Subject: need ideas for building community

From: [email-masked] (GoodIdeas)
Date: 29 Jan 1995 20:50:06 -0500

[Note: several newsgroups are being targeted with this request.]

Hello from Good Ideas, a bi-monthly magazine of useful solutions to modern
problems. We are looking for ideas to include in our upcoming issue on
"Building Community" (March/April 1995). Any ideas you have come up with
or come across can be sent to [email-masked], and we will attribute the
ideas to their authors. These ideas will supplement the ideas our staff
has researched; the best submitted idea (in the eyes of our staff)
receives a Good Ideas award.

By "community", we mean both the social bonds between neighbors and the
general livability of a place (jobs, vitality, and quality of life).
People have different relationships with their neighborhood, their town,
and their region. A sense of community can be important at all three
scales.

Many Americans feel a lack of ties to their communities. They don't know
their neighbors. They don't come together to solve local problems. The
old-fashioned social safety net of people helping people is full of holes
in places as different as small towns, bedroom communities, and the big
city.

This upcoming issue, we are searching for ways to strengthen
communities, small and large. Examples of ideas we are writing about are:
increasing common open space, child care by senior volunteers, local
barter systems, and designing for pedestrians.

Any ideas you have are welcome. Any experiences in your community, or
experiences you know about, are also very valuable. Please e-mail your
thoughts to [email-masked]. Thanks!