I want to know my neighbors. I’d intended to invite folks over last August, when families were busy moving into new homes in our freshly finished subdivision. We could throw some burgers on the grill. Watch the sun set over the cul-de-sac. Get to know one another.
Hasn’t happened. Too busy. Work and school and kids and exhaustion. Spend all day in front of a computer and come home and plop in front of, um, a computer.
The neighbor girl chats with my daughter—using AOL Instant Messenger. As they type out an on-screen conversation, they can wave at each other through their windows.
Our cable modem culture keeps us physically disconnected.
That could lead to problems.
Institutions—the health care industry, research universities and governments (‘cept for the Nevada Legislature)—are supposed to solve problems.
But our economy is gasping for air in the deep end of the pool. We’re slicing and dicing those very problem-solving institutions with cuts to law enforcement, education and programs that address gaps in income and housing. America’s golden age of prosperity has climaxed and is now smoking a cigarette before dropping off into a light coma.
What’s a person to do?
Citizen, heal your ‘hood. That was the thrust of a message delivered Saturday to Reno’s Conference of Neighborhoods by Henry Moore, the former assistant city manager of Savannah, Ga. Moore travels the nation, telling people about the tools we already have to build safer, stronger, better-connected communities.
“There are limits to problems that institutions can solve, especially when they have no money,” Moore said. But when people—residents, leaders, friends and associations—bring their diverse gifts to the table, plenty can be accomplished.
In 1981, Moore was hired by the city of Savannah. The city was quiet. Its residents were apathetic. All was peachy until the city underwent an epidemic of crack cocaine use. Some who could afford to leave Savannah moved away. Moore and other city leaders wanted to get remaining citizens involved in the kind of community building that could stymie the epidemic.
One thinker of great community-building thoughts, John McKnight of Northwestern University, suggested that small cash grants be given to groups of citizens who wanted to do neighborhood improvements.
“I thought he’d lost his mind,” Moore said. “But we weren’t doing so well, so we thought we could at least try.”
Savannah’s city leaders offered $500 grants to groups of at least two people with an idea on how to improve their neighborhoods. That first year, it gave out more than 70 such grants. People planted flowers and put up signs welcoming visitors to their neighborhood. They painted murals and took groups of youngsters on visits to jail—”to scare them straight.” They became citizens with personal investments in their communities.
“These were people doing what they wanted to do, what they were gifted to do—and they were doing it with their friends, people they were connected to,” Moore said. “That little bit of money got people active.”
As people began recognizing their skills and abilities, they began using these gifts to benefit their environments.
Moore issued the same challenge —minus the money—to about 50 people gathered at the University of Nevada, Reno, for the Conference of Neighborhoods.
“What gifts do you have that few people know about?” he asked. “What do you do well? What do you get lost in for hours? … Is there anyone’s gift in this room that we don’t need?”
We were inspired.I want to know my neighbors. Now I have an even better reason to get out from behind my computer and fire up the grill.