From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:
Neighborhoods have long been a cornerstone to community life in America. But there have been some striking changes in how we keep abreast of local news and participate in neighborhood life.
Historians have documented the central role that taverns and coffee houses have long played as places for people to exchange news and information.
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg has also highlighted the valuable service that these and other "third places," as he calls them, have performed in knitting together communities and integrating newcomers and immigrants into their new place of residence. Here's some of what Oldenburg had to say in an article we published in 1997:
"Americans long enjoyed third places in the form of the inns and ordinaries of colonial society, then as the saloons and general stores springing up with westward expansion. Later came the candy stores, soda fountains, coffee shops, diners, etc. which, along with the local post office, were conveniently located and provided the social anchors of community life.
... Third places also serve as "ports of entry" for visitors and newcomers to the neighborhood where directions and other information can easily be obtained. For new residents, they provide a means of getting acquainted quickly and learning where things are and how the neighborhood works."
In many neighborhoods, you'll still find these kind of gathering stops, sometimes taverns, sometimes grocery or convenience stores, sometimes a donut shop, and sometimes even the laundromat.
The Willard St. Market in Burlington, Vermont.
For years, a common sight outside many of these places was the message board, where neighbors left word about a missing dog, a yard sale, an apartment to rent, a community meeting ... and where candidates for city council, alderman, school board, or mayor placed their campaign posters.
But fast forward to 2008. Email is how we often "talk." Many bemoan this, feeling it has weakened civic life and resulted in a loss of connection within our neighborhoods. And, yes, count me among those who've made such claims.
Yet something quite remarkable has emerged over the past two years here in Burlington and Chittenden County, Vermont. A locally-developed email-based message service, called Front Porch Forum, has established itself as