Ashoka Fellow Steven Clift recently created the Locals Online forum on e-democracy.org, to bring together people round the world who are working to connect neighbors with one another.

In his April 21 post, he noted: "From neighborhood e-mail lists to social networks, placeblogs to block-level Facebook groups, thousands of people are doing what we are doing in isolation. The challenge with this online group is to get enough of us gathered to begin sharing tips, lessons, and ideas on a regular basis."

He invited hosts of neighborhood e-mail lists, place blogs, community web forums, building or block-level social networking groups, hyper-local online communities, and online journalism sites designed for active community participation. Dozens of local leaders signed up, and on May 5, Steve asked them to start introducing themselves to one another. As of this morning, 17 people did. Links to their intros, and excerpts: ...more

I got this note from UMass Professor Emeritus Bill Berkowitz earlier this week, and with his permission have posted it here so you can share your own thoughts and suggestions. Dr. Berkowitz is a writer, editor, and core team member of the Community Tool Box, the most extensive web site on community health and development on the planet (which we featured here). His books deal with skills, ideas, personal qualities, and stories relating to community organization and improvement. Bill is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a recipient of its award for Distinguished Contributions to Practice in Community Psychology.

I'd forwarded this email to some of my contacts in the neighborhoods movement, and with their permission will be posting excerpts from their responses here as well.

Hi, Leo Thanks very much for your April 12 note. Its so easy to be impressed by it both by your statement of purpose and by the people youve been gathering around your ideas. I surely hope your work gains momentum, takes off, and soars.

In this note, Im sending along a concept of our own, titled Taking Action in Your Neighborhood, which perhaps you might reflect and comment upon.

In some ways, its a variation and extension of Our Blocks. Some differences are that its more explicitly action-oriented, and more explicitly participatory. It also structures the content by topic, rather than have the user do it via tagging. And it centralizes and gives a specific focus for much of the needed neighborhood work.

Whats here could be a rather big idea, probably calling for both synthesis of existing content and creation of some new content as well. The potential payoff, though, could be very large.

So take a look if you can, and see what you think; well be very grateful to learn of your own reactions, others' as well, whatever they may be.

Were also very comfortable with your sharing any or all of this with your other neighborhood contacts actually wed encourage this, since more feedback may both help strengthen this concept, as well as Our Blocks itself, and potentially lead to mutually-beneficial collaborations.

Thanks very much again, Leo, and be talking to you.

~~ Bill

* * * * *

In response to your note and request for feedback, Im writing to sketch out some neighborhood thoughts, and more specifically around developing a centralized Taking Action in Your Neighborhood resource that Id mentioned before.

Wed certainly be interested in any of your own thoughts you might have on this, especially (if the idea has merit) for moving this idea forward. Im also copying Jay here, since this relates pretty closely to some work he has done.

Heres the rationale: Theres a lot of neighborhood-related stuff in print and in cyberspace, which may not be very surprising. Much of what exists is both good and useful. A lot of it can be found on Our Blocks. Some of it is on the Community Tool Box, and Im sure also on many other sites as well.

But a real downside is that its scattered all over the map so if someone is interested in a particular neighborhood topic or issue, they might find themselves looking in a lot of places, and having to patch together what they need from a bunch of different sources. This is both time-consuming and often not all that effective.

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