Microneighbourliness: Doing What You Can With What You Have Where You Are
Neighbourhoods come in all shapes and sizes. Building community across an entire neighbourhood has a lot of potential but also can seem overwhelming to some. So why not do what you can with what you have, where you are? Let’s shift our focus from the big city-wide concepts and issues to small scale projects that anyone can do in their community. Our local panelists highlight their experiences building successful micro-neighbourhood projects – some with funding and resources, and some without.
Moderator: James Chan
Local Panelists: Steve MacDouell, Bre Black, Dave Knill, Crystal Thuss, Heenal Rajani, Jenna Rose
James Chan: There are a lot of ways to think about microneighbourliness but I love every word of how the organizes described it in the agenda. Doing what you can with what you have where you are. We’ve just heard amazing examples from Brent [Toderian] and Skylar from across the country about what we do to make our cities great, but it’s also important to tell stories of the local hidden gems and celebrate the amazing people we have right here in our own backyards, and what they do to make our city great.
So often many of us get stuck on what we don’t have. We don’t have money, we’ve never done it before, what if it doesn’t work, what if no one shows up. And what I love about these folks is they focus on what they do have. Creativity, a few friends, get stuff done attitude. You just try things and see what happens. And what happens as a result are these micro acts of neighbourliness that strengthens trust, builds relationships, influences the culture and vibe of the places they call home, and gives permission to people, especially newcomers, to engage, participate, and belong.
Steve MacDouell: I’m a professor at Fanshawe, mostly teaching history and communication, also on placemaking and urbanism. When I’m not doing that I’m writing for a little publication called Strong Towns.
James: What does microneighbourliness mean to you?
Steve: I worked in neighbourhood development and community work as a professional and in a vocational role. After I left that and pursued education among other things, I realized that the things I was calling to, folks with the demands and everyday stresses of jobs who weren’t up to the full-time tasks I was inviting them into, which were too large. I should have been celebrating the small victories that were occurring in neighbourhoods across our city. So in terms of writing around microneighbourliness, I think what’s important about it is it subverts our apathetic tendencies when our ideas get too big. If you’re anything like me, it’s always big ideas. Big ideas that are over the span of years. And actually, those can land us in apathetic inaction, because they just get away from us. So I think small ideas, executing small little pivots towards the neighbourhood are encouraging because we get them done.
I also think small things are significant because they cumulatively matter. So if you think of the cumulative action over a span of ten years are far more impactful than we tend to think. My friend Tim Sorens out of Seattle he calls it “The compound interest of neighbourhood presence.” That’s how we become characters in the story of our neighbourhoods: small little things along the way. It’s important to tell stories like these because we can see ourselves in these stories… which is going to compel us further and further into the neighbourhood.
James: How can we slow down and take the long view in neighbourhood building, when we live in a fast paced culture?
Steve: It’s a great question and it’s really a form of subversion and resistance to take the slow route. But when we step back and think about it, what meaningful thing comes about immediately? The most meaningful things in our lives often take time, toil, some level of suffering for the sake of the thing itself, so I think we actually lower our expectations when we take the long road. So instead of pondering what we can do in the immediate – and some of us can do this, and more power to you, we need you folks – but for a lot of us that’s not our capacity, and we become more energized when we take the long road. And how do we do it? We do small things, and we value them over the course of many years, and we trust that over time that cumulative – that compound interest – is going to be significant not only in our neighbourhoods but beyond that and across our city.
Bre Black: My name is Bre Black, I live in Fanshawe area, Cedar Hollow. My husband and I moved here for his job so I was a newcomer to this city for a long time. We’ve lived here for six years, I have a two and an almost three-year old. My neighbourhood is suburban, cookie cutter, thirty foot lots. We joke that we sleep within ten feet of each other. Close proximity, young families, some that have downsized. We have this very cute neighbourhood in the far northeast of London.
