Tune in! From VPR…
The Changing Face Of Vermont’s Villages
Monday, 08/01/11 Noon and 7pm
By Jane Lindholm, Produced by Steve Zind
Vermont’s small towns have long stood in contrast to stark “The Last Picture Show” image of dying rural communities. The bustling little post office and the tidy general store are symbols of the vitality of village life.
But an increasing number of those general stores are being shuttered, and there’s talk of closing some post offices. Economic trends have also taken a toll on many local businesses; from the independent bookstore to the small-town auto dealership. These were businesses that helped support many civic activities.
What do these changes mean for small town life?
We talk with Paul Bruhn, executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont, University of Vermont political science professor Frank Bryan and Tom Slayton, VPR commentator and editor emeritus of Vermont Life.
If you live in a small community, tell us how you think its changing and what you think is key to your town’s vitality. Post your comments below or email vermontedition@vpr.net.
Can virtual tools build real community? (#BTV #VT) Wayne Senville of the Planning Commissioner’s Journal takes a look on the Project for Public Spaces blog today. In part…
Neighborhood gathering places like coffee shops, diners, and post offices have long been a cornerstone to community life in America… For years, a common sight outside many of these places was the message board, where neighbors left word about a missing dog, a yard sale, an apartment to rent, a community meeting and where candidates for city council, alderman, school board, or mayor placed their campaign posters. But fast forward to 2011. Email and Facebook is where we often “talk.” Many bemoan this, feeling it has weakened civic life and resulted in a loss of connection within our neighborhoods. And, yes, count me among those who’ve made such claims.
Yet something quite remarkable has emerged in Burlington and other Vermont towns. A locally-developed… service, called Front Porch Forum, has established itself as the key way many residents now keep in touch with neighborhood concerns: by posting announcements, notices, offers of help, requests for help and also debating a variety of local issues.
Valerie and Michael Wood-Lewis started up the precursor to today’s Front Porch Forum (FPF) in their own small “Five Sisters” neighborhood five years ago. Their mission was and remains: “to help neighbors connect and foster community within the neighborhood.” In 2007, the Orton Foundation recognized the Front Porch Forum with its 2007 Innovator in Place Award.
FPF has exploded in popularity. Remarkably, more than 50 percent of Burlington (pop. 40,000) households subscribe to FPF! … Front Porch has become the “place” people think of first when looking to find out what’s happening in their neighborhood, or to post an announcement…
Michael Wood-Lewis: Front Porch Forum is used frequently by residents to announce, discuss and organize for or against development projects Williston landfill, Southern Connector, Circ highway, Moran plant, Appletree Point senior housing, on and on. FPF gets dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people tuned into planning-related issues. It should be noted, that after Town Meeting, the postings reverted back toward FPF’s bread and butter lost cat, seeking apartment, car break-in report, etc. FPF members talk about feeling an increased sense of community ownership. A survey found that 45% of respondents reported “speaking up or getting involved on any public or policy issue as a result of subscribing to Front Porch Forum.”…
… Front Porch Forum can actually increase citizen interest in local government meetings and public involvement. For example, [here is a] comment from a steering committee member on one of Burlington’s neighborhood organizations: “We had a great turn out at the Neighborhood Planning Assembly meeting this past week — 80 plus people and almost all of them are on the Front Porch Forum. We have had three great meetings with numbers above 50 this fall thanks to… Front Porch Forum.”
Champlain College Publishing Initiative ran an interesting piece about local online news recently. Writer Melinda Grey ends with…
As a foretaste of things to come, check out this remarkable link. It’s an item that was recently posted on our Front Porch Forum (speaking of hyperlocal) after yet another day of heavy rain and flooding in Burlington.
Is this the future of local news? And does this suggest that Front Porch Forum may be one model for the hyperlocal news medium of the future?
Her colleague Tim Brookes added…
… events have shown how prophetic Melinda’s observations were. One of the photos of the Booth Street flood we recommended (originally posted as a link on Front Porch Forum) showed up on the front cover of this week’s Seven Days.
This raises some fascinating questions. If a newsweekly picks up a photo from Front Porch Forum, doesn’t that identify the original item as being news, and thus, by implication, identify Front Porch Forum as a hyperlocal online news entity, at least in part? Does this imply that the world is full of sources of what might be called “raw” news, in the sense that reality TV uses security camera feeds as raw footage? It also suggests that this kind of reader-driven content is the print medium’s equivalent of “open source” material–but only up to a point…
Indeed, this kind of thing happens with Front Porch Forum nearly every week. A local citizen posts something on FPF to share with nearby neighbors and then one or more traditional media outlets pick it up and builds a story. We appreciate when the news outlets give proper attribution so their audience knows where they got the lead… but that occurs less than half the time.
As a 2010 Knight News Challenge award winner, FPF is increasingly seen as a new part of the local news and community conversation ecosystem… a quickly evolving environment.
I’m looking forward to the Q&A portion of this Network for Good webinar. Tune in!
Nonprofit 911
Deeper Dive into the Knight Foundation’s Connected Citizens Report
Building Connections and Engaging Your Community
May 24, 2011, 1-2 PM ESTHow will an increasingly connected world — where social networks are proliferating on and off-line– — affect the way people push for social change?
Learn more about what’s to come from the highlights and findings of a new Knight Foundation and Monitor Institute report, Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril and Potential of Networks. This brand-new information draws from more than 70 rich examples of how social networks are being used to build better and more engaged communities.
Speakers: Mayur Patel, Knight Foundation; Diana Scearce, Monitor Institute; Michael Wood-Lewis, Front Porch Forum
Baristanet and another 30 local-focused U.S. blogs just launched Authentically Local…
Local doesn’t scale. Local isn’t McDonald’s, even if the McDonald’s is right down the street. Local doesn’t send profits back to a home office somewhere else. Local is something that’s part of what makes where you are unique. As unique and flawed and loveable as your own kids. Something is authentically local if it’s the first thing you’d want an old friend, visiting from the other side of the world, to see. It’s authentically local if its disappearance could potentially break your heart.
Local is suddenly the newest, hippest, most lucrative frontier. The local advertising market alone is estimated to be $100 billion a year. Companies like AOL, Google, Apple and Groupon all want a piece of the action. Some of the devices they sell you are even collecting data about everywhere you go – all to help their local campaigns.
Certainly big corporations add a lot of convenience and consistency to our world. They also threaten to homogenize it. If you want home to feel different from everywhere else in the world – or if you want a world that’s interesting to explore, support what’s authentically local. Know the difference, and vive la difference!
Just today, I was on a panel at the annual VBSR conference and responded to a question along these lines. Many folks in Vermont prefer to eat local and shop local, but do they click local? That is, they prefer the locally owned coffeeshop over Starbucks, and the locally owned hardware store over Home Depot or WalMart… but do they think about iBrattleboro vs. Facebook in the same way?
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