Building community and improving neighborhoods, by Barbara Pantuso

in Comprehensive Community Initiatives

12th in our Best practices in Community Empowerment series.

Barbara Pantuso (@barbarapantuso) is Founder and CEO of Hey, Neighbor!, a location-based website and mobile app that connects neighbors, and creates a new marketplace for neighborly sharing of “MicroFavors”. Rachel Botsman called it “a great example of how technology creates both the efficiency and the social glue for trust to form between strangers”. Barbara follows many blogs and articles that focus on community building and improving neighborhoods. Many of the resources she shares below are about how & why neighbors connect. Topics include the social, safety, government, civic, public space, and environmental aspects of a community.

Yes! Magazine – Search for keyword “Neighborhood“. Many great articles and real world examples of neighborhood building stories. Also practical “how to” tips. Like their tagline says “Powerful ideas, practical actions”

Citizens Handbook - Practical Assistance for Those Who Want to Make  a Difference – An online handbook  published by the Vancouver Community Network (VCN), a non-profit Internet service provider that provides free services to assist individuals, community groups and non-profit organizations in accessing and utilizing the Internet to its fullest ability.

Hey, Neighbor! - Hey, Neighbor! is a network for trusted neighbor connections and collaboration. It’s like a local Facebook meets a safer Craigslist for your neighborhood.

Many people still don’t know their neighbors. But now more than ever, people want a sense of community. For many, a knock on the door can be inconvenient or intimidating. That’s where Hey, Neighbor! comes in. It provides a virtual knock on the door and a simple way for neighbors to exchange favors, information, goods and services.

Hey, Neighbor! challenges the notion that “good fences make good neighbors.” By reaching across the virtual fence, Hey, Neighbor! connects neighbors in ways that helps them feel happier and more secure, and that helps neighborhoods thrive.

Michael Wood-Lewis/Ghost of Midnight – Great Blog by the Founder of Front Porch Forum in VT – a well used site and leader in online neighbor networks.

Kevin Harris/Neighbourhoods – UK Blog about neighborhoods – very active blogger. Lots of great real-world examples and stories.

Next up: Paul Lamb

Introducing ThePublicProfessor.com

in Comprehensive Community Initiatives

Friends,

NeighborsForNeighbors.org, the 501c3 I run that operates neighborhood social networks that connect neighbor who live work and serve in a neighborhood so they do thing with and for each in person was just featured on a new site called ThePublicProfessor.com.

The Public Professor is lead by Akim D. Reinhardt. Professor Reinhardt, an  associate professor of history at Towson University in Baltimore, is a leading expert on Native American culture.  In his book Disintegration he has turned his attention to the state of communities in America – how we have gone from a country that had been dominated by small, rural communities at its founding, to a modern nation of enormous cities, sprawling suburbs, and fractured rural areas.  How do you define community?  Do you live in one?  Can you have a community online? These are the kinds of questions Reinhardt poses in his blog, inviting readers to take an active part in the discussion. http://www.thepublicprofessor.com/

Check it out.

Block Head Joseph!