Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?
I live in a "Top 10 most dangerous cities in the U.S." What can I do to help? It seems like the most common solution for people who are educated and well off is to move. To get out of the situation, which is understandable. However, this causes a brain drain and leave the city in a worse place.
I don't want to do that, I want to uplift if I can. What is the micro thing I can do today, that can have a chance of a macro change tomorrow?
345 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadJust showing up has an impact. I guarantee that simply being present will change everyone's behavior. Most meetings most of the time have no audience. If you keep showing up, you'll eventually figure out what's what.
My next piece of advice is to get on your representative's calendar. Pick an issue, any issue. No matter how small. Like fixing potholes or improving a road crossing. State the problem, propose a solution, make an ask, be cordial. 5 minutes. Then do it again. You likely won't "win" at first. Tenacious wins in the long run. At some point, politicians will do what you ask, just to make you go away.
I guarantee that there's a local issue, the more local the better, that you care about, that needs your attention. Anything and everything you can imagine is on the agenda at some point during the year.
Advocate for basic income. Specifically basic income without any local cost of living adjustment. Address the source of the problem.
A basic income without CoL adjustment fundamentally breaks the system forcing people to cram themselves into cities and compete over resources. It will result in people who decide to rely on it leaving cities and moving to lower cost of living areas (revitalizing those areas too) if cities don't serve their needs.
laws
> wave a wand
the guns that enforce the laws
IMO: You could start a non-profit to train homeless/underprivileged people with vocational skills to get jobs, which would probably in the long run save some people from going down the wrong path...
My off-the-cuff thought was, “join Transportation Alternatives and push for more bike lanes, public transit, etc.”, as I see automobiles as one of the most significant dangers to both urban areas and even the planet. But when I google "ten most dangerous cities," they seem to list places whose danger is more poverty-driven.
Here's an example of a list: https://www.statista.com/statistics/217685/most-dangerous-ci...
These lists are based on crime rates, which to my point above, are driven by more immediate threats to life than indirect ones like the contribution of car exhaust to global warming.
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baltimore-homicide-murder-rate-...
[1] http://www.city-data.com/accidents/acc-Baltimore-Maryland.ht...
It doesn't "just happen" that I picked Baltimore, it's highly relevant to the topic the parent posted raised, even if you'd like to redirect the discussion elsewhere and it doesn't represent the US as a whole.
Sorry, it's really not. No one murders another person because of policies that don't provide enough to support to public transportation.
Walkable neighborhoods with good infrastructure where a mixture of all strata of society live are, in my opinion, quite important if you want to prevent problems. Carcentric city planning is directly opposed to that.
Cars are still dangerous and noisy which leads to a stressful atmosphere. Many hide in their cars as if they were tanks, afraid of connecting with anyone outside.
What's needed instead is people coming together to form a community.
Stress caused by car noise is way, way down the lists of issues in major cities.
Edit: you could add in the costs of minimum parking requirements, which crowd out housing and increase housing prices.
Something different needs to be tried. I would suggest looking at the Violence Reduction Unit: http://www.svru.co.uk/
Acquring money is an obvious way to get out of poverty. But living on handouts kills morale.
Bikes might not be a great solution in these areas -- they're easy to steal and somewhat unreliable due to weather and other factors. And, if somebody already feels that they're taking a risk hiring a poor person... is it going to help if they're showing up sweaty? Perceptions matter on both sides of the equation -- I won't apply for a job if I don't think that I'd last a week.
Rather than focus on the impact of cars, which is a bit of a "boil the ocean" solution, it would be directly impactful to fund a local restauranteur. It makes local jobs, and makes the neighborhood more livable and walkable.
If I had a billion dollars, I'd do an incubator for small, local businesses focused on sustainability, not disruption.
That said, I think the numbers back up my perspective. Violent crime just isn't what it was back in the seventies, but we're still in the mindset that danger = criminals.
To tell these people that cars are their problem is tone deaf at best. They have a million bigger problems.
