Call the Shots in Your Neighborhood

Note from PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

If you can use a break from work -- or if you're reading this at home -- there's a web page I'd recommend you take a look at: How to Call the Shots in Your Neighborhood. Posted by the Neighbors Project it will walk you through -- in 8 easy steps -- how to participate at a neighborhood association meeting. As someone active for years in my own neighborhood association in Burlington, Vermont, I sure can relate to this instructional guide, including the cautionary warning (in Step 7 of the Instructions) that "neighborhood association meetings definitely attract the more unusual people in the neighborhood."

As the start of the "Instructions" advise: "This is a step-by-step guide to how to attend your neighborhood association meeting for city dwellers. If you've ever wondered who made the decision to put up the giant flag or rip up a street or cancel your favorite parade, chances are it's your neighborhood association. They're usually quite powerful. So if you're remotely interested in your neighborhood, it's definitely in your self interest to go to a meeting at least once."

Again, tune in to the Neighborhood Project. It's both a creative and informative web site: a great combination.

[on a slightly more serious note, about two years ago we ran an article about the important role neighborhood associations can play in local planning -- you can read excerpts, and if you like, order & download the full article: Bowling Together: The Role of Neighborhood Associations].