This is an important topic. One item I would consider looking into (and you started on it), is how much of this community building or 'kin keeping' women in particular do. While physical infrastructure is a major issue, there's also a broader societal issue. When I briefly took a step back from a big job and got more involved in my community directly, I was thunderstruck by how much of our town runs on the free labor of predominantly women, and in particular moms. We create the new mom groups, run the PTOs, organize the campaigns. I was President of a group that brings together families of young children, and we learned that pre-COVID this group had been significantly responsible for driving Kindergarten enrollment (raising awareness). Post COVID there was a lot of turnover, and we didn't know this was in our 'remit'. I learned our K enrollment numbers had dropped even though we knew from the town census that more students should be enrolled. It wasn't the case that everyone suddenly chose private school....nope, it was that this community group hadn't done all the awareness raising we had done in years past. Sure enough, we did a campaign to remind folks to register and bam, there were all the 5-year-olds. We need men like yourself (as you are doing!) to help fill in the gaps. We need jobs that don't leave humans so emotionally and physically burnt out they don't have time or energy for their local community. And we probably all need to spend less time finding our community social media and not in person.
I think you’re spot on here, and these are great thoughts. Incidentally, when our neighborhood association was most active, the two leaders were women…but they got burnt out. It’s gone dormant under two men.
Ryan, I loved this. You took an idea I’ve been thinking about at a very personal, neighborhood level and widened the lens so beautifully. Community really does require people willing to create structure, absorb some friction, and keep showing up. I hope our pieces encourage more people to build that kind of community where they are.
Great post, and I love Pari's example (and, of course, she'd be the one to help run the neighborhood club!)
This really resonates with me. We live in a typical spread-out gated community and when I moved in, I was worried that it would be hard to find community. What helped a lot was that another recent mover (a mom, of course) started a Facebook group for runners to go out and run together. That group now has about 30-40 very active participants, and there's at least one run posted every day. What's more, our core group have become a real community--because we see each other regularly, without phones, and lots of time to chat while running. We do meal trains when people need help, look out for each other when things are tough, organize regular parties and social runs. Once the group started, it was easier to add an event, and a couple of us have started (in stops and bursts) to host recurring social gatherings, second Saturday/third Thursday style (an idea that Pari introduced to me, a long time ago--she's so great at this!) And through the social gatherings, the non-running spouses met, and other opportunities surfaced (my son got his first job through a running buddy of mine; people in the club who have businesses found customers, etc.)
With this group and some similarly connected gym friends and some regular dog walkers we talk with when we run, I now regularly run into people I know on walks, while shopping, at the coffee shop. It also makes it easier to be engaged in the neighborhood on local issue: when the HOA closed off access to a path as part of repaving, we had a quorum of upset runners to start a petition, show up at HOA meetings, and stay after the administration to hopefully soon have the path accessible again. It makes our neighborhood feel like a community--and it all started with my friend Natalie posting about running on Facebook 5 years ago.
Thanks, Heike! This is a great example of that activation energy. Somebody has to expend it, and sometimes a lot of it, to get something off the ground. But that’s the heavy lift that makes it easier for others to get on board and sustain it. I’m so glad you were able to find and build community in your neighborhood!
Men need to step up more. It’s almost always women doing the social organizing, and that’s not necessarily bad, but it can get exhausting. It would be nice to have more help.
I’ve been thinking about this all day while I’ve been at a housing conference. Is this somehow connected to the “man crisis”? Prior generations had men’s clubs or other civic orgs that played a role in community life, but I sense those are rarer today.
You’re right. Men’s clubs kind of petered out during the 70’s, as they became seen as excluding women to put women at disadvantage. And some were definitely like that, but I do think a lot of male bonding and socialization was lost as a result.
It connects the idea of declining civic engagement to our current political climate. It was written in 2018, and the political analysis feels very much of that moment, but the discussion on civic engagement is still worthwhile.