What about the poor people who can't afford to live near transit? Or have jobs nowhere near transit? A car is often a requirement for them. And sure, maybe they can take a bus with a couple transfers, but then their commute goes from 45 mins to 90 mins.
Eastern Europe and Russia is not as rich, of course, but too could be example of huge territory with millions of people living whole their lives without car ownership.
Sure, redo all the public transit and then you can start asking people to ditch cars. But until then, you're handicapping them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
Yes. Increase "social capital."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital
Probably a bit overstated in that example, but if you walk around doing it consistently, I think that on average you're still making a small difference, while fighting apathy and politics of hate.
Interesting, I've always used this phrase to mean "I have a certain amount of energy to spend at a social event before having to go home and recharge." Example: "I spent all my social capital visiting my wife's parents yesterday, can we move game night to tomorrow night?"
TIL the phrase already has an actual meaning- one that's different. Thank you!
The first time the cop was apologetic.
The second time the same cop recognizes him and says, "Dude, you have got to get to know your neighbors. Pie goes a long way."
If my neighbors called the police on me for that, my first thought wouldn't be to bake pie for them.
We had some business with an army officer and he was busy with something so we had to wait.
About 20 minutes after we parked, an American woman comes and asks us what we're doing here and whether we need help.
That was weird because no one in our country does this, everyone minds their own business.
She did accept my explanation, but I had a feeling if we didn't move from there 10 minutes later she would've called the police on us :D
If you have abandoned commercial spaces, put art up in the empty windows to reduce the feeling that a place has been abandoned. If your streets feel dangerous because of traffic, work with local leaders to get approval for making low-cost changes to make it safer. For example, you can create sidewalk bumpouts using simple flower boxes. Talk to local lenders about what they can do to help local businesses get off the ground.
Be warned that if all this is successful, it risks leading to a big jump in housing prices, i.e., gentrification. Keep in mind that "gentrification" also tends to make local residents wealthier — it's not as simple as the usual picture in which locals are simply pushed out. However, it is important to start thinking now about solutions, because this will lead to some push-back. Ideally, the city or nonprofits should buy land now while property values are cheap to create housing trusts for low-income residents. This will always be a tough issue though.
There is a lot of small actions you can take locally to shift the momentum of your community. Lots of people have done it — you can do it.
Source: I'm an urban planner.
I'm genuinely curious to see your sources on this -- isn't displacement of original residents the primary definition of gentrification?
Managing this is hard, and will expose a politician to the realities of messy tradeoffs. It's far harder to find the political will to make something work, and much more convenient to shout either "Progress!" or "Oppression!" and make hard problems harder.
here's a particularly egregious example: https://doc-0s-ak-mymaps.googleusercontent.com/untrusted/hos...
It's frustrating that graffiti is seen so negatively. of course I'm against vandalism and it certainly doesn't belong on building facades but I'd take a wall of mediocre graffiti that's constantly refreshed over a business development funded mural any day. at least graffiti is honest
As for a direct idea, I'd try to get to know your neighbours, walk in your neighbourhood as often as possible, and support your local businesses.
It's a big time committment, but this is how change happens. We like to malign our political system, but it's set up for you to participate, and that's something we should cherish.
She was running against the incumbent and they pulled up whatever dirt they could to get her to move out of the district.
- campaign for whatever local government you deem aligns with your value if they aren't controlling your area
- create value and employment
Easier said than done, I'm doing none of these
Then, pay attention, show up every Monday promptly on time, and see where you wind up.
There's no "best setup" here; it's whatever you'd enjoy most. It's hard to help people if you're unhappy doing it. You may prefer a "show up, help, leave" deal, or something more like a social club that meets over drinks to plan events and chat about life. So don't feel discouraged if your first group doesn't feel right.
With work—stuff that you're paid to do—everyone on the team has some shared incentives that can help foster alignment and consensus. Everyone wants stuff to get done because you and your team are in 100% agreement about wanting those paychecks to keep coming. Even with that, there is often drama and office politics.
