Do you value community trusting others?

[razz]

DD1 sent me this article https://fs.blog/2021/01/mistrust/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter from a blog about the importance of community. We have talked at different times about the importance of community and its benefit to build trust. Is this something that you value and how have you built trust?

When I moved over 6 years ago into this neighbourhood as a recent widow, I knew i needed to be careful but generally friendly. Walking the dog daily made a big difference and now I am comfortable with most but close to very few which is wise, I believe. One family is my emergency contact with my house key but close friends are those outside my immediate neighbourhood. Is this usual for you?

Bowling alone talked about the breakdown of community since the 1970"s although I have not read it as yet.

"The ingredients for trust are simple. We need to repeatedly interact with the same people, know that others will warn us about their bad behavior, and feel secure in the knowledge we’ll be helped when and if we need it. At the same time, we need to know others will be warned if we behave badly and that everything we give to others will come back to us, perhaps multiplied.

If you want people to trust you, the best place to start is by trusting them. That isn’t always easy to do, especially if you’ve paid the price for it in the past. But it’s the best place to start. Then you need to combine it with repeat interactions, or the possibility thereof."

[iris lilies]

DD1 sent me this article https://fs.blog/2021/01/mistrust/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter from a blog about the importance of community. We have talked at different times about the importance of community and its benefit to build trust. Is this something that you value and how have you built trust?

When I moved over 6 years ago into this neighbourhood as a recent widow, I knew i needed to be careful but generally friendly. Walking the dog daily made a big difference and now I am comfortable with most but close to very few which is wise, I believe. One family is my emergency contact with my house key but close friends are those outside my immediate neighbourhood. Is this usual for you?

Bowling alone talked about the breakdown of community since the 1970"s although I have not read it as yet.

"The ingredients for trust are simple. We need to repeatedly interact with the same people, know that others will warn us about their bad behavior, and feel secure in the knowledge we’ll be helped when and if we need it. At the same time, we need to know others will be warned if we behave badly and that everything we give to others will come back to us, perhaps multiplied.

If you want people to trust you, the best place to start is by trusting them. That isn’t always easy to do, especially if you’ve paid the price for it in the past. But it’s the best place to start. Then you need to combine it with repeat interactions, or the possibility thereof."

Again and again, I hear people who move to my city neighborhood say they didn’t know people on their block in their suburban neighborhoods, but within weeks knew most of the neighbors on their block in my neighborhood. And after a year, they are attending parties, greeting people on their walks and at the library and in nearby restaurants, etc. etc here.

In Hermann on our block we talk to 2 nearby neighbors regularly. We wave and know 3 other households, but I doubt that our social interactions will progress beyond that with them.

[Teacher Terry]

We didn’t know our neighbors in the suburbs but do now that we live in town. It will be interesting to see what happens in the condo building.

[catherine]

Good article. I do believe in the value of building social capital. It hearkens back to the days when if you misbehaved, your neighbor would tell your mother.

Trust demands vulnerability, and I think people are probably reluctant to be vulnerable these days within their communities, because it takes time to let your guard down and who has time for that now?

I know I am trusting to a fault. It hasn't cost me too much so far, at least IMHO. There is such freedom in an exchange of trust and an expectation of reciprocity. I have found that here in VT. We have bared our souls to each other over fire pits and barbecues. Even though we are quite different culturally, we truly support each other. I never had this in NJ, where everyone wore a mask. (metaphorically speaking). It feels good.

[iris lilies]

It’s the car culture that kills neighborly interactions. If you never walk any place, or gather any place near to your homes in neutral/common ground, you don’t develop relationships with your neighbors. Common space is key. That common space can be The Street, or it might be the nearby park, or in our case a plaza one block from my house. Or walk-to restaurants with wide sidewalks where people,sit out with their drinks.

My block saw brand new houses built on the opposite side of the street a dozen years ago. Those houses all have garages in the back. Those new people pull into their garage and walk into their house. We don’t see them much unless they purposely make an effort. This is in contrast to us in the “old” side of the street where my household is the only one with a garage, and even then I still park one car on the street.
Fortunately the “new” people are really really good about neighborhood involvement.


When you actually see people coming and going from their cars in the street you wave, you may walk over to their car to have a quick word.

last week I saw my neighbor fumbling around with the lock on his rear car door. He was in the street, he has no garage. I was able to tell him my own rear door on my similar model malfunctioned, and he should call DH for tips on fixing it. See, this NEVER would have happened if he was fussing around with his car in a garage, out of sight.

