No, not those neighbours! In a world that increasingly sees us sitting inside in front of a computer, a TV or a Playstation, and no longer sitting outside watching kids play in the street, many countries are reporting a slide in communities and a common trend – ‘I don’t know my neighbours’.
In the USA, Jennifer Ferro, the GM of Santa Monica radio station KCRW, saw a man with a rifle walking down her street. She says:
That night, with my kids asleep, my husband out of town and my dogs quiet, I watched that shotgun and the man carrying it as he walked past all my neighbors’ homes. I realized I couldn’t warn them. I didn’t have everyone’s number anymore.
What has caused this decline? Why don’t we take the time to know our own neighbours anymore?
With children in some neighbourhoods often going to different schools, and then engaging in extra curricular activities, they are no longer uniting families like they used to.
In more affluent suburbs, it’s the gardener out in the front yard, not the homeowner. Cars are not being washed in the driveway, but taken to the ‘carwash cafés’. And who’s borrowing the cup of sugar anymore?
One of the things I talk about that is key to building trust in a community (a neighbourhood, a team, any group of people, really), is to discover and agree on the common ground – what is the one thing that unites us? What holds us together, that we all agree is worth working towards or nurturing?
The things that used to unite communities is no longer there to anywhere near the same degree, so we need to discover a new ‘common ground’.
Maybe it’s the environment. Maybe it’s a ‘Tidy Town’ or ‘Best Street’ award. Maybe it’s a BBQ, or an anti-crime group. Maybe it’s car-pooling, or a shared vegetable garden. Maybe it’s keeping our children safe.
Whatever it is, it needs to be something everyone agrees to, and then works towards.
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