With community organization, hobbies, etc. everyone is in it for the instrinsic rewards, and those vary widely among people. Some will be in it to meet new friends, others like seeing a neighborhood visibly look better. Some like the sense of power, others the sense of belonging.
It is really easy to end up in a group whose personalities and goals are too different to work together effectively, through no real fault of any individual. Like any relationship, you may have to try a few before something gels.
Historically the answer would be: go to church. More likely you’re not religious, so go to a similar regular event that places you in touch with your neighbors in the city. Join a committee or a choir or a volunteer group or arts group or the like that serves the community.
Do not join an organization dedicated solely to political advancement of its preferred party, at least not as a substitute for this. It is at serious risk of being more about power and less about helping, particularly in a bottom-ten city, and will be an inferior way to gain social capital and trust. If you do join one later you can use your connections to the community to make power more accountable to the community.
It's also worth noting that philanthropy has the biggest long-lasting positive impact when funds move into and through local centers of institutional capital.
Building the institutional capital is the hard part. No amount of money thrown at a problem will fix it in the long term without the local institutional capital, and a shared and transmittable wordview that keeps it alive across generations. Churches were indeed the historical local institution that endured across generations in the United States for many generations past, but those also fed into non-parochial committees that would tackle local projects.
I'm generalizing primarily from knowledge of the history of my own city. It's the most beautiful city for miles around. It had many churches in its early history (there's still a single block with 5 historic church buildings and a YWCA), and also had rich benefactors starting about 110 years ago who formed committees and built a lot of beautiful things here, including a beautiful Moorish architecture library, a series of beautiful parks, and a 2500-seat amphitheater which still hosts a free concert/show series every summer.
Yes, this is a major problem. One party rule is what we should expect from 3rd world countries like China. Having a single party on the ballot is what I expect from countries like North Korea (which does have voting believe it or not, just with one candidate on the ballot), not America.
Why is this idea so resisted? It doesn't even mean that we need to elect republicans. We can elect the Greens for all I care. However, there is a huge problem when all political positions are held by people that know the same power brokers, the same political party machine, hold the same ideologies, are unwilling to go against their 'side', etc.
Oh and BTW, remember that Hacker News is filled with rational, non-biased people /s.
How dare I suggest that places like Chicago, Detroit, and Philly are corrupt. HOW DARE YOU!! (put on your best fake child environmentalist face)
They have a philosophy that centers on "small bets" (trying things that aren't disasters if they don't work) and economic rejuvenation.
Due to all of this I realized that I have just enough knowledge to help others with their computers - or at least I have the right tools. Once I'm more confident, I'm planning on starting a Repair Cafe[1] in my city.
Repair is daunting for a lot of people - but it doesn't have to be. I hope to use the Repair Cafe as a way to improve the longevity of people's technology (saving them money) as well as teaching people the skills and knowledge they need to fix things on their own.
With even more reliance on technology these days - especially due to COVID - repair is a great way to help struggling families save money.
[1]: https://repaircafe.org/en/
https://speakoutchallenge.com/
Ensure that employees that are not performing are being fired. Speak in meeting about the need to adhere to performance reviews with metrics. If you do not keep our city departments heads in check they will break your city, because their job depends on it. Remove any pension plan for government employees, all they do is encourage stagnation, change them to 401k or TSP style programs.
Any nonprofit is mostly a band aid, while small wins can be rewarding they are more or less pointless in the long run.
The only way to improve the Top 10 cities is personal ownership change among the minority of the population that mostly just doesn't give a shit about anyone else. Litter is probably the easiest indicator of the give a shit factor. Everything else you do that does not directly impact community ownership is just lipstick on a pig.
The easiest way to fix community ownership is move people out of big cities and into cities with more direct social pressure to have ownership/not be a dirt bag.
