Sarah Wong

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

The proactive favors I observed ranged from small gestures, like putting back the trash can for a neighbor who usually returns home after dark, to extended inter-ventions during which individuals take on serious risks and make sacrifices in order to assist somebody else.

Through intentional policies and elite “dream hoarding,” we’ve allowed this formative period to sort our lives by class. This was a choice. But we can also make another choice: to rebuild the adult transition to promote the connection and flourishing of all our neighbors, not just the ones we went to school with.

If you want to do great work you have to interface with others—learn what they have figured out, find collaborators who can extend your vision, and other support. The trick is doing this without losing yourself.

Our observation was that many readily available legal forms and relationships impose 'deep codes' that misalign with a collaboration's intended governance, particularly concerning risk and power.

our avenues for participation have narrowed as professionalization, specialization, and technocratization have expanded.