Solving Social Media’s ‘Local Paradox’ (SSIR)

We agree with those who think revitalizing place-based identities and local engagement may help to break down these walls. If we redirect people’s attention back to local politics and working with fellow community members on projects that have a tangible impact, perhaps we can restart a positive feedback loop and regenerate the crosscutting connect... See more

But it also seems clear that reinforcing local community structures should not be the only approach. So many towns and neighborhoods in the United States are effectively mini-one-party states. With the demographic sorting that has taken place over the last 40 years, focusing our attention primarily on local politics and participation in local decis... See more

With technologies that can now facilitate discussion and decision-making among groups both big and small, we must ask if we can build new kinds of intermediating digital spaces, ones that provide perspective, attention, and action on shared rather than personal problems, while at the same time accommodating discussion and deliberation at local as w... See more

Over the years, plenty of responsible experimenters – think of the more pragmatic elements among the back-to-the-landers, kibbutzim, Tolstoyan farmers and so on – have managed to demonstrate that new societies can form successfully at modest scales. The best among them also managed to establish a productive and beneficial relationship with the worl... See more

Digital intermediation could help offer this kind of access to what Zacka calls “the lively and diverse intermingling of strangers in the public arena” and what the urban planner Jane Jacobs described as the “great and exuberant richness of differences and possibilities, many of these unique and unpredictable—and all the more valuable because they ... See more