The harder way is to reduce bureaucracy and blockers for small business and citizens. Not income taxes, but all the hidden taxes that hit small businesses, tap fees, permit fees, occupation tax, inspection fees, sewer tap fees, storm water fees, employee fees, inventory taxes, the list goes on and on and on and on. The impact of these taxes are amplified by the timelines, which are regularly measured in years, which almost no startup or small business entrepreneur can tolerate capital wise. These barrier fees and artificially long timelines are most prevalent in big cities, and make it nearly impossible for anyone other than large national brands to navigate/afford. Those national brands just remove revenue from the community, which encourages these small governments to keep passing more and more upfront fees/taxes and the cycle repeats until there are nearly no local small business owners left. (Tenant/renter small businesses are generally the only ones that remain after about 20-30 years of this cycle. ie convenience stores and restaurants)
Working for John/Sally your neighbor will fundamentally change your world view of your community. If citizens do not personally see their community being successful they will simple check out of social/civic give a shit process.
Working for HR also changes your world view and the result is not positive.
The people that will drive change in a community are the small business owners and workers not the bureaucrats/politicians that have never done anything in there life except talk about how growing the budget will solve "insert random issue" problem.
The side effect is those that don't leave are/become generally even more anti-community, so generally makes the situation in urban centers get worse over time. Unless you remove some critical mass of people quickly.
The long term trend is urbanization and clusterization of industries and homes. This means a lot of old cities and rural areas which were built around one factory will not grow back up. This is just reality.
The youth have a lot of their life still left. The sooner they invest their lives in rising cities, the better.
Get to know everyone in the neighborhood and understand what they want and need, then try to find ways to bring that.
When you have a strong network of neighbors and a little bit of cash, you can ramp up investment by cleaning up dirty corners and getting the basic services that a neighborhood is missing.
Here’s an example of how folks in Memphis, TN did this Over time: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/21/this-is-what-w...
If you’re interested in connecting with people who already have this mindset, there are a lot of them in Strong Towns, and there may even be a group in your area.
The risk with urban improvement is making the area more desirable eventually prices people out of the community. So, the real question is do you help the land or current residents? When you own property it’s seriously worth considering local improvements for several reasons, but it’s also easy to confuse the two. Further, if most people in the community own property then there is a lot of overlap.
To be clear both are worthwhile, just be cognizant of what your goals are. Anyway, if you want to help people I suggest either the young as changing the trajectory of someone’s life is easier early on, or the elderly because social inclusion scales well with individual effort.
It's true that increasing quality of a neighborhood will increase its housing price. This will have disparate impact: (1) it will help people who enjoy higher quality, but (2) it will hurt people who would prefer low quality and lower price. However, I think it's important to remember that the stock of people and housing are mostly fixed. If you raise the quality of one neighborhood so that more people bid to move in, then at the same time there must be other unobserved neighborhoods where prices fall. Therefore there is also a third effect of making a neighborhood nicer: (3) it can lower prices in other neighborhoods.
One way I like to visualize it is as a supply curve - if you move some neighborhoods up in the desirability ranking, then by conservation of rank, others necessarily fall in rank.
The argument I sketched above isn't a proof, obviously. There are edge cases where higher quality induces more people to own multiple homes or to live with fewer roommates, and nuances where heterogeneous preference for locations may make it harder on someone who needs to commute to their job and really would be better served by a cheap neighborhood, but for the most part I think it's reasonable that making neighborhoods nice is an overall positive good for the world.
In a market with a population growing faster than the supply of housing it is possible for there to be no place where values fall, and in fact for people who can no longer afford an improved neighborhood to end up homeless as a result.
This is why housing supply is absolutely critical, and as a society we should be working hard to ensure we always have supply in level with (or erring toward slightly exceeding) demand.
However, we have a cultural myth that the home is a persons primary investment and wealth accumulation vehicle. That Mrs. very harmful because it creates enormous incentives to do the opposite: restrict supply as a way to ensure that the people who already have a home are guaranteed a good return on their “investment.”
