Tuesday, August 7 is National Night Out, a red-letter day in thousands of towns and cities around the country. Up to 30 million people will take to the streets and parks, with no one calling the cops. Indeed, local police departments organize these block parties, cook-outs, and music events as a practical method to fight crime. The idea is that communities are safer when neighbors get to know one another and work together on solving problems.
But crime is not the only major problem facing us that can be effectively addressed at the neighborhood level. So can the environment, economic decline, traffic, social alienation and even global climate change. People are more likely to get involved on issues that affect their own backyard, and where they can see the effect of their actions. When you add up the people from all over the world who are walking more and driving less, starting new businesses and citizens groups, or simply reaching out to meet their neighbors, the results can be impressive.
The notion of the neighborhood as an important social institution might seem old-fashioned, like nostalgic memories of the corner soda fountain. Yet it's actually as up-to-date as an internet café, where you find people communicating with New Zealand and Morocco at their laptops but also striking up conversations with someone at the next table.
The mark of the 21st century person is to have one foot stepping out into the world and another squarely planted in their community. Even as our intellectual and economic horizons expand, the local community is still where we lead our lives, where our toes touch the ground, where everybody knows our name. Being rooted in the neighborhood of your choice (which may be many times zones from the neighborhood where you grew up) offers not just comfort but a prime opportunity to make a difference in the world.
Neighborhood activism is often cast as a narrow, even selfish pursuit. People are starving in Africa, critics charge, and you're obsessed with starting a farmers market! But that ignores one of the chief assets for social improvement in the 21st century. Thanks to our amazing global communications networks no good idea stays local for long.
Issues that seem overwhelming at the international or even municipal level can often be effectively tackled close to home. That's because the people who live in a particular locale are the experts on that place, with the wisdom and commitment to get things done.
There's no better time in history, as the old saying goes, to think globally and act locally.
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