The Promise and Challenge of Neighborhood Democracy
From a report (pdf) jointly issed by Grassroots Grantmakers and Deliberative Democracy Consortium, with assistance from NeighborWorks America and National League of Cities:
Democracy is increasingly global, but it may also be increasingly local. ...
[W]e need to look at what is happening, and what could happen, in neighborhoods. There are three main reasons for this. First, the style of organizing that the Obama campaign deployed (reflecting the candidate’s background as a community organizer) is a fundamentally local, even neighborhood-based approach. ...
Second, though the Internet has given people the chance to connect with colleagues and counterparts all over the world, some of the most dynamic applications of the new technologies are situations where online communication builds on, and complements, local connections. ...
Finally, the experimentation with neighborhood governance that has occurred in a handful of cities over a thirty-year period represents a tremendous, and often overlooked, source of knowledge about these questions.
Hat tip: Martin T.
Founder
That's what the Bright Neighbor mission is all about! But no technology can replace face-to-face interactions that deepen relationships over time. It can help get people together - but real work must be done and that means learning to love dirt thriving with worms & microbes.