This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Communities require empathy and sympathy. They are necessary to tolerate your neighbor’s loud backyard barbecues, the kids who throw snowballs at passing cars, and the homeless person camped out on the corner. We form communities because they bring us succor and an opportunity to be more than who we are alone. For most of human history these were physical gatherings of people – Bible study at the church, the formation of a town. Now there are virtual communities, formed of more ephemeral stuff but powerful for connecting compatriots who might never otherwise meet each other.
When I first got the Nextdoor postcard in the mail, I was intrigued by the idea of a virtual community which could augment the strength of a physical one. The most persistent networks in my life have always been virtual, and so I was excited to bond with people who I might not otherwise meet despite our close physical proximity. Nextdoor is now something that I generally ignore, except for those times when it tempts my clickbait susceptible impulses, and for the purposes of this column. I drank deeply from the poisoned cup and have come back sick.
My beef with Nextdoor is that it has revealed a side of my neighbors that I didn’t want to know. My neighbors worry a lot. Seemingly all the time. About incredibly petty things. About the strangers they see walking down the street. The homeless people who are always in the park. Items left next to the trash going missing.
What saddens me most about these complaints is the extent to which they express fear about new people in Longmont. I think fear is completely inappropriate. I’ve lived all over the country in places big and small, and so I am probably exactly the kind of new person my Nextdoor-using-neighbors are afraid of. Which is ironic because I relish new experiences, and get excited when I see new people and businesses moving into the neighborhood. I try to make it a point to say hello. I think of these as quintessential Leave it to Beaver, small town America behaviors.
So you’ll have to forgive me when I say that being afraid of people who are new to a place is antithetical to building a healthy community. It’s also a little too close to being afraid of people just because they don’t look like you, worship differently than you, or because they don’t have as much money as you. And those are the kinds of feelings which aren’t worthy of who we are. In an era where the national discourse tastes sour, and we lament that we don't know how to fix it, maybe a good first step for us all is to make a Jello mold, and to say hello.
