Issues → March/April 2010 → Features →
Vermont: Neighbors and Online Networks
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The biggest difference between Front Porch Forum and the rest of the Web, though, is that its ultimate goal is to get you out from in front of the screen and into the world around you. "The real feedback loop is on the main street of town," says Erik Filkorn, in his eighth year on the select board in Richmond, Vermont. "You'll be coming out of the store and someone will say, 'Hey Erik, I saw the thing you wrote. Here's what I think.' You're not just creating an avatar and hanging out in a singles bar in Second Life--not that I would do that. But this is very much grounded in the flesh-and-blood community."
So grounded that it may already be the most important source of information for many Vermonters, who have watched their main newspapers lay off reporters and shrink coverage. "One afternoon last year the state closed our main bridge as unsafe," recalls Filkorn. "As a member of the town government, I sent an extra to Michael Wood-Lewis, and he got the word right out. I think more people got the news that they'd have to change their morning commutes from him than from the traditional media."
But it works in emergencies only because people use it every day--the steady stream of lost cats, and people looking for summer jobs for their teenagers, creates the community that people then rely on at more crucial moments. "It's fun, mostly," says Filkorn. "I remember a post from a guy who said he was going to a wedding and needed a tuxedo, size 40. Well, I had one. Derek took it, and he returned it to my office, dry-cleaned."
From tuxedoes to potholes, from potholes to politics ... Susan Comerford, a longtime community organizer and now associate dean for academic affairs and research at the University of Vermont's College of Education and Social Services, calls it "the best community organizing tool that's come along in the last 30 or 40 years." To understand its importance, says Comerford (who started posting on the forum the day she needed a recommendation for a carpenter), you have to think about what's happened in the American economy in recent decades.
"It's not that people care less about community," she notes. "It's that the economy has shifted how much people have to work to keep up their standard of living. You don't have one of the two partners home during the day making all those social connections, providing some sense of safety to the neighborhood. People have less disposable time than they used to."
In a world like that, a system that lets you sit down for 10 minutes at the end of the day and learn what's happened to your neighbors should, in Comerford's view, earn Wood-Lewis one of those MacArthur "genius" grants. Wood-Lewis would probably welcome the recognition of his idea, and the check would come in handy, too. The forums aren't breaking even yet: Subscriptions are free, and revenue comes from a few unobtrusive ads at the bottom of each e-mail. Also, city government pays a fee for the right to post public notices on the system. "With a few hundred thousand dollars of development money, we could put this software in a box and set it up anywhere," Wood-Lewis predicts.
Which would mean one more good New England idea spreading out across the country: people everywhere able to, say, ask their neighbors if they had some topsoil, or maybe a cake pan. ("I've decided to move beyond my comfort zone and make a torte for a Passover seder to which I've been invited. For this I'd need a 9-inch springform pan. Yes, I could buy one. But I'd rather borrow one for this first and probably only attempt.")
Reader Comments
Comment from Roy Brown on March 3, 2010
Love it! McKibben hits the nail on the head... this is one of those New England tools that should be in every community across the country. We just weathered a stormy Town Meeting Day this week, and neighbors talked with neighbors for weeks in advance about the issues in ADVANCE of Town Meeting, leading to better results... and Front Porch Forum played a large roll. I had lots of talks with local folks about the issues at the market, school, workplace, etc... and they usually started with "did you read what so and so said about X on Front Porch Forum?" And then we were off and running. Before FPF, I rarely spoke to these people. Good call Yankee... you're improving with each issue lately.
Comment from Trisha Craig on March 4, 2010
This story is so simple, moving, and inspiring! What a great way to solve the bizarre problem of not knowing who your neighbors are. I love it!!
Comment from William McAleer on March 5, 2010
This was great!!! I've been living on 25 ann rd in long valley, nj since May 1992 and rarely see my neighbors even in spring or summer, never mind in the dead of winter! this article says 2nd in a series, I think I missed the first one, anyone know about it? thanks so much!!!
Comment from Barbara Hall on March 5, 2010
Thanks for your interest. Part I is "The Maine Way." There's a link at the beginning and end of this article, or you can copy this URL: http://www.yankeemagazine.com/issues/2010-01/features/Maine-jobs-sports-winter
Comment from Laura Lewandowski on March 7, 2010
Wonderful article. I just moved to a Vermont community with a FPF from a neighborhood in the western US that was purposefully platted to discourage interaction with one's neighbors. That was a cold existence, let me tell you. After just one week I know more about my new area than I did after six years in the other neighborhood, and can't wait to get started in the life of the greater community. It is pretty wonderful.
Comment from Remy Steel on March 7, 2010
Great article. Mr. Wood-Lewis should indeed receive as many awards as available for his effort in this very difficult mission to connect neighbors. Neighborhoods are indeed on a decline across the country. We have been feeling it and recent research confirms it. With the same passion and sense of urgency to connect neighbors, I started something similar in the East but that makes it really easy, fast and free to bring any neighborhood online. www.ToolzDO.com is a social platform dedicated to connecting neighbors and building community. You get the same benefits and more at no cost, no setup time, with less resources and overhead to maintain. We have members in over 200 cities in the US and span across 3 continents. Check it out. It's all free which enables faster adaptation. We actually pay community builders and organizers who bring their community online and charge nothing for customization. Thus far it has been a labor of love as well. I think distributing the love and resources on a common and tightly integrated platform would have the greatest impact in this movement to reconnect neighbors. By harnessing technology the limits of community size or administrative borders can be removed and neighbors can truly be connected to the neighbors near them or in their own backyard.
Comment from Michael Wood-Lewis on March 8, 2010
Thanks to Bill McKibben and Yankee Magazine for shining a spotlight on all the wonderful community building underway by Vermonters through Front Porch Forum. Thanks too to the commenters above and the folks Bill quoted in the article. We look forward to expanding to other communities. If interested, go to http://frontporchforum.com/join and let us know!
Comment from Michael Wood-Lewis on March 8, 2010
P.S. And we greatly appreciate the two dozen VT state legislators who are co-sponsoring a resolution honoring Front Porch Forum this month... http://bit.ly/bRa9HM
Comment from Steven Clift on March 8, 2010
Excellent story. What the Front Porch Forum has done extremely well is create a network of small scale semi-private spaces among neighbors. Over here in Minnesota (mostly, but also England some) we've been working our way down from city-wide online civic forums to the larger, but still public neighborhood level (a few thousand households in my case where I have about 450 of 4,000 households on a forum ... we just had a potluck last night). According to the Pew Internet and American Life project, some 4% of American adults say they are on a neighborhood e-mail list. With FPF and sites like NeighborsforNeighbors.org in Boston and my E-Democracy.org we are the most visible because we serve multiple communities. So whether you work to bring FPF to your community or doing your own thing, it is time to bring this idea to the other 96% of people!! I am trying to connect anyone interested in building local communities online here: http://e-democracy.org/locals
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