It’s true that home is a very large asset and that appreciation can benefit the individuals who live there, there’s nothing wrong with that at the individual level. However when we choose to have house appreciation as a significant goal at the societal level, it directly competes with the desire to end homelessness and see everyone housed.
If ensuring that everyone could afford at least adequate shelter was a primary goal for society, we would need to make choices that sometimes worked against, or at least did not help, home appreciation.
One often overlooked benefit is the knock on effects of gentrification are real improvements in local school systems. Looking across decades you often see gay communities which care less about local school systems acting as a catalyst by increasing local revenue while reducing the demands placed on local schools. The improvement in local schools precedes people’s awareness that the schools have improved. Similarly, many people can leverage the improvements in the local economy to keep up with the transition.
That said, relatively few people can keep up with significant changes and those people are simply worse off having lost an affordable community which they had social or economic ties to. A restaurant for example is generally different to relocate. A local handyman may have a steady stream of existing customers, which don’t follow them etc.
Uh... poverty isn't a preference. Sure, at the margins people can choose to spend the money they have on different things, but you're positing an equivalence here between things that aren't remotely equal. It's not like suburban professionals simply choose to spend their money on expensive housing and infrastructure where their inner city compatriots have different priorities. Poor neighborhoods are poor because the people there HAVE LESS MONEY.
You fix that by fixing the inequity, not imagining a fantasy resident who decides to put all her money into bitcoin or whatever.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/8/1/untangling-gent...
Let's say that a neighborhood is rated 3 out of 10 - not very good. There is a mix of people that live in this neighborhood. Some people own property and some do not.
Then the community makes the neighborhood better and it rises to a 7 out of 10 ranking. The people in the community that own houses costs are fixed and they now recognize the improvement.
The part of the community that don't own eventually see their costs rise. At some point they can't afford to a community that ranks 7, might only be able to afford a community that ranks 3 and would need to move to a community with that ranking.
It seems like part of the original set that owns experiences a large and lasting benefit. Another part of the original set experiences a short term benefit, then a transaction cost (moving) and reverts back to the mean.
Can someone explain what this description misses and where the harm comes from?
Empathy. Sense of place is real. Home isn't just your house or property values. People deserve not to be priced out of their homes so the sake of profit.
Then there are the individual-level logistical problems. What does moving do to your commute? Is it easy to find a new job? Will your kids have to go to a different school district?
"The neighborhood is improving, things will get more expensive". Bad.
"I have to move now." Bad. "This new neighborhood is worse than my old one." Only half true (they started at 3 and ended at 3), but perceived as bad.
They then ask:
> Can someone explain what this description misses and where the harm comes from?
In answer, maybe no harm is actually done. But even so, people will perceive that they have been harmed. And in the larger context of this thread, that is why people are sometimes unhappy with their community being improved, because they believe it will price them out and harm them.
Maybe cows can fly. Maybe a lot of things. But it does cause harm. So your idea about people's perceptions seems condescending
There is no good or bad except in terms of someone's perceptions.
You’re assuming that there is another 3/10 neighborhood available for the people who are displaced to move to, and therefore they gain a short term benefit and eventually end up back where they were.
In practice it’s typical that older areas which have become run down have ample city services, such as transit, parks, and libraries, which may not be the best quality, but at least exist.
Since neighborhoods are no longer built with these amenities, the best available substitute for someone who is displaced from an old neighborhood may be far less desirable than what they had before - a 1/10 trailer park, or worse, homelessness.
However, if we would continue to build traditional neighborhoods that were walkable, had city services, had transit etc. and built enough of those to keep up with the demand, then it would be much more likely that your scenario would play out. In that case the harm of economic change in neighborhoods would be greatly reduced, perhaps even to the point that it wouldn’t be a problem anymore
But that’s quite far from the reality on the ground today.
The wealth of yesterday created that situation. At some point someone will invest in that older area because of the location value.
