Local Community
All about irl community
Local Community
The first thing is shrinking the service area. We serve four neighborhoods — about 8,000 to 12,000 people. If you have too big of a service area, you can't cover it effectively. We ensure that everybody gets access. Access is a big deal. We're aggressively pursuing clients, versus waiting for them to come to us. Some people don't know how to ask... See more
Putting the "neighbor" back in the neighborhood
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
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”
To me, the vision is a civic life that invites all people to have the experience of collective life that we've been talking about. This civic life would involve a set of civic institutions that are accessible to all different kinds of people and offer them the opportunity to participate in the transformative work of engaging with their neighbors.... See more
Hahrie Han • Building societal structures to hold the messiness of our relationships
Donnelly and Schrantz are arguing for a major shift: “a long-overdue scaled investment in community organizing around the country.” I agree 100%, especially because I concur with them that how we do politics now, as a purely transactional process of extracting votes from people, has contributed to the crisis of democracy and the allure of... See more
Digital ←→ IRL
Dunning highlights a thorny and persistent problem with the system of nonprofit neighborhoods: it channelled and mediated the voices and interests of residents in ways that muffled direct challenges to the distribution of power within their communities.
Insofar as the neighborhood nonprofits that represent them have depended on government for their... See more
Insofar as the neighborhood nonprofits that represent them have depended on government for their... See more
"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)
Americans used to live within “place-based networks” of clubs, churches, schools, commerce, and recreation that overlapped, wrapping individuals in social support. Local networks protected individuals from isolation and loneliness.
Those networks have largely disappeared, replaced by networks based outside the local community. We shop and interact... See more
Those networks have largely disappeared, replaced by networks based outside the local community. We shop and interact... See more