My husband and I love coffee, we love people, and through conversation with Steve – we’ve been friends with Steve for a while – he really inspired us to leverage our driveway and garage and do something that we love, which is to open a quote unquote coffee shop. So we started something in the beginning of May where every Friday morning we invited our neighbours to come and have coffee in our driveway. It’s free, we wanted to do this, it’s just like having people in your living room, and it was an opportunity for people to either come by fill up their travel mug and head to work, or come and stay and have a chat and meet new people.
When we started this we thought we’d have ten people. The first week we started we told people we knew, and we had thirty people and we hadn’t even advertised yet. In the course from that Friday to the Tuesday after, we had James Kingsley, he generously sent us a branding package, and we have a logo. And that was a totally amazing gift. Then when we got an Instagram we realized 100 people were going to come and we thought, how will we afford this? We reached out to a coffee roaster in Toronto, called Social, which we’ve been brewing in our home for a while, and said hey, this is what we’re doing. We’re trying to create belonging and community in our suburb. Can we qualify for wholesale pricing. They responded in under an hour saying we love your idea, we want to sponsor it. Over the summer they have given us well over 1000 worth of free coffee. IT just blows me away, I still get chills thinking about it.
James: You weren’t asking for anything for free. And it just shows you never know what you’re going to get until you put it out there.
Dave Knill: I am one of the people who put together the Woodfield Community Porch Concert series. This was an idea that came about organically, to solve a need we had initially, which was that in 2014 nobody was booking folk music. That’s how it felt, anyways. Locomotive Espresso had opened somewhat recently, and became a hub for people of all socioeconomic situations and ages, and that became the friend group – someone’s a graphic designer, someone’s a musician, I had a couple of microphones – so we just started doing it. Our initial thought was: well, the cops are coming for sure. [laughter]. But they didn’t! Neighbours came by and asked if they could sit on the lawn. So we did it again in 2015, and a very special person that I won’t name mentioned there was a possibility of City funding. So we reached out to the Woodfield community association, who was incredibly supportive, and together we put together an application that resulted in some funding and gave us the opportunity to create this and compensate local artists we hope fairly, and make an accessible event where kids and elderly can get together and have a good time.
James: Could you have imagined this when you first had the idea?
Dave: I could never have imagined this. It’s a dream come true. I felt giddy for weeks and weeks. And it’s amazing hearing what neighbours have to say about this. You go from worrying if you’re disturbing people, to hearing that it was the most memorable event of their summer. It has meant a lot to me to have it in June, I think June is a very hopeful month, things are looking good. I don’t know what more to say about it, but I really enjoy it.
Crystal Thuss: My story did start on a front porch. We like to have porch nights with our neighbours, just the ones across the street at first. Once we put the kids to bed, our monitors won’t reach. So if we stay outside we can hang out while our kids are sleeping. I’m really lucky, I grew up in the East end of London in a cul de sac where our neighbours were very close, they all had a key to the house so when I was little and forgot my house key I could always bang on someone’s door and get a house key. Then in Toronto for ten years, we did lack that sense of community, living in a very transient neighbourhood where people are all commuters.
Then we moved to London in Old North, with great neighbours. Then we landed in Old South and developed this habit of sitting on the front porch with neighbours. We were chatting about how we didn’t really know anyone else on the street, just the people with kids that gravitated towards each other. So we decided to throw a block party. We just said hey, let’s define a set area of the neighbourhood and tell everyone to bring some food and let’s get together. We’re now in the second year. Essentially we got some flow, decided we would call it the Foxy Frindsor. Now my toddler knows the majority of people on the street, people walk by with the dogs and say hi. You have multiple people you can ask to borrow sugar from. We did the block party in July this year and had a food truck night in August, and then a movie night in September! Really, it took very little work in terms of man hours to put these things together, and we’ve found resources to help us, like the City of London’s NeighbourGood programs for funding parties and putting on movie nights. I think the community appreciates it so, so much. We’ve put together a Facebook group to communicate with neighbours on a slightly larger scale. The more you put out there to people, the more they give back. We have neighbours help deliver flyers door-to-door, and spreading the word by mouth. If you need extra tables you put it on the Facebook group and someone will come through.