The only way to artifically control that is through low rent units. Which create other barriers because one can never leave or they give up something even though it might make sense to move somewhere else for family or job reasons. When they always take 1/3 of gross getting a raise and taking on more responsibility seems counter-productive. Hard to break dependence.
This is the part you're overlooking. People in undesirable communities are renting because they don't have that generational wealth built up
Even if people aren't renting, once the desirability goes up, developers are going to want to kick you out, and will use the government to do it.
I don't have a good solution for this. Rent control helps a bit, but has bad externalities. Property ownership helps a lot but any measure to drive up ownership immediately prices out lots of people because it's captured very well by the housing market.
Should you so desire, you may want to add in a cost to capture the notion of how a person moving contributed to the improvement. This will usually need to be inflated above the true economic contribution (IKEA effect, etc.).
The local-relationships parameter may be effectively quadratic (since a person moving diminishes their relationships and relationships are two-sided).
¹ It is clear you know this but for other readers that may not, that's not just the monetary cost.
If they have lived somewhere a long time, one of the big losses is: Relationships.
For the people forced to move, they will not find another "3 out of 10" neighbourhood, as part of what makes it a 3 is that's where all their friends and long-lasting relationships and perhaps childhood memories are. That already makes anywhere else < 3.
They will have to move somewhere where they likely don't know anyone, or at least not the well-established friendships they had before.
If they have extended family in the area, they will have to leave those too. (Parents, children, aunts & uncles, siblings, that sort of thing).
Those friendships and relationships aren't just valuable for sentimental reasons. They form an essential practical support structure, and sometimes a financial support structure. For many people those things are a big part of what makes quality of life.
And they might be forced to move at an age where it's difficult to make new friends, especially deep friendships.
As people on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder, it's likely that they were benefitting from their friendship/relationship network in another, subtler way: By having good quality relationships with people higher up the ladder, their own circumstances are effectively lifted up as well.
For example, they might be taken out to places and introduced to opportunities and people because of long-lasting friendships with people richer than themselves. Their children get to play with children of richer friends with nicer houses to stay over in. Little things that probably translate to differences of opportunity when the children are older. That kind of uplift goes away when they move to another location.
Some people have a good relationship with a local employer too, and will lose that as well. It might be something quite treasured (even though it presumably doesn't pay well), and difficult or impossible to replace. Remember we're talking about people forced to leave, not those who want to leave.
In the case of Minneapolis, the city committed to a plan (Minneapolis2040) to increase housing density. And a lot of that new apartment/condo construction (mostly on unused or old industrial land) is necessarily out of financial reach for average residents. But the increased supply helps protect the prices for the existing houses and older apartments, whether privately owned or rentals.
It's not perfect, it's arguably not even good, but it's a tradeoff most Minneapolis residents can live with.
That's like worrying the infrastructure won't scale when you barely have enough users to keep the one server you rent busy.
I think this is a total non-starter. Trees are good, not bad. Good things are good, not bad.
It is good to do good things. If doing good things reveals something bad, then we should work on fixing that bad thing, not on avoiding the good things that uncovered the bad thing.
We want a politics where poor people can live in neighborhoods with trees, not a politics that says trees are bad because they make neighborhoods too desirable.
I think as part of the urban improvement is to work with the renters and landlords to let the renters capture some of the rising value, either through some sort of equity rent-to-own, or creative financing that lets the renters find other housing within the neighborhood. Maybe some sort of buy-out conversion from private landlords to private-benefit-corporation landlord (as opposed to public housing).
The alternative is localized rent control, that makes sure that the landlords don't capture the rising value of the neighborhood that is being added by the residents and their work. You also need some limits on redevelopment, so the landlord doesn't just replace the building with something more upscale and manage to replace the tenants as part of that. Maybe allow refurbishing and some new units in exchange for current residents getting rent control.
There's a reason that the single word I know in the most languages is "Grandmother".
