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Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

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Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#21

Post by hombre_fatal »

jjice wrote: post #7
rcpt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I installed nextdoor and now I actively avoid interacting with my neighbors

Why's that? Never used the app. Is it just a lot of negativity and you get negative vibes from them?

It exposes you to the mental illness of some people, like the kind of person who will make a thread asking if anybody knows this new runner they saw jog by their place because it's very suspicious and it's making them very angry that someone would jog down their street.

Or bicker about street parking. Or people who post on social media in general, like to talk about politics or fake outrage over nothing or the weird boasting people like to do like post a news article about some family freezing to death in the Yukon and how disappointing it is that the husband didn't keep his SUV prepped for such an occasion like I do here in Houston—you know, I don't even leave my house without .

It can get in the way of a foundational part of the social fabric: being able to assume your neighbors are normal, nice people.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#22

Post by drcongo »

happytoexplain wrote: post #4
afavour wrote: post #2

> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco. This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other. Still, a heartwarming story all the same. And yes, this is _exactly_ what…

>just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other. This is a bitter stereotype that is leveled against both city-dwellers and suburb-dwellers, and, like many stereotypes, has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity. Some people don't want to interact with their neighbors, regardless of whether they live in a city or a suburb. Others are sociable with thei…

Having lived most of my life in cities, I moved from London to the suburb of a smallish town about 4 years ago. Since that move, I've got to know maybe 20x more of my neighbours here than I managed in two decades in London. However, I also got a dog and I think 90% of this is down to that.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#24

Post by JoshTriplett »

roflchoppa wrote: post #11
jjice wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why's that? Never used the app. Is it just a lot of negativity and you get negative vibes from them?

I don't use it, but some family members do... From what they describe, it sounds like an app to complain/snitch on people.

It attracts the same kinds of people who love homeowners associations, yes.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#25

Post by neilv »

rcpt wrote: post #5
happytoexplain wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other. This is a bitter stereotype that is leveled against both city-dwellers and suburb-dwellers, and, like many stereotypes, has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity. Some people don't want to interact with their neighbors, regardless of whether they live in a city or a suburb. Others are sociable with thei…

I installed nextdoor and now I actively avoid interacting with my neighbors

When they started mentioning WhatsApp, I did have the briefest thought that this could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.

There's certainly opportunity. NextDoor comments here are of mixed quality. And the NextDoor feed seems to have the ad saturation cranked up unpleasantly high.

> Thus, the WhatsApp group was born. At first this was just a place to announce when we’d be out having stoop coffee, but we soon realized people wanted to connect over more things than just coffee. So we ended up converting the group into a WhatsApp Community where we could have chats dedicated to certain topics or groups and plan other types of events together.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#26

Post by cg5280 »

volkk wrote: post #15

i think there's a really valuable app/site to be made that involves discovering people or handling communications literally on your block (i.e hyper local neighborhood). nextdoor is the 1.0 of this that introduced the concept but poorly, and i'm still waiting for a 2.0 i guess it doesn't have to be an app, since whatsapp can handle most of this, but there's a discovery piece that would be missing that this app can so…

Vermont has something sort of like this called Front Porch Forum. It's something I would like to see tried elsewhere.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#27

Post by jcdavis »

I saw this and did a double-take - I live in the neighborhood and am fortunate enough to be a part of this community. Patty, Tyler, and Luke have done a tremendous job of creating a communal bond that makes everyone feel valued & welcome.

I now know 50+ people who live within ~2 blocks from me, who've gone from "random strangers" to "friendly neighbors" that I run into semi-randomly.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#28

Post by happytoexplain »

potato3732842 wrote: post #14
afavour wrote: post #2

> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco. This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other. Still, a heartwarming story all the same. And yes, this is _exactly_ what…

As usual, the people you fill the space with make all the difference. The stereotype gets reinforced by the kind of suburbs HN people tend to live in and to have been raised in. Wealthy white collar suburbs almost universally suck because people don't really miss out on much by not interacting with each other and people have no real problems so they tend to make each other their problems and not like what their neigh…

Another bitter stereotype contributing to the US cultural divide. I live in an economically diverse but mostly well-off white collar suburb (not in CA), and we have a strong sense of community. We walk to each other's houses on a whim, we help each other get things done, we shovel the snow for the older folks, we watch out for each other and text each other, we organize community get-togethers. I realize this is an anecdote - I am not saying the correlation you're describing isn't statistically real, just that it's pointlessly negative.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#29

Post by allenu »

timerol wrote: post #17
volkk wrote: post #15

i think there's a really valuable app/site to be made that involves discovering people or handling communications literally on your block (i.e hyper local neighborhood). nextdoor is the 1.0 of this that introduced the concept but poorly, and i'm still waiting for a 2.0 i guess it doesn't have to be an app, since whatsapp can handle most of this, but there's a discovery piece that would be missing that this app can so…

I could not disagree more strongly. I would be appalled at using an app for something better accomplished by a flyer or drinking coffee in front of my house. People live in physical space. "How do I talk to my next-door neighbor?" is not a problem that the internet should be helping with

I agree with you. I like that they mentioned people came by to their larger event by way of the paper invitation. There's something about a paper invitation that signals thoughtfulness and care. You have to print out these things and actually go walk door to door to drop them off. It's not a huge amount of work, but way more than just tapping a button.

I actually have gotten paper invitations from a neighbor on my street for a holiday party at their house and ended up going without having met them before just because it felt good to see it on my door step. Somebody actually took the time (actually, it was their kids) to drop it off.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#30

Post by margalabargala »

neilv wrote: post #25
rcpt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I installed nextdoor and now I actively avoid interacting with my neighbors

When they started mentioning WhatsApp, I did have the briefest thought that this could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor. There's certainly opportunity. NextDoor comments here are of mixed quality. And the NextDoor feed seems to have the ad saturation cranked up unpleasantly high. > Thus, the WhatsApp group was born. At first this was just a place to announce when we’d be out having stoop coffee, but we soon re…

> NextDoor comments here are of mixed quality.

You're lucky, sounds like your local NextDoor community has above average (for NextDoor) comment quality...

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