While the internet has been blamed for a decrease in person-to-person interactions and the increase in people checking their phones even when they are with someone in person, in other ways it has increased communication by enabling people to get in touch with like-minded people whom they would never have encountered before. Internet dating, for example, has enabled people to connect with people who share the same interests and whom they might never have found in the random interactions of daily life.
Another form of increased sociability has been provided by something called Nextdoor. This is a website where someone carves out a small geographic region in their neighborhood and then invites people within that area to join the group and they invite others and so on. Someone did this in our neighborhood and I have joined it and the resulting postings provide a fascinating window into the local community. There are currently about 500 people in our local network, with many homes having more than one person joining up. Any new postings get sent to the members via email but subsequent comments and replies are not, so one’s mailbox is not flooded.
Most of the postings involve people frantically appealing for help to find pets that have wandered off and others who have found wandering pets and are trying to find their owners. There are also requests for advice and for recommendations for babysitters, household repair people, contractors, and professional services. People also offer plants, furniture, and anything else that they no longer have use for and rather than throw them away. This sharing of information is very helpful and I think definitely helps create a greater sense of community. People are generous and helpful. For example, after a few people complained about missing packages that may have been stolen from their doorsteps while they were away, another resident who runs a home daycare service volunteered to have her address used as a drop off point for packages.
But it also opens a window into the fact that some people can get quite worked up about even minor inconveniences, the aptly named ‘first world problems’. There are some who get really upset when streets are closed for repairs, for example, and complain about how long such repairs take, though one must imagine that the city and the contractors are not going out of their way to make life inconvenient. People also complain about tax proposals for the schools.
One of the things the site does is make people increasingly aware of petty crimes in the neighborhood. People report things to the site (such as burglaries of homes and cars) that one would never have heard of before. I do not know if the number of crimes is increasing or whether we just hear more of them now because of this ease of communication. The city and local police gave the following advice about some recent thefts and what to do about them.
Although each were involved with crimes in different neighborhoods, there is a common theme among all of them. Each of these men took advantage of the opportunity to commit crimes by entering an open garage, entering an unlocked vehicle, or taking advantage of an unsecured door or property. Please do your part to help keep the community safe and secure. The interview of each of these men highlighted that simple prevention methods would have deterred all three from acting. Lock doors, secure property, and safeguard keys.
That was circulated to the Nextdoor group. I thought that this was sensible advice that we personally have always followed. But I was surprised by one response to the mailing list.
So it’s our fault, that a band of thieves are rooming [our city’s] streets? How about people stop stealing. How about [the police] come up with better strategies to catch these types of criminals. There will come a time when locks won’t matter…
This struck me as bizarre. Crime has existed from time immemorial and it seems perverse to not take basic precautions to deter petty criminals. Most criminals are not Moriarty-like masterminds. They take advantage of opportunities, the low-hanging fruit.
But apart from the presence of a few people who seem to complain about pretty much everything, the neighborhood network is I think an excellent innovation that makes people more aware of one another and enables community information sharing about matters of individual or local concern.
Up to now, there have been no real flame wars, mainly because cooler heads tend to intervene when people seem to be getting angry. One of the issues that aroused the most heated debate was a proposal before the city council to ban pit bull breed dogs after an elderly woman was mauled to death by one that had had not been under the control of its owner. Even though existing dogs would be grandfathered in, there seemed to be quite a few loyal pit bull owners who felt that the breed was being defamed and made angry posts.
It may also help that being such a geographically localized group, the people tend to share the same values. But all it takes is for one or two people to take strong stands on some issue for things to begin to disintegrate. I hope that does not happen.
Pragmatically, yes. However, I think the sentiment at hand is about who bears the onus of responsibility — the victims, the perpetrators, or law enforcement.
The burglar may be solely to blame, but is the responsibility for the burglary is apportioned?
Nextdoor sounds like a good idea.
“it seems perverse to not take basic precautions to deter petty criminals.”
I’ve never understood the substantive difference between this and “she shouldn’t have gone there dressed like that”.
Richard,
It is indeed a tricky distinction. I think the difference lies in taking reasonable precautions in the face of known threats versus assigning blame. For example, I think it is a good idea to lock one’s house and car doors to deter petty theft. But if I forget to lock the door and someone steals stuff, that does not mean that I am to blame for the robbery and that the thief should get off scot free or plead mitigating circumstances. “But the door was unlocked” should not be a defense.
I am reminded of the couplet about a person who entered a crosswalk without paying attention to whether any cars were coming because he had the right of way:
“He was right, dead right, as he strode along.
But he is just as dead now as if he had been wrong.”
#2
Another difference is that the ‘she shouldn’t go there dressed like that’ version implicitly places restrictions on the woman, in a way that ‘lock your door when going out’ does not. She is being told that she should be less outgoing, or to dress in ways other than what she would prefer, or both. The onus is being placed on her to change her behaviour and to do less of what she wants.
The homeowner however is not being told to do less at all; he or she can still go wherever they are headed, dressed how they please, doing what they wanted to do. Nothing has been curtailed by telling that person to lock up.
Through Nextdoor I got acquainted with the NIMBYism and related sentiments in my area. Complaints about school levies (that always pass in my city, but still), about plans to assist the homeless, about a planned ‘road diet’ for a certain accident-prone arterial. The local area votes blue on both national and state elections, but you’d never guess from the constant grumbling about services by local government.
I suspect a lot of the neighborliness has a lot to do with accountability, proximity and lack of anonymity it brings. People one might never meet become recognized faces and names. Similarly, where you say:
Again, the lack of anonymity. When people meet someone three blocks over face to face, they become people, not anonymous strangers.
It’s easy to be obnoxious when there are no social consequences, to be uncaring when one can say “I don’t know him so why should I get involved?” Nextdoor may not be a panacea, but it sounds like it might knock down some fences.