Build Better Neighborhoods
(Page 4 of 4)
August/September 2004
By Dave Wann
• Stronger Social Networks. The easiest steps to begin transforming your neighborhood involve creating a social network with potlucks, community newsletters and discussion groups. The social capital created with these first few steps enables bolder steps to be taken later. Once you get started working together as a community, you’ll find it easier to tackle big projects.
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For a glimpse of what just one community can accomplish, consider the Norwood-Quince neighborhood in Boulder, Colo., which categorizes cars as “an alternative form of transportation.” Neighborhood leader Graham Hill persuaded 130 out of 210 households to buy Eco-Passes for the city’s well-run bus system. In turn, the city provides a discount on the price of the passes.
The neighbors also have excellent pedestrian access to a shopping area, open space in a nearby park, several bike/pedestrian walkways and even a solar-lighted walkway that was paid for by a grant from the city. Forty people in the neighborhood are members of a car-share club — essentially car rental by the hour — and more than 50 are members of an electric bike-share operation. The bikes are powered by solar cells incorporated into a bike locker. The neighbors are considering linking several existing bike pathways with easements through private yards.
Your neighborhood wouldn’t want to begin with these large projects, and your goals may be different than those listed above. But tangible rewards can result from simple changes in priorities and an interest in working cooperatively. And whatever your goals, creating a more sustainable neighborhood begins with a single easy step — just saying “hello” to a neighbor you haven’t met.
Dave Wann is co-author, with Dan Chiras, of Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods, a Mother Earth News Book for Wiser Living from New Society Publishers (to order see Page 111 or go to www.MotherEarthNews.com ). Wann also is co-author of Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic, and co-director with Chiras of the Sustainable Futures Society’s Sustainable Suburbs Project ( www. sustainablecolorado.org ).
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