Local Community
All about irl community
Local Community
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... See more
Alex Pentland • Rediscovering the Pleasures of Pluralism: The Potential of Digitally Mediated Civic Participation — Digitalist Papers
Democracy Policy Network
democracypolicy.network
On the idea of “City Membership”
Instead of firing off salvos on social media, find a local problem you’d like to work with other people to help solve. Like most communities, we need trails cleared, litter picked up, funds raised for cheerleading teams and brass bands and animal shelters. In my community, we have programs where residents help elderly neighbors get to medical... See more
Beginning the work of civic renewal in localities rather than at the national level is an easier lift in part because Americans have more trust in democracy the closer it is to them. Sixty-six percent of respondents in a 2022 Pew survey reported a favorable view of their local government, and 54 percent did of their state government, compared to... See more
Top Down Democratic Decline vs. Bottom Up Civic Renewal: Eight Working Hypotheses
"Social bonds were reinforced during disasters, and that people overwhelmingly devoted their energies toward the good of the community rather than just themselves" (p.52) - sarajevo war example, post 9/11, trapped miners examples..."Disasters create a community of sufferers that allows individuals to experience an immensely reassuring connecting to
... See moreDigital 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
Alex Pentland • Rediscovering the Pleasures of Pluralism: The Potential of Digitally Mediated Civic Participation — Digitalist Papers
close, but not too close; “unpredictable - and the more valuable because they are”
If you're interested in revitalizing a community, understand that it can't be done from the outside. America is almost 250 years old, and she has never seen a revitalization program that worked from the outside-in. If you want to revitalize a community, it cannot be done without getting your hands dirty. You’ve got to engage the affected... See more
Sam Pressler • Putting the "neighbor" back in the neighborhood
"When you throw trash on the ground, you apparently don't see yourself as truly belonging in the world that you're walking around in. And when you fraudulently claim money from the government, you are ultimately stealing from your friends, family, and neighbors - or somebody else's friends, family, and neighbors" - Tribe, Sebastian Junger (p.112)
Many of the nation’s largest trading companies were headquartered in the coffee houses, and London’s stockbrokers operated within them for over a hundred years. Only when those establishments fell into decline did the brokers finally acquire their own quarters and establish an Exchange. For many years, the insurance institution Lloyd’s of London... See more
Ray Oldenburg & Karen Christensen: third places, true citizen spaces
the value of the coffee house - part to get coffee, but part to mix and mingle
come for the [coffee / news / something], stay for the conversation?