invite you to invest in civic “love’s promise”—asking and answering questions ranging from “What sound wakes you at the start of your day?” to “What law would you change for the betterment of your community?” —to test if we can grow civic love.

See Civic Love in Action!

On Valentine’s Day in 2021, the NPHM was featured on the opening night of the SF Urban Film Fest with “36 Questions for Civic Love.” Together with San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and multimedia journalist Yesica Prado, our Executive Director Lisa Yun Lee uses the 36 Question for Civic Love to address the overarching question, How can love lead us to decriminalize homelessness, rethink incarceration, face hunger, and survive a pandemic?