AmeriCorps member Christopher Fecci frames 'anticipatory community' as the spirit behind Ann Arbor’s A2Zero work

Dr. Christopher Fecci, an AmeriCorps member serving with the Ann Arbor Office of Sustainability and Innovation, said an "anticipatory community" is "a place of homecoming and belonging" and a setting for creative experimentation that moves people toward what ought to be. He made the remarks during Greenlight, the city’s sustainability podcast hosted by Grace, the office’s communications coordinator.

Fecci said the idea, which he credits to scholar Larry Rasmussen, describes communities focused not on resignation but on inventive, collective change. "An anticipatory community is kind of a space moving towards what ought to be," he said, adding that such communities blend conviction, compassion and interdependency to sustain long-term climate action.

The A2Zero plan — the city’s framework for pursuing community-wide carbon neutrality by 2030 — provides several programmatic examples Fecci said embody that anticipatory spirit. He described the ambassadors program as a civic engagement effort that draws residents into climate work, resiliency hubs as neighborhood centers for mutual aid and adaptation, and the Bryant project as a local pilot to bring geothermal and the city’s SEU approach into a historically neglected neighborhood. "Bryant’s our anticipatory community within our anticipatory community," he said.

Fecci acknowledged the 2030 target is not binary: "We may not completely achieve that, but that's the way I understand anticipatory community — that's the place where it starts to deepen." He framed the goal as a guiding orientation that deepens community bonds and supports ongoing progress rather than a simple pass/fail deadline.

Throughout the conversation Fecci emphasized narrative and emotion as practical tools: hope, he said, "is what fuels that team spirit," and storytelling helps connect climate strategy to people’s everyday lives. He invoked historical examples — Martin Luther King Jr.'s "beloved community," the UK-origin Transition Town movement and India's 1970s Chipko tree‑protection actions — to show how community-led initiatives can produce tangible environmental outcomes.

The episode closed with host Grace directing listeners to a2zero.org and sustainability@a2gov.org for more information and to suggest future guests or questions.