[Simplemind]

We live at the back of a cul-de-sac with 12 houses. My husband has been here 35 years and his was the first house built. There is one other original home owner. I moved in 20 years ago. Until this last year when three homes turned over, most of us were retired or close to it. All our kids who were close in age have grown up and moved. Some actually moved back in 2020 with Covid concerns. We often chat at the mail boxes. I have a garage sale every year and either the others put things in or throw up their own. We usually all get together for a BBQ at the end of it. We watch each others houses when we go out of town. We accept packages for each other. We help corral each others dogs when they get loose. We share tools and help with projects. We exchange gifts of candy/cookies/cards at Christmas. I feel very very fortunate because other than my parents neighborhood where I grew up, I haven't had that at any other place I have lived.

[razz]

I blame the increase of TV for breaking down community by more people responding to the TV than socializing with other people. I don't want this to be another TV bashing thread but an analysis of how the sense of community starts to change and/or disappear.

I also think that once organized sports started trying to ensure that youngsters were trained and prepared for the professional leagues rather than just learning about sports and social skills, the community involvement suffered.

I have mentioned before about the concern in the UK because so many Brits are staying home and texting each other daily rather than having a weekly meeting at the local pub - so many pubs are closing and the tourism industry is severely impacted. From a 2018 BBC report https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45086080

[bae]

After over two decades of building social capital in the small place I live, I am finding it hugely helpful.

[rosarugosa]

We've lived in our house for almost 36 years, but since I've retired, I have a lot more opportunity to casually interact with our neighbors, and since Covid came to pass, that increased dramatically. DH and I do a lot of walking in the neighborhood, and I've been pushing myself to speak to people more often, with good results. I notice people's gardens and their pets, and people tend to respond favorably to compliments on their gardens and pets. People also notice and recognize us because we are the couple always walking around holding hands, and they comment on this (I guess we look sweet). I think Covid really encouraged people to talk to their neighbors more because this was an accessible form of social interaction that could be done safely.
There is an elderly woman who lives alone across the street, and I try to be one of the neighbors that helps out with her snow and leaf removal. My DH has taken on lawn-mowing responsibility for another neighbor.
I feel like we are trying to make up for lost time for the many years that we were always at work. I think it takes more effort if you don't have children or a dog.

[SteveinMN]

Community is a big reason I live in the city rather than the suburbs. When I lived in the suburbs, I knew my next-door neighbor and a couple of other people in the neighborhood, but that was about it. Here, I know every neighbor whose house I can see. I'll temper that by noting I've been here almost 20 years, which is 10+ years longer than I've lived in any other place, so there has been more opportunity to meet and get to know people. Still...

I think it's a situation with many factors. IL makes a point about car culture -- in the winter in the 'burbs, it seems the only time we saw people was as they drove in and out of their garages. But that likely was because there were very few places to walk to; if you wanted bread or an ice cream cone or were going to a church activity, you drove. We see neighbors on their way to and from the grocery store and liquor store and the restaurants three blocks away and see them inside those places, too.

One difference I'll note is that the suburban neighborhoods we lived in all had attached garages. In our current neighborhood, about half the houses have no garage at all, but almost every one that does has a detached garage, so at least you see people as they move between their garage and house. We often see our neighbors at those times, and that continued exposure induces the trust to stop and chat.

Our neighborhood also kind of lets people be. No HOA rules prohibiting clothes lines in backyards or gardens on the boulevard or fixing cars in driveways or hens in coops. There simply are more opportunities for people to be out doing things and more chances to interact or find an avenue of common interest.

We even have sidewalks in front of our houses -- both sides of the street. It's been no big thing for me to use my snowblower on the neighbor's sidewalk; it's another 80 feet of walking and it's a nice thing to do. He returns the favor, too. So we've gotten to know each other that way. No way would I trundle a snowblower over the road a tenth of a mile to the next house in the suburbs -- if they had a sidewalk to clear.

I think there are different forms of community evolving. There's a Facebook group for the neighborhood and a Buy Nothing group and i've gotten to know other people in the neighborhood that way. One woman coordinated a weekly run for neighbors to a more distant farmer's market when pandemic rules advised against going to the big ones which are closest. I don't know how I would have found her (or her, me) without the neighborhood group. And I was happy to have ultra-fresh veggies this summer.

Community is important. I happen to believe we are better off together than individually. It's why we tend to belong to cooperatives whenever we can. It's why I live in the city. To each their own, of course, but, yes, I think it makes a big positive difference.

[Teacher Terry]

Steve, I totally agree and we have had a similar experience in our city neighborhood for the same reasons.

[iris lilies]

The garages here in my city neighborhood are behind houses, we cant see them from the street. They are accessed by alleys. That is by design of our historic code.

In Hermann we will be celebrating car culture and very soon will be building a big ass garage attached to our house, highly visible from the street. It might even have more visual mass than the house. We even cut down two gorgeous sugar maples in the way to service the garage and our fleet of cars.

Suburban life, here we come!

I am not exactly thrilled with this idea of mondo garage, but it is what it is.