Jenna Rose Sands: I grew up in Old South, and so I was very used to community, community, community. I still go to my grade five teacher’s house to hang out and have coffee. Throughout my time I ended up in Woodfield, which is very, very community based. I went to Beal, spent most of my 20’s and 30’s travelling around doing art and generally engaging in London art and community. I’m Indigenous, Cree-Ojibwe, so I found myself in this great community of people, but as I grew older I started to realize that these two things had a difficult time coming together: being Indigenous and seeing the effects of intergenerational trauma, and having to educate people all the time about this stuff. But then on the other hand being embraced in the London art community and meeting people, I started to realize that who I was as a person, as an Indigenous human being, could potentially deprive me of opportunities in the community that I loved. So my community initiative was reading the news, and just seeing constant things about Indigenous people, but none of them positive. Think the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat. Indigenous communities just outside of London are in a boil water advisory. My sister in law and her kids just spent all day carting water to elders. This is just outside of London. So this is what I started doing: this is the first issue [of the zine], called “Introducing Atrocities against Indigenous Canadians for dummies.” Some people have been like, “dummies?!” And I’m like, “well if the shoe fits!” [laughter].
So when you see injustice, I find, it’s really - you were talking about small scale versus big scale, and I was sitting here in this pit of (frustrated sound). It’s hard to feel you can have change happen. I see this problem, but I’m a small drop in a large, gross, chlorinated pool, and how am I going to change this? So you think back to your own strengths. I’ve always loved zines, been collecting them since I was a weird punk rocker getting into shows at Embassy and Call the Office when I shouldn’t have been there, and doing visual art. I decided I’m going to make a zine that starts educating, so that when people start spewing off, saying “oh I had no idea,” they can spend an easy ten bucks and get educated. The first one was about residential schools, so many people don’t realize that the last ones stopped in the nineties, 1996. I was 11, how old were all of you in ‘96? The second one was about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Third one was about the Sixties Scoop. Each one comes with lovely discussion questions for your golfing trip and wine night. It says “please feel free to use these questions as a nice icebreaker at your next trivia night!” Imagine that at trivia night! What year did the last residential school close?
My aim was to educate the people in my community on a smaller scale. I can at least hang out in Woodfield and not have people be like “oh, I had no idea!” I just want to encounter none of that. Not that Woodfield isn’t woke! Woodfield has some rad people.
James: I love that you’re building communities in more way than one, and you found a way to channel your strengths and passions into something positive. Thank you. So we’re going to take it up to how these small little acts of neighbourliness added up to a better city.
Heenal Rajani: I’m a relative newcomer to Canada, I live in the Piccadilly area with two small children and two slightly older stepchildren. I’m the founder of Reimagine Co and the organizer of City of Neighbours Day, and hundred-and-one day. How many have heard of it? Most of you, great. So I don’t have to do a big introduction.
But let me paint a picture in your mind; Of a city more joyful, more connected, more kind.
Three years in a row one summer day, Londoners created our own festival; Where we connect, laugh, and play.
You don’t have to book, you don’t have to pay; And anyone can take part in a small or big way.
It can be a lemonade stand in your front yard, a movie night with The Goonies in Labatt Park.
Baking brownies and giving them out for free; a potluck or picnic with cakes and tea.
You can make poems or paintings and give them all away; that’s the magic of City of Neighbours day.
Right downtown a giant water fight; bubbles, a Cubs game, an art hive.
Pick up hockey with the SuperGuides; A jam session as evening turns into night.
You could try scrabble, poetry, get free books or free sunflower seeds; sew a giant quilt for your community, check out the stars at the observatory.
You could create a hopscotch or a hostel for bees; clean up the river and plant some trees.
So much to see, a gathering on the green; clowns, crafts, live music – all this for free.
Blow bubbles, fly kites, dance, sing, play; connect with your neighbours, on City of Neighbours Day.
Yoga, Thai Chi, Salsa lessons and swing; Bollywood too, and yarn bombing.
A pay as you can barbecue, book swap, plant swap, toy swap too.
Live electronic music, arts, and vegan salami; scavenger hunt, mouse house tour, make origami.