This is an important topic. One item I would consider looking into (and you started on it), is how much of this community building or 'kin keeping' women in particular do. While physical infrastructure is a major issue, there's also a broader societal issue. When I briefly took a step back from a big job and got more involved in my community directly, I was thunderstruck by how much of our town runs on the free labor of predominantly women, and in particular moms. We create the new mom groups, run the PTOs, organize the campaigns. I was President of a group that brings together families of young children, and we learned that pre-COVID this group had been significantly responsible for driving Kindergarten enrollment (raising awareness). Post COVID there was a lot of turnover, and we didn't know this was in our 'remit'. I learned our K enrollment numbers had dropped even though we knew from the town census that more students should be enrolled. It wasn't the case that everyone suddenly chose private school....nope, it was that this community group hadn't done all the awareness raising we had done in years past. Sure enough, we did a campaign to remind folks to register and bam, there were all the 5-year-olds. We need men like yourself (as you are doing!) to help fill in the gaps. We need jobs that don't leave humans so emotionally and physically burnt out they don't have time or energy for their local community. And we probably all need to spend less time finding our community social media and not in person.
I think you’re spot on here, and these are great thoughts. Incidentally, when our neighborhood association was most active, the two leaders were women…but they got burnt out. It’s gone dormant under two men.
@Holly Berkley Fletcher wrote something great about this!
Ryan, I loved this. You took an idea I’ve been thinking about at a very personal, neighborhood level and widened the lens so beautifully. Community really does require people willing to create structure, absorb some friction, and keep showing up. I hope our pieces encourage more people to build that kind of community where they are.
Thank you! ❤️ And thanks for leading by example.
Great post, and I love Pari's example (and, of course, she'd be the one to help run the neighborhood club!)
This really resonates with me. We live in a typical spread-out gated community and when I moved in, I was worried that it would be hard to find community. What helped a lot was that another recent mover (a mom, of course) started a Facebook group for runners to go out and run together. That group now has about 30-40 very active participants, and there's at least one run posted every day. What's more, our core group have become a real community--because we see each other regularly, without phones, and lots of time to chat while running. We do meal trains when people need help, look out for each other when things are tough, organize regular parties and social runs. Once the group started, it was easier to add an event, and a couple of us have started (in stops and bursts) to host recurring social gatherings, second Saturday/third Thursday style (an idea that Pari introduced to me, a long time ago--she's so great at this!) And through the social gatherings, the non-running spouses met, and other opportunities surfaced (my son got his first job through a running buddy of mine; people in the club who have businesses found customers, etc.)
With this group and some similarly connected gym friends and some regular dog walkers we talk with when we run, I now regularly run into people I know on walks, while shopping, at the coffee shop. It also makes it easier to be engaged in the neighborhood on local issue: when the HOA closed off access to a path as part of repaving, we had a quorum of upset runners to start a petition, show up at HOA meetings, and stay after the administration to hopefully soon have the path accessible again. It makes our neighborhood feel like a community--and it all started with my friend Natalie posting about running on Facebook 5 years ago.
Thanks, Heike! This is a great example of that activation energy. Somebody has to expend it, and sometimes a lot of it, to get something off the ground. But that’s the heavy lift that makes it easier for others to get on board and sustain it. I’m so glad you were able to find and build community in your neighborhood!
Men need to step up more. It’s almost always women doing the social organizing, and that’s not necessarily bad, but it can get exhausting. It would be nice to have more help.
I’ve been thinking about this all day while I’ve been at a housing conference. Is this somehow connected to the “man crisis”? Prior generations had men’s clubs or other civic orgs that played a role in community life, but I sense those are rarer today.
You’re right. Men’s clubs kind of petered out during the 70’s, as they became seen as excluding women to put women at disadvantage. And some were definitely like that, but I do think a lot of male bonding and socialization was lost as a result.
I think you would find this article interesting: https://web.archive.org/web/20180913120559/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/losing-the-democratic-habit/568336/
It connects the idea of declining civic engagement to our current political climate. It was written in 2018, and the political analysis feels very much of that moment, but the discussion on civic engagement is still worthwhile.