Building Strong Communities

The world of 24 hours news channels and social media is chock full of invitations to look everywhere except directly in front of us. We’re expected to change our Facebook profile photo to show our support for Ukraine and we’re excoriated if we fail to write a sufficient number of posts about Gaza. And that’s to say nothing of the disaster of our own federal government. Every day brings another crisis or controversy, usually happening hundreds or thousands of miles away from where we sit. Through our phones and computers, we’re connected to an endless stream of information—some of which is even accurate!—about politics, culture, economics, and conflict across the globe. As I tell my kids, they have access to all of the information that exists on a device that they mostly use to play Block Blast.

Despite my seemingly constant harping on the problems of social media and the (mis)information environment in which we live, it’s crucial for citizens to have a handle on what’s happening outside their front door. But when every new conflict or controversy seems to be the most urgent and when so many problems appear global in scale, we often seem to forget the places, right in our backyards, where we can actually make a difference. I don’t think it’s a stretch to claim that the contemporary media environment encourages people to devote an enormous amount of emotional energy to events over which they have little influence while neglecting opportunities for meaningful involvement closer to home. While national politics are the focus of so many activists and so much of the media landscape, and while we’re told that each international conflict is the central moral concern of the day, local engagement is actually hands down the most obvious way for people to make a measurable contribution. Our neighborhoods and, more broadly, our cities are the places where we meet one another, where kids go to school, where parks are maintained, where libraries operate, where local businesses open and close, and where civic institutions either thrive or decay. These communities are only strengthened by our participation, cooperation, and care.

A person who volunteers at a food pantry helps to ensure that families have groceries this week. Someone who coaches the youth soccer team—as my dad did when I was growing up—provides mentorship for neighborhood kids. The citizen who regularly attends city council meetings might influence decisions about parks, roads, and trash collection. A neighbor who helps to organize or who participates in a park cleanup improves our public spaces.

These actions are admittedly small compared to making legislative change as a United States Senator, but their effects are immediate and, if you do the work, guaranteed. I hate to say it, but the odds are terrible that any of us will ever become one of a hundred senators. On the other hand, the family receiving food assistance experiences a direct improvement in their quality of life; the aspiring goalie who gains confidence through sports carries that experience into adulthood; and the cleaner park becomes a much better place for everyone who uses it. And, in each of these cases, the local volunteer is directly connected to the people they help and observe the positive consequences of their involvement. Not only do we get all of the benefits associated with volunteerism, we also build relationships with people in our community.

While we know very well that a lot of our problems could be solved if we elected politicians who abandoned the culture war issue of the moment and instead focused on investing in our communities, it’s also obviously true that a lot of the challenges we face at this moment can’t be solved exclusively through legislation or executive orders. Loneliness, social isolation, distrust, and civic fragmentation are fundamentally relational problems that emerge when people stop interacting with one another and stop viewing themselves as teammates on a common project. There are, after all, a whole lot of neighborhoods where people live side by side without ever getting to know one another because people have increasingly retreated into private spaces. I grew up in a neighborhood where we had block parties, where parents knew one another, where kids played at one another’s houses after school, and where we had to keep moving the hockey nets out of the middle of the street whenever someone yelled “CAR!” on Saturday afternoons. I’m proud that my kids live in a neighborhood like that today.

We make that happen by our own choices. If we didn’t leave our garage open, wave to our neighbors when we go for a walk, allow our kids to go see if their friends are home down the street, chat with the person who’s walking her dog, then we wouldn’t have met any of these people. Our decisions foster a sense of community over time because we’re creating opportunities for interaction among people who might otherwise never meet. Through these interactions, we develop relationships and build trust, and this is particularly important in a time of such intense political polarization. This doesn’t mean that local communities are free from conflict; far from it, as anyone who lives in a neighborhood with a homeowner’s association can attest. But the more local engagement we build, the more opportunities we create for people to encounter one another as neighbors rather than ideological adversaries. It’s much more difficult, after all, to demonize someone who volunteers alongside you at community events and it’s much more likely that we can disagree about national politics while still cooperating to improve schools, support local businesses, maintain public spaces, or assist vulnerable populations. The necessity of working together often encourages a degree of pragmatism and (maybe grudging but nonetheless) mutual respect that is increasingly rare in other areas of public life.

As someone who once spent a lot of time thinking about and commenting on national and international public affairs, I got frustrated with the feeling that nothing I said or did seemed to make one bit of difference. At the same time that I had that unpleasant feeling, I also felt particularly good about all of the work I’d been doing in my local community and decided to double down on the work that made me feel better and set aside some of the work that left me feeling powerless. In taking on more and more of that local work, I think we develop stronger senses of meaning purpose. We look around and see that people are depending on us, that our work connects us to something bigger than ourselves, that we’re actively making change, and that our abilities and our efforts matter.

The more we focus on what we can do to make our local communities better, the more we come to see that strong communities create opportunities for human flourishing. Too often, civic life is discussed only in terms of crises and deficiencies rather than their ability to generate joy and connection. Festivals, concerts, cultural celebrations, rec leagues, public art, community gardens, splash pads, and educational programs all enrich our lives in no small part because they are open to all and because they foster a sense of belonging in a way that an internet connection can’t replicate. We need to actually share physical spaces and interact face to face with one another to create real friendships. There’s a massive difference in my mood when I walk into a classroom where students are out of their seats, chatting and joking around, as opposed to one where the students are sitting silently in the dark and staring at their personal devices. There’s a real value in these relationships, as the students in the first classroom are much more likely to share their notes with a sick classmate, to text a friend who is late to class to make sure they’re on their way, and to work together to understand a difficult assignment rather than giving up on it. This type of community doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t emerge spontaneously; it’s built over time, through interaction and trust-building that comes from investing in relationships.

Community work teaches the lesson that lasting improvements are the result of a sustained commitment from multiple individuals who collaborate over time. The more of this work we do, the more we learn to value incremental progress rather than a swing-for-the-fences mentality. We aren’t going to accomplish all of our goals in one fell swoop and we aren’t going to be able to do it alone either. A lot of the good, important work will need to be done outside the spotlight and without anyone winning an award or appearing on the local news. In my best classes, where everyone’s chatty because everyone feels valued and included, it’s not because of me or because of one star student acting as the hub. The glue that holds the class together is everyone.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve told people that communities are only as strong as we make them. When we join, participate, collaborate, and invest in common projects, our communities become more vibrant, with more to offer all of us. Fortunately, meaningful engagement doesn’t require extraordinary talent, brains, beauty, or influence. All it takes is the recognition that the places where we live need and deserve our attention and effort, and then a willingness to contribute what we can. The best news is that it all counts—volunteer with the PTA; help plan a block party; put a group together for poker night; get involved with your faith community; help out at a food pantry or shelter; attend a class at the local community center; visit people who are unwell; the list goes on and on— and you can start right away.