Learn Braille, paint rocks, play bingo and get arty; OEV shows how it’s done with their annual block party
There’s a popup spiral sculpture in Ivy Park; full of activities from lunch time till dark.
A space to connect with homeless friends; a day to be who you are and not just pretend.
And don’t forget – you can pet Mr. Fish, who’s actually a cat. Whatever it is, share your gift. IT’s as simple as that.
Connect with people form near and from far away; you can do all that on City of Neighbours Day.
Go on a nature walk, art walk, neighbourhood walk; try an electric bike or make art with chalk. Travel on the bus or bike along the Thames; see your neighbourhood through a whole new lens
Because strangers are just friends we haven’t yet met; there’s even a meet-up just for pets.
Do whatever you can in a small or big way, to transform our city just for one day
Unchain your imagination, set your creativity free; make London what you want it to be
Because this is a festival that’s powered by people; this is a city that’s powered by people. This is a word that’s powered by people
It’s about small acts that anyone can do; I can make a difference and you can too.
When we show up with hearts and participate; really take part and not just spectate
We can transform our city for good. Let’s uncover all the layers. London is not just a city of neighbourhoods, but a city of neighbours.
Do whatever you can: share, connect, and play. Transform our city for one or more days.
Anyone can take part in some small or big way. Perhaps every day could be City of Neighbours Day.
James: How does anyone take the first step?
Jenna Rose: I got angry. And then for me, any time I feel any sort of uncomfortable feeling or angry or upset, my go-to is to lean into it. I don’t want to just brush things to the back recesses of my brain because you know, I did that about my Indigeneity as a teen. That doesn’t work, just so you know. Pushing anything that’s difficult to the back of your head never works. It comes back to bite you. I lean into it and I always try to make that productive. I don’t want to hold onto anger or bitterness, but I want to feel it. Then I’m like ok I need to make some movement, so what is the action? Let’s turn this feeling into an action. And I actually had the flu and it came to me in a flu Nyquil haze and woke up and grabbed my sketchbook like this is what we’re going to do. So, anger and Nyquil.
James: I want to connect that back to Brent’s thing about false choices. You hear that in the business community, are you driven by emotion or cold logic? Are you analytical number cruncher or do you follow your gut? And I think that’s a false choice. A friend of mine pointed that out. Why is it mutually exclusive to be driven by emotion and do logical, rational things with it. We should be driven by these emotions, we should be pissed off at injustices and atrocities. You went and did something with it.
Steve: I wonder if some of it is skills and capacity assessment. So when I hear about the coffee shop in the garage, that sounds like an abundance of work to me because I don’t know that much about coffee, And just the skills and capacity to do that well, like they do. Comes from a background working with coffee. There’s a familiarity there. It means that the drain of actually doing it is going to be significantly less. The other thing is context, their community lacked a third place. Some have great third places, we have locomotive in Woodfield, places where people connect. Their space though didn’t have that and it’s an acknowledgement of the urban design in their neighbourhood, and urban design could potentially contextualize and use this in a meaningful way.
Does anyone subscribe to The Localist? The Localist came out of this idea that all of our Toronto friends slagged London off as boring, and we knew you weren’t going to accidentally stumble upon the meaningful interesting things that happen in this city. You kind of need a curated guide. So that’s what The Localist was, and we looked around at context said people say it’s boring, let’s prove them wrong. But also came down to skills and capacity. We have designers, we have writers; together, it could be a micro-idea because we have 5 or 6 people who could do a little bit. We have been around long enough to curate, one of our favourite editions was “Our Favourite Strip Malls” and that was one of our most popular editions. We’ve got a lot of strip malls in this town and we’ve got some cool ones who are doing things differently.
James: What have you learned from this experience?
Dave: One of the things I learned was to open your mind to what other people might enjoy. I started at a place of “well I know I’m interested in this? And I wasn’t sure that would work for other people, but the more you share your ideas, you’re going to get people who like them and maybe they can help you out a little bit or direct you towards someone who can help you.
James: Were you surprised how many people liked folk music?
Dave: Well, you know… we diversified. [Laughter].
