Local Community

We invest in the physical infrastructure of our communities without hesitation. When roads and bridges crumble, we rebuild them. After harsh winters, we fill potholes. There’s no debate—it’s just what needs to be done.

It’s time we apply that same mindset to our social infrastructure. Just as we repair the roads that connect our neighborhoods and... See more

Strong ties like family, close friends, and churches are where ideas are nurtured and meaning is deepened. They are necessary, but limited. Weak ties are how information travels, how opportunities surface, how culture spreads. It is part of why social platforms are powerful. They dramatically increase our number of weak ties.

Strong ties create... See more

Humans have always known we cannot survive alone, and that to protect ourselves, we need to persuade others to care about us. We cultivate trusting reciprocal pacts with other people – blood relatives, but also friends and neighbours - through which reassure ourselves we can both care and be cared for, if the necessity strikes. These ties can have... See more

“Our towns are where civic culture is created, for better or worse. As this polarized moment in our national politics has shown, civic culture can be poisoned from the top down. But it can be healed and unpolluted from the bottom up and the inside out. How the residents of Tulsa choose to make a civic culture will of course be different from how... See more

The thought experiment also shows how important it is for local organizers and businesses to find different idioms than “loneliness” for framing their social projects. “Solving loneliness” is like “solving mental health:” a fool’s errand. It’s counterproductive to think this way. In my experience, it is the positive content of a social group that... See more

It was only because I showed up and I paid attention," he said. "I looked for places to go. I looked for communities to join. I looked for ways to become visible and consistent, really committing to certain spots and certain groups, and then looking for opportunities to be useful and helpful.