Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

Here are few thoughts,

Mornings/evenings. Have yoga camps it need not be physical yoga, there are quite an extensive range of breathing exercises which can be done just be sitting

Local ppl upgrading is important, (young ppl learn and leave) it's important to educate the existing community, Conduct bootcamps, there is incredible content online, get together, have learnathons around them and help each other finish you don't need any expert to get things kickstarted

Evenings, identify local talent and organise cultural programs

Someone suggested buddha, go one step further have nothing, have an empty space where only rule is no one talks(teach meditation if possible but make it a knowledge not religion based as it leads to groupism)

The no talking space and cultural performance space can share the same compound, you can come up with a cool name for that, something where a milleneal can say I performed at that.

There is happiness in giving, organize volunteer activities like cleaning, planting trees etc etc

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.

I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.

When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

I spent 3-4 hours per day sitting on a park-bench in NYC reading, playing guitar, and writing between Jan-June of this year (and before you ask, I work a 9am to 5am). If you keep a friendly disposition and are welcoming by saying hello when people take notice of you, they will open up quickly – I must note with full sincerity and severity that this assumes you listen and ask thoughtful questions; people are quick to sense when someone is not genuinely and empathetically interested in them.

I've made friends with musicians (and had some great impromptu jam sessions), homeless people, CEOs, software engineers, mentally ill, folks addicted to hard drugs, guys formerly homeless, people who were in prison for a decade and trying to get by and reconnect with their kids, students, tourists, professionals, hourly-workers, and everyone in-between.

Now if you live in an area with a low-density of foot traffic this will not work and I do not have first-hand advice besides, perhaps, move to a more densely populated area. That you asked this question speaks to what you're looking for in this life.

If they have lived somewhere a long time, one of the big losses is: Relationships.

For the people forced to move, they will not find another "3 out of 10" neighbourhood, as part of what makes it a 3 is that's where all their friends and long-lasting relationships and perhaps childhood memories are. That already makes anywhere else They will have to move somewhere where they likely don't know anyone, or at least not the well-established friendships they had before.

If they have extended family in the area, they will have to leave those too. (Parents, children, aunts & uncles, siblings, that sort of thing).

Those friendships and relationships aren't just valuable for sentimental reasons. They form an essential practical support structure, and sometimes a financial support structure. For many people those things are a big part of what makes quality of life.

And they might be forced to move at an age where it's difficult to make new friends, especially deep friendships.

As people on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder, it's likely that they were benefitting from their friendship/relationship network in another, subtler way: By having good quality relationships with people higher up the ladder, their own circumstances are effectively lifted up as well.

For example, they might be taken out to places and introduced to opportunities and people because of long-lasting friendships with people richer than themselves. Their children get to play with children of richer friends with nicer houses to stay over in. Little things that probably translate to differences of opportunity when the children are older. That kind of uplift goes away when they move to another location.

Some people have a good relationship with a local employer too, and will lose that as well. It might be something quite treasured (even though it presumably doesn't pay well), and difficult or impossible to replace. Remember we're talking about people forced to leave, not those who want to leave.