Easy Steps to Enliven Neighborhoods
(Page 2 of 2)
August/September 2004
By the Mother Earth News editors
The Way It Works: Neighbors hold work parties for projects that benefit the entire community. Work-share agreements also can develop as a rotating series of projects that benefit individual households. In some groups, neighbors receive credits for every hour they work on a project, and the house with the most credits calls the next work party.
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How to Get Started: Starting with some of the simpler steps to building community, such as organizing regular neighborhood potlucks, can make it much easier to get a work-share program started later. It also may be useful to research co-housing communities, which often include work-share programs and can be good resources for finding out what does and doesn’t work.
Other Bright Ideas: Start a neighborhood babysitting co-op; many operate on the same principle of collecting and using work points.
Slow Traffic to Make Busy Streets Safer
Who’s Doing It: Sellwood Neighborhood, Portland, Ore.; Gossgrove Neighborhood, Boulder, Colo.; The Netherlands.
The Way It Works: Traffic calming is designed to slow cars traveling through residential neighborhoods, to make roads safer and more pleasant, as well as more accessible to pedestrians and bicycles. It relies on simple alterations to streets and roads, including intentional narrowing of streets or placing traffic circles at intersections. Many measures, such as flowers in a traffic circle, also can alter the psychology of drivers, making them less aggressive and hurried.
How to Get Started: The success of these projects depends on well-conceived plans and requires an entire community to “buy-in” to the idea. Resources that can help include David Engwicht’s book Street Reclaiming, and Web sites such as www.livingstreets.org.uk and www.cityrepair.org .
Other Bright Ideas: Create neighborhood carpools and van pools, and organize as a group to support public transportation.
Living in a neighborhood where people work together and practice more relaxed, environmentally friendly lifestyles pays off in reduced household expenses and lighter workloads.
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