Kevin Harris found an interesting item:
Here’s another take on the scale of neighbourhood, developed for work on children’s play:
‘Doorstep’ – 60m straight line distance from home (100m walking)
‘Neighbourhood’ – 260m straight line distance from home (400m walking)
‘Local’ – 600m straight line distance from home (1km walking)This comes from a presentation given by Issy Cole-Hamilton of Play England, at a recent Neighbourhoods Green seminar.
This deliniation is similar to what we’ve found in our work with Front Porch Forum:
1. Borrow a cup of sugar distance… homes within site. Maybe 20-30 households.
2. Your neighborhood… several blocks around you. Maybe 200-300 households.
3. Your side of town… an area, more than a neighborhood. Maybe 2,000-3,000 households.
Our service is aimed at the second level. We get folks who want us to make it work at the first or third levels… but that’s not what we’re designed for. Too small, and the forum doesn’t acheive a critical mass of users and the conversations dies out. Too large, and the sense of intimacy doesn’t occur.
Richard Kemp interviewed me about Front Porch Forum on his cable access show, Near and Far, on Channel 17 recently. It will be aired at 6 PM on Nov. 20, 2006. It’s also available online (video or audio podcast). This show is a decent primer on how Front Porch Forum works for anyone interested.
CCTV Channel 17 in Burlington, VT will broadcast a talk show about how to build local face-to-face community using online tools. Front Porch Forum and FreeCycle are featured. The show, Media Literacy Series – Internet Communities, originally aired on Sep 27, 2006 and will be repeated:
Sun, Nov 12, 2006 at 11:52:00 PM
Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 4:52:00 AM
Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 10:52:00 AM
Both the video and podcast are also available on Front Porch Forum’s media page.
As I wrote on Oct. 31 after the kids were de-costumed and put to bed, Halloween was wonderful in our neighborhood this year… a contender for “best community day of the year”… right up there with the July street-wide yard sale and block party (party was rained out this year).
Kevin Harris caught the idea:
Here’s a curious little piece by Robert Vandervelde in the Globe and Mail raking over changes in the social experience of Hallowe’en.
It’s called ‘The neighbourhood or the mall?’ with the writer reflecting a bit glumly on the decline in the number of kids in his neighbourhood who come to the door to scrounge, sorry, earn candy.
Last year he claims that Hallowe’en “gave me a chance to feel a part of my new neighbourhood. After going months without introducing myself to some of my neighbours, I could instead demonstrate my generous spirit through liberal distribution of candy to their children.”
The turnout was poor. Apparently the kids took the soft option, missing out on the notion of scariness in the dark and getting their pickings at the mall.
I, however, lament that our kids are off the streets. Will they still skirt the dark recesses of their minds by taking candy from a Gap cashier? Will they experience the same community experience when Halloween treats are given to attract consumers instead of out of a sense of neighbourly generosity?
It can’t be the same – the fear and magic you feel when the wind blows through the trees on a dark night can’t be recreated in a mall. The wild excitement of Halloween night seems tamed when you walk down a mall looking for corporate handouts.
Thanks to David Sillito for the link.
Today Front Porch Forum launched an online forum open only to FPF Neighborhood Volunteers in Chittenden County, Vermont, USA. Volunteers can trade tips for recruiting residents to join their neighborhood forums, as well as share fodder for quality local messages. If you live in the Burlington area, sign up for your forum today, then log onto the website and edit your account page to join the 150+ community organizers who are participating. Cheers!
So many wonderful success stories across the country of people coming together to build community. It happens all the time. In fact, the Bowling Alone people published Better Together: Restoring the American Community in 2003.
Front Porch Forum is our attempt to reverse these trends toward isolation. Front Porch Forum’s mission is to help neighbors connect and foster community within their neighborhood.
Social Capital, Inc. is another example. SCI’s mission is to “strengthen communities by connecting diverse individuals and organizations through civic engagement initiatives.”
Several reports in the media over the past 5-10 years about the decline of social capital in America… decay of community, loss of civic involvement and civility.
Robert D. Putnam made a splash with Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). In it, he boiled down large sets of data to such sound bites as:
Declining Social Capital Trends over the last 25 years:
-Attending Club Meetings: Down 58%
-Family dinners: Down 33%
-Having friends over: Down 45%
Surprising Facts:
-Joining one group cuts in half your odds of dying next year.
-Ten minutes of commuting reduces social capital by 10%.
The Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America continues this work at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Another compelling study reported that the percentage of Americans with no one in which to confide soared from 10% in 1985 to 25% in 2004. And 25% of U.S. households have only one person in them, vs. 10% in 1950. Isolation appears to be increasing.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more