I was just so pleased with how everyone enjoyed coming together. It’s not all just about the performer. People are just happy to be together and share that space and make memories that tie them to their community. I’ve had lots of conversations with people walking by the house saying “hey, wasn’t this where we were that time..? And then you anchor these stories about your community, and it becomes how you think about your world, I think.
James: Were there people who walked by?
Dave: There were certainly more in the first year. There are some assisted living facilities nearby, with people who wouldn’t have had the chance to go to a concert. They didn’t have the money, maybe, or they just wouldn’t go out late at night.
Jenna Rose: One thing I learned about my neighbours was 1) that they really wanted to learn. They were super supportive. And then there were a couple that were like “no, no,” and you know that was disheartening to me because I live in this neighbourhood. My child is here. To know that a neighbour is so abrasive about learning about these issues or brushing them off was difficult for me. But I had neighbours that were like “whoa, whoa, we’re not going to do that.” So they stepped in and used that clout or privilege and power to be like “wait a second, no, this IS important.” So that was something that I appreciated about my neighbourhood. The supportive nature of neighbours and having that community is important because we live in a call-out call-in culture, so it’s good to have people who live around you who have your back and want to see you thrive. That’s a big part of community – you want to see everyone happy and thriving. It doesn’t just take a village to raise children, it takes a village to literally be happy… I was delighted by my neighbourhood that they wanted to learn.
James: I want to ask, when you first did whatever the thing was, talk to me about the feeling you had. Were you nervous no one would show up?
Crystal: We essentially had to find the set of streets we were going to invite to our block party. We knew if all of Old South showed up, we don’t have enough money to pay for burgers for everyone. So we decided about a hundred households. And I was terrified that nobody would be interested in coming. I started a Foxy Frindsor email address and thought nobody would RVSP. But sure enough the RVSP’s just kept coming in and it was just so delightful to know some of the neighbours names from the apartment next to us when before we had no idea who they were or what they do. Even if they couldn’t make it that weekend, just to know their names meant I could email them again about the next one. If you just put it out there, people are craving that kind of connection and we were super pleasantly surprised at the amount of people that were just happy that someone had taken the initiative to do it.
I get way more credit than I deserve in my neighbourhood for throwing a neighbourhood party. People just love having someone make the first move. We have some seniors in the community who said “we used to have something similar” but when it ended nobody took the cause back up. Some people were genuinely relieved that they could say hi to people and not feel awkward about it anymore. You’ve given them permission to say “I don’t remember your name but I saw you at the block party” or “hey, you’re a chiropractor right? I need some work done.”
James: Heenal you must have met a lot of people running City of Neighbours Day events. And I’m sure a lot of folks who held an event were probably in the same boat, not knowing what to expect. But having this festival, knowing that they were doing it with hundreds of other people in London or around the world, must have given them a little nudge over that hesitancy.
Heenal: Absolutely. It gives people permission on that day to go and do something we wouldn’t normally do. I don’t know what it is in us or in our society that we need that permission, that we need someone to tell us that it’s okay. What we’re seeing here are examples of people doing just that, going out of their comfort zones to host something. Btu what I’ve had people tell me is it isn’t about how many people show up, it’s not necessarily the event itself – it’s the buildup, the preparation, even if it’s making lemonade with your daughter for a lemonade stand, choosing a spot, having conversations along the way - it’s about putting yourself out there, which isn’t always easy to do, but what we’re trying to show today is that anyone can do it, and there are so many supports from the City and outside. Things tend to fall into place. People are good, and people are craving connection.
Question from the audience: Where can Jenna Rose’s zine be purchased.
Jenna Rose: I have a website, it’s www.atrocitiesagainstindigenouscanadians.com. There’s an order form there. If you’re local just pay online and I can even do house drop-offs. And you can read all about the project online on that website.
Question from the audience: Are any of the speakers tenants? It seems more difficult to create community if you’re a tenant rather than a homeowner.
James, to the panel: How many of you are tenants. There. Half our panel. So that’s a myth that needs busting.
Question: How is the City helping you, and how is the City in your way?
