neighborhoods, networks, communities, online+offline
There's a whole range of books and thinking about virtual communities, focusing on how you construct a system online to build community, strengthen ties between people, welcome newcomers and recognize leaders, etc. I've most recently been reading Amy Jo Kim's book on the topic, but there's a lot of others, and you can't help but seeing the word "community" in any book about online conversation software.
In some parallel universe, there are books and thinking and writing about neighborhoods, new urbanism, the power of being local, and other ways to connect up with people who are within a few hundred feet or a few miles of you. I have Superbia! (on "new suburbanism") on hold at the library now, for instance, which talks about tearing down fences in your neighborhood and holding potlucks.
In personal experience there is a lot more of a tie between these two topics than has been satisfactorily explored, and I'm casting about for someone who has done a good job. A lot of the older online community books never even acknowledge that people might see each other in person, let alone organize their days and years around periodic meetings. The local community stuff generally doesn't get much farther than suggesting a mailing list and doesn't tend to incorporate much in the way of nuance in mixed online/offline community.
Suggestions? I know there should be case studies somewhere, where someone has treated the online and the offline existence of a group as two parts of a connected whole.
Comments
There is a huge need for tools that can connect in the neighborhoods. The neighborhood listserve is not the solution, even if some have been successful. The UK's Up My Street was an interesting take on this. There should be potential in something like Yahoo Local, but the people connecting to people is not there.
I have been doing a fair amount of thinking around this as part of the Local InfoCloud (more than just location, but location is very important) as in the Exposing the Local InfoCloud. Each of the components of the Local InfoCloud can be mixed with others and should be mixed.
This summer I have been to more neighborhood cookouts than any time in the past. But the commonality is our kids are around the same age and they interact at the local preschool just up the block. It is the similar/common interests that bring us together. It is the "location", "near in thought" (kids interests), and "affiliation" (school) components that are the aggregation/attraction points.
Part of the problem with every social networking site is they are broad-line friend based and not focussed on facets of our lives. The social network waters are muddied by the broadlines an make it difficult to identify common bonds with people whom we may not yet know, or know from other life contexts. The digital life tools need to start bubbling up the individuals and focuss less on the popularity engines based on people with dissimilar interests.
Some of the best research being done in this area is from the NetLab group at the University of Toronto (see ). There are several papers describing ICT use in a suburb community that they call Netville (e.g., Neigboring in Netville, as well as many other related projects.