[frugal-one]

We walk everywhere around our community, talk to people and have lived here for many years. I feel people have their own families and don't need anyone else. I know if something happed to DH I would be totally alone. Even though we know lots of people if there were an emergency I don't think there is anyone who would care or offer to help. People are involved with their own lives.

[Teacher Terry]

Frugal, you don’t have any actual real friends after living there a long time?

[frugal-one]

Frugal, you don’t have any actual real friends after living there a long time?

I traveled extensively for my job for years. I know many people but would classify them as acquaintances not anyone I could count on for help. I have known people who have left here because it is not a friendly place. This is a small community and people are very cliqueie. We are talking about downsizing but have yet to decide where we want to live. There is little family so we could go anywhere. We will make a decision soon as we want to age in place and this is not it.

[rosarugosa]

Wait, you mean there are places where people put cars in garages?? That's just crazy! We live in an area where most garages are detached, and more houses don't have them than do. In what I consider to be my immediate neighborhood, there are 16 houses and only 2 have garages, but attached (in one case beneath the house in the basement). But almost nobody actually uses them for cars. In our walks, when I see a garage door open, I usually see that the garage is chock-full of stuff, lots and lots of stuff.
All kidding aside, if I had a garage, I would not waste that precious real estate on housing a car (or a bunch of crap). I would use it for a workshop and garden utility space.

[razz]

Wait, you mean there are places where people put cars in garages?? That's just crazy! We live in an area where most garages are detached, and more houses don't have them than do. In what I consider to be my immediate neighborhood, there are 16 houses and only 2 have garages, but attached (in one case beneath the house in the basement). But almost nobody actually uses them for cars. In our walks, when I see a garage door open, I usually see that the garage is chock-full of stuff, lots and lots of stuff.
All kidding aside, if I had a garage, I would not waste that precious real estate on housing a car (or a bunch of crap). I would use it for a workshop and garden utility space.

RR, one of the absolutes when I went house hunting was a 2-car garage for my car and the garden tools I would need. I love it!!!!! Never had a garage before for my car. It is safely stored, free from snow and frost in the morning; I step out of my car when it is pouring rain staying nice and dry unpacking my shopping; no competition for a parking space. Been the route of no garage because it was filled and used as a workshop by DH instead. Did I mention that while I miss DH, I love my garage? lol

[iris lilies]

RR, one of the absolutes when I went house hunting was a 2-car garage for my car and the garden tools I would need. I love it!!!!! Never had a garage before for my car. It is safely stored, free from snow and frost in the morning; I step out of my car when it is pouring rain staying nice and dry unpacking my shopping; no competition for a parking space. Been the route of no garage because it was filled and used as a workshop by DH instead. Did I mention that while I miss DH, I love my garage? lol
That is wonderful that you get such great use out of your garage. Up north, garages are necessary. They are of borderline use here in St. Louis. One non-functional use of a garage here is that our car insurance goes down if we have a garage. The garage protects our car from damage and theft.

[SteveinMN]

One non-functional use of a garage here is that our car insurance goes down if we have a garage. The garage protects our car from damage and theft.
Same here. My car insurance went down when I moved from the hoity-toity neighborhood to the "working class" neighborhood because in h-t I had to park on the street and here I have a garage.

A two-car garage was a requirement when I bought this house. In truth, the fact that DW's house before marriage had only a single-car tuckunder garage (meaning one of us would have had to park on the street) forever removed that house from my consideration as a place to live. Nice house otherwise but that niceness would never have made up for having to keep one car outside during the looooong winters.

[Teacher Terry]

Never had a garage when living in Wisconsin in old homes. They are all detached and far from the house if you have one. Our neighbor did build a new one he could actually put his car in. I have a secure underground garage in my condo.

[iris lilies]

Same here. My car insurance went down when I moved from the hoity-toity neighborhood to the "working class" neighborhood because in h-t I had to park on the street and here I have a garage.

A two-car garage was a requirement when I bought this house. In truth, the fact that DW's house before marriage had only a single-car tuckunder garage (meaning one of us would have had to park on the street) forever removed that house from my consideration as a place to live. Nice house otherwise but that niceness would never have made up for having to keep one car outside during the looooong winters.

North of interstate 80: yep, garage required.

My friend who moved to northern NH is thrilled with her attached garage and sure I can see that because it is essential in those parts, snow land.

This morning we are getting our first snow of the year. We have had a lovely winter with no ice no snow until now.

[rosarugosa]

We do have a generous driveway that allows us to park side by side, and it's only a few steps into the house.

[frugal-one]

North of interstate 80: yep, garage required.

My friend who moved to northern NH is thrilled with her attached garage and sure I can see that because it is essential in those parts, snow land.

This morning we are getting our first snow of the year. We have had a lovely winter with no ice no snow until now.

We had 8-9 inches of snow with 25 mph winds. I hate winter! And, yes we park our cars in the garage.