Dave: The City has been great for us. The City hasn’t been in our way. I borrowed some pylons from a pothole down the street [laughter] and they didn’t say anything, which was great. Also there’s the [Neighbourhood decision Making] program. I think they want to hear everybody’s voices about which projects to fund. And we have a project up for funding. We’re hoping to take the series and move it around more neighbourhoods in the historic central areas in London to create relationships between Woodfield, Old East Village, Piccadilly – everybody really. So go out and vote and that’s how they’re helping us, giving us the opportunity to make decisions for ourselves and choose projects that mean something to us.
Heenal: That is a great thing about NDM - is that children can vote.
Steve: I think for a lot of us the question of space – where to do things – is a big question. And I think where the City can help is by designing great urban spaces that people can use. So I think this is an urban design conversation as well. A lot of our modern suburbs are not designed for human connection, so anything we can do to subvert that – and Brent’s absolutely right, the conversation that I’m often hearing is about urban spaces, but how we reimagine the suburbs and retrofit the suburbs – if it’s not already the conversation it’s going to be the conversation. And especially in a city like London – what do we do with our suburbs? A small activation like Bre is doing is such a tremendous for their context. But places like this river behind us – how do we celebrate that space? How do we get people to linger, places like Dundas Place where we can co-create something meaningful. We’ve got to invest in urban design.
Crystal: I found that the City has been extremely helpful, it’s just that you need to ask. A lot of people think it’s going to be confusing, or they don’t’ know where to start. And I literally started by finding NeighbourGood – so check out the City’s website. That’s where I started. I’ve found them to be nothing but helpful. We had to do a partial street closure. That process for some people might have been confusing, but you just pick up the phone. I could actually talk to a person. I’ve found no resistance and nothing but excitement and support for trying to make sure that our community is strong, person-to-person. I’m sure this is an issue every neighbourhood is facing with petty theft and break-ins to sheds, and I’ve found that having this neighbourhood block party has started things like now we have an up-and-running Neighbourhood Watch program.
James: NeighbourGood – what you guys do is incredible. I’ve lived in cities with much larger resources and I’ve never heard of the type of support that this team provides to Londoners, and it’s amazing because on one hand it’s incredible support. Crystal, you mentioned the Neighbourhood Small Events Fund, and how they’ve also helped you navigate how to close down the street, and borrowing equipment whether it’s tents, speakers, whatever. But on the other hand, if you don’t need to get help from the City, don’t feel like you have to.
Jenna Rose: Because my project is different it connects differently to my community. There’s not too much the NeighbourGood team can do for me. My avenue of funding is things like the London Arts Council, so when you’re asking how the City supports or is a barrier – not going to lie, it’s just barriers. Hard barriers. My entire project is funded out of my pocket, printing costs, everything. It’s taken me amazing great places but I have a hard enough time even finding out if I did get a grant or not. Everyone else in the City has received info saying if they have or have not. Everyone found out in June, and I’m classically the Indigenous woman who everyone forgets about. I have no idea. I applied in March or April for funding to continue making more movement, and it’s crickets. So I mean, maybe I need to make it a festival – a festival of atrocities [laughter]. Maybe I can get funding to teach the community that way .The arts side of funding is difficult for artists. Writers, small artists just trying to make movements. Denials across the board. So yeah, to answer your question – barriers. But I’m really happy for everyone else! [Laughter]
James: When is City of Neighbours Day next year?
Heenal: haven’t set a date yet. If anyone is interested in getting involved please come see me. We’re figuring out a way to have it happen consistently every year.
James: This might not be the group to answer, but it’s such a popular question [from the audience], let’s try it out. What advice do you have for people living in high-rises.
Bre: The power of social media is amazing. I think you could just host people in your home and whether it’s a trivia night, or having coffee. I haven’t lived in a high rise for a long time, but you can post things, you can talk to your superintendent, or your condo board, and tell them what you want to do. Again, it helps starting with something simple and understanding that just because you live on top of each other doesn’t mean you can’t know people.
