👋 🏘️ Why don’t we know our neighbors?

For many, fit means finding a place where they share commonalities with others. Sometimes this is through an identity-based affinity group, while other times it’s a shared interest like basketball or community gardening. Whatever it is, the hope is that people gather over what they have in common and build relationships.

We see that building a sense of belonging leads to increased collective efficacy, or the ability for a group to achieve a shared purpose together. We see more collective efficacy leading to strengthening belonging even more. It’s a great positive feedback loop that we want to help unlock within neighborhoods.

Lesson One: Find commonalities, as niche as possible

this was probably amongst the biggest challenges to helping US neighborhoods come together: most people don’t have good reasons to meet their neighbors.

Lesson Two: Surface ways to contribute with neighbors

For many, having a role is about competence and confidence, so you see that your unique contributions are shaping your community.

I learned that people are willing to go out of their way to organize and gather with their neighbors — but the reasons need to be specific.The gathering should make people realize how they fit together. If it feels like it could only happen here, at this moment, with these people, then that’s a good reason to meet with neighbors .

This is also inspired by Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s First Minister of Digital Affairs, on increasing the bitrate of democracy by creating more opportunities for people to participate. Can we increase the bitrate of neighborhoods?

the most meaningful part of planning a block party was the informal brainstorming and planning over a shared bottle of wine in a neighbor’s backyard. While planning, they would also support each other through day-to-day challenges, talk about dreams for the future, and build on the neighborhood’s folklore. In other words, planning for the block par... See more