If yours doesn't have that, then... be the Bubbie your Bubbie would insist is needed or something to that effect
I don't think you need a network to begin cleaning up dirty corners.
Just pick up garbage you see on the street when you walk around. It has an immediate impact, is easy and doesn't cost anything. Other people may see it and may begin doing that as well. I'm surprised more people don't do.
If you want, you can make a facebook group telling people you're going to be picking up garbage at a certain time, if anyone would like to join.
Garbage on the street has a very negative externality as people are less mindful of tossing garbage if there is already garbage on the street. It also strips people of dignity about where they live and can have other negative side-effects to the neighborhood or even promote lawlessness.
Cleaning up the trash on a block might be the most direct first action that anyone can take.
I think the poster was also using this as a metaphor.
But you’re right that you can start by picking up trash, and in fact that can be a good mechanism to meet the neighbors and build the network, depending on how you approach it.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-11-19/how-buddhist-shrine-t...
Can we get over this hyper-upper-class take on everything for lower class problems? When it gets vandalized, that's disrespectful, I guess, but putting it there is merely stupid.
It costs time.
Some results:
It's gotten me on TV a couple times.
It's led to working with my city councilman, whose team recently started organizing group pickups.
Someone considering a Senate run contacted me for advice on sustainability.
I'm working with a few corporations to organize nationwide pickup events -- mainly fitness places you'd probably know the names of.
As a regular in my local park, the drug dealers there have become friendly with me, leading to long conversations about life.
I'm friends with entrepreneurs in the field.
People often thank me and we talk.
It reinforces my diet. I avoid packaged food, which I find increasingly disgusting, largely for what the packaging does to the world and the entitlement, willful ignorance, and salt/sugar/fat/convenience addiction does to our culture.
Most of all, I feel connected to my community.
On the downside, my view of human nature can get dark when I consider how much people pollute.
Still, I value tracking since it's fun and I think would motivate people. If my experience or practice can help, I'd be happy to.
Typical topics:
- They ask why I do it
- They tell me how the others are at the ends of their ropes but that I couldn't understand that situation without being there
- They call me good a lot.
- They tell me how others litter but never themselves.
- They tell me I should use gloves (I don't because I'm avoiding creating more trash)
- They tell me how the people who are supposed to clean don't clean that well
- Of course, they ask if I want to buy drugs or at least buy them dinner from a food truck
None of them ask me about my life, my values, etc. No meaningful connections. Just chit-chat. We'll see if things evolve.
Great site and thanks for sharing!
I would complement saying that you should look for charities in or around your neighbourhood instead of giving to charities that doesn't affect the place you live directly (but if you super rich, do both).
Neighbourhood improvement with good intentions can cause systemic problems in a community
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-paren...
Trash in the street is one of the biggest problems you’ll see in neglected low income neighborhoods and it just feels so much different when the street gets cleaned up.
I spent 3-4 hours per day sitting on a park-bench in NYC reading, playing guitar, and writing between Jan-June of this year (and before you ask, I work a 9am to 5am). If you keep a friendly disposition and are welcoming by saying hello when people take notice of you, they will open up quickly – I must note with full sincerity and severity that this assumes you listen and ask thoughtful questions; people are quick to sense when someone is not genuinely and empathetically interested in them.
I've made friends with musicians (and had some great impromptu jam sessions), homeless people, CEOs, software engineers, mentally ill, folks addicted to hard drugs, guys formerly homeless, people who were in prison for a decade and trying to get by and reconnect with their kids, students, tourists, professionals, hourly-workers, and everyone in-between.
Now if you live in an area with a low-density of foot traffic this will not work and I do not have first-hand advice besides, perhaps, move to a more densely populated area. That you asked this question speaks to what you're looking for in this life.
This will do two things: A) Get you out on the block as you tend to your plants, where you can now serve as eyes on the street. B) Serve as a visual testament to people passing through your neighborhood that this is a place where people care about.