The renewed focus on neighbours

There is a new focus on neighbours and neighbourliness, perhaps driven by the twin forces of globalisation and technology. I like this approach by Seth Stevenson at Slate on Nextdoor:

Tech entrepreneur Nirav Tolia noticed that we increasingly seem to prefer rubbing elbows online—instead of in real places where real elbows might really rub—and saw a business opportunity. In late 2010, he created a service called Nextdoor. It's a social network that attempts to webify the original social network: the neighborhood. There are now Nextdoor sites in more than 6,500 communities in 49 states (not clear what's up with those anti-communitarian South Dakotans). All of them were launched by regular folks who sought a way to connect with their neighbors, but didn't want to ring doorbells or make small talk in the elevator.

With bikes, strong leadership helps...

The Globe and Mail recently interviewed the Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and talked (among other things) bike lanes:

Given that you might go down in history as the Bike Lane Mayor, do you find the public’s fixation on bike lanes frustrating?Yeah, it’s exaggerated on every front. But that’s the way it goes with iconic changes to a city’s fabric. It’s such a small percentage of the overall road space activity in the city. Within Vancouver, bike lanes are enormously popular. My entire team got re-elected. Most of the criticism comes from outside the city proper, people who don’t pay taxes or vote in Vancouver.

Meanwhile, however, your hope for public bike rentals has been clouded by the helmet issue. Are we ever going to see such a system?We are on track to see a public bike system by the middle of 2013, and a helmet solution will be part of it. But there’s ongoing work to arrive at the best solution. I don’t think there’s any question people will embrace the availability of bikes on our streets. But the helmet piece is part of why we’ve taken longer than other cities in getting going.