Steve: It’s amazing that in a high rise you couldn’t live closer to your neighbours, but the actual occurrence of running into them is infrequent. We need spaces where humanity can collide a little more. That might be a park, a café. I know for me, the inroad of connection into my neighbourhood came from a café and lingering there with an openness to connections, taking out the earbuds and being open to others. Having commercial spaces in the bottom of a high rise is a great idea to foster that kind of connection in the high rise itself.
Crystal: When we lived in a high rise in Toronto, I made little note cards introducing my husband, dog and I. I knocked on people’s doors and said “Hello, I’m your neighbour, just wanted to say hello, here’s my number if you need anything.” And they started to say hi when they saw me. You know, baby steps. You say hi to someone, they say hi back, maybe you find you have a common interest, maybe you grab their mail from the lobby for them. All you need is sticky notes. Very micro.
Brent Toderian: Whoever asked that question, thank you. I’m very inspired by the panel, but slightly worried because you are a city plagued by false choices. The audience can see that and think “what I was talking about was one choice, and what you’re talking about is another choice because your examples are generally low-density.” And thus those beautiful opportunities that you have are the things that are risk if there is change in your community. That is the false choice. In my observation, I have studied neighbourhoods of every scale and density, and I’ve seen horribly low density places where the design fights against social interaction, and I’ve seen the opposite. I live in a midrise on a block that has two towers and a midrise that’s altogether. My wife is president of the Condo board and I call her the mayor of a small town because it’s got 1200 people. And I run into my neighbours constantly because of something called an elevator. So it’s always about your choice to interact or not. And whether the design facilitates that choice, or makes it harder, but I deliberately Tweet pictures of all of the social interaction we have in our building, because in the middle of our block we have the best courtyard I think in Vancouver, and the interactions are constant. We have to socially program opportunities for interaction. It helps when you have what’s called social lubricants – kids and dogs, those get people talking to each other. But don’t think that it’s harder in high rises and easier in low density. If you think your high rises are antisocial, it’s because you have badly designed high rises. But that still isn’t an excuse for effort, and it doesn’t mean you can’t improve your high rises.
James: I’d like to hear a very brief closing thought from each of you. Tell us the one thing you feel most proud of having done this work. What makes you beam with pride?
Dave: for me it was the little kids playing with each other. They formed knew friendships and played together, and that was pretty fun for me.
Crystal: I don’t have any fancy initials after my name, I didn’t go to school for any of this stuff. Btu just knowing that one mom at home on mat leave could make such a big difference. Like, we now have FF ladies nights. And it’s just opened so many doors, not just for me but some of the seniors that don’t get out of their house very often can go for walks and say hi to the kids whose name they didn’t know before.
Jenna Rose: My moment of feeling proud was I was tabling at the London Feminist Fair put on by the Women’s Event Community. There were so many amazing vendors. I had my kid there, she’s six and such a force. I gave her a fiver and told her to go out and find something. She did the rounds, and bless that cute little brown heart, she came and wanted to buy my zine. Out of all the things she saw, she comes and picks up my zine. She’s drawn hearts on it, she sleeps with it, we have conversations about it, and that just lights my heart up.
But just quickly – I do want to see the City has been amazing in the ways of the library. She’s going to hate that I say her name, but Ellen Hobin has been so good with helping and advancing programs and dialogues around Indigenous issues. This City through the Library has been super supportive that way, and people who are prioritizing Indigenous voices should get recognition for creating that space and really getting the spirit of what reconciliation is supposed to be, and I feel like the Library has been doing that.
Bre: I would say the thing I’m most proud of are the genuine connections that have come from this little hangout in our garage and our front lawn every week. It’s amazing to see people from different areas of my life, whether they live in the neighbourhood or not. It really reminds me that London has a small town feel. I love that people are making it their own. They want to come see each other every Friday. People across the street had a baby recently and they named their middle name after our street. If we hadn’t said “hey, I want to know you” deliberately, I don’t know that we would have this amazing genuine heartfelt connection with each other and I’m really proud to be part of this catalyst in our neighbourhood.
Heenal: I don’t have a story exactly but what I’m most proud of with City of Neighbours day is the breadth of participation, people from all over the city, all ages, all backgrounds.