Soul of the community

==Background==
* The Knight Foundation and Gallup release their 3rd survey on the"Soul of the Community" in November 2010, [http://www.soulofthecommunity.org/ http://www.soulofthecommunity.org
* Report PDF:] http://www.soulofthecommunity.org/sites/default/files/SOTC_2010_Report_OVERALL_11-12-10_mh.pdf===Insights===
"The outcome has provided empirical evidence that the drivers whichcreate emotional bonds between people and their community areconsistent in virtually every city and can be reduced to just a fewcategories. Interestingly, the usual suspects - jobs, economy andsafety - are not among the top drivers. Rather, people consistentlygave higher ratings for things that relate directly to their dailyquality of life: an area’s physical beauty, opportunities forsocializing and a city’s openness to all people. "So in a world of limited resources, how do we improve the soul of ourcommunities and specifically increase "community attachment?"
==Reaction from Steven Cliff==
My question to the "Neighbors Online" community, are our collectivevariety of two-way online neighborhood communities one of the mosteffective ways to increase very local opportunities for socializingand an expression of openness to others who live near us but not mightbe like us?
In the urban neighborhoods that we serve with Neighbors Forums, I seea collective sense of attachment growing as we break through the lackof time and physical local spaces for neighbors to initially meet.Simply because neighbors (some 15% of households, over 600 membershere http://e-democracy.org/se in a public space ) can meet onlinewe've had a community garden launched, a beach cleaned-up, meetings inreaction to crime organized quickly, an effort to start a co-oplaunched, home brewers connected, and most recently a snowman photoswap. With well over 100 authors a month and eight or so messages aday in a neighborhood were folks a few years ago mostly only knewfolks near them on their block, something is going on.
It seems that most of the discussion I am listening to on the webcastis pretty "off-line" so I wonder what the millions of local peopleengaged by the Neighbors Online world as unearthed numerically byPewInternet.org - http://bit.ly/djPOlV - has to say?
Category:Community
Category:Come Live Over Here