The Neighborhood Fix

There are many neighborhoods that have come together in times of crisis, but after Hurricane Katrina none was so striking as in New Orleans.  Many times I have heard people wonder, "Why do they stay?" but those questions were answered when I saw a video of a neighborhood conference in 2008 designed to highlight community efforts from New Orleans residents themselves:

This clip provides highlights from New Orleans Speaks, an event of the New Orleans Institute for Resilience and Innovation, to discuss ways in which local knowledge and experience had led the renewal of the city.
New Orleans remains troubled by deep race and class divides and high levels of crime, but the city, by all accounts, also had a lot more civic life than most of the United States --- not just cavorting in the streets during Mardi Gras season but a long tradition of gregariousness and neighborliness; people knew their neighbors, talked to strangers, called everyone by endearments, invited everyone on the b…

If you are reading this, you are probably in front of a computer screen or a smart phone, ostensibly with the world at your fingertips.That’s pretty powerful: the world at your fingertips.You can “go” anywhere in the world through the power of the internet.You can wirelessly connect to anyone in any country with such ease that it is hard to remember a world without internet, which in fact wasn’t that long ago.
But look up and look outside… now come back to the screen so you can finish reading...What did you see?What was happening?What did you feel when you looked at it?We spend so much time looking at the world at our fingertips that we are tempted to forget the world just outside our front door.
In fact, the world at your fingertips is just a slogan used by technology companies.Many of us long to see the world, to travel, to see new things and for only the cost of a monthly cell phone or cable bill, these companies are telling us we can get there!The first thing I did when I started ma…