Sam Liebeskind

Editors are encouraged to participate in community life — attending festivals, visiting new restaurants — but the company also leans heavily on user-generated content and tips.

“In mature cities, the inbox is overwhelming,” Heafy said. “Often our staff are getting information ahead of traditional broadcast and newspaper outlets.”

Technology helps... See more

I don’t think technology alone can fix that. It takes people who care about other people. Caring, I think, is the one thing that cannot be outsourced or automated. We can certainly create the illusion of care, and that illusion might be better than nothing for someone who has none, but ultimately I hope everyone gets access to people who care about

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When Colorado Springs turned off the streetlights in 2010, they launched a secure website that allowed residents to log on and pay to turn their lights back on. It’s not hard to imagine a cash-strapped municipality taking a list of parks they can’t build or maintain posting projects to Kickstarter or Neighbor.ly, seeking crowdfunding for their... See more

And there was something else to look at what urban planner William White calls triangulation. You don't have to directly engage with other people who are here. You can both be looking at the fire. You're having a nice time. You're warm, you're feeling good. And over the course of sitting for a while, there's opportunity to strike up a conversation... See more