Green shoots of neighborliness
Is a bad economy producing better neighbors?
Some people - including national experts and Omaha observers - think so.
Some sociologists and community organizers say they have detected an uptick of "neighboring" since the economy down-ticked last year. Scholars predict that U.S. Census Bureau data due later this year will show the number of people involved in community activities has risen, reversing a decline that began in the 1970s.
A new Dundee community garden has sprouted at 49th Street and Underwood Avenue. Monica Erickson is among the neighborhood residents involved in planting.
Admittedly, neighborliness is tough to measure. There is no Good Neighbor Gauge that tallies chats over the back fence, tomatoes shared or waves as you back out of the driveway. But there are tantalizing hints that the recession is prodding people - including Omahans, by most accounts a pretty neighborly lot to begin with - toward even greater sociability.
Probably the most visible example around Omaha: a growing number of community gardens.
One effort to measure the trend is the National Conference on Citizenship's "civic health index," which polls Americans annually about community participation, volunteer work and trust in their neighbors.
"In my view, we'll find a stronger inclination, a higher level of 'neighborliness' and civic engagement, as a result of the economic downturn," predicted John Bridgeland, head of the nonprofit research group.
Sociologist Samantha Ammons, who teaches at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said that at the least, conditions are ripe for more neighborly interaction.
"People don't have as much money, so they have to stay at home more," she said. And in a slow housing market, fewer people are moving. Staying put means more fixing up the house, more working outside, more contact with the folks next door, she said.
A lifelong Omahan who's lived in neighborhoods across the city, the Rev. Pat McCaslin said he sees signs of a recession-fed blip in neighborliness at his southwest Omaha parish, St. John Vianney.
"We're not shaking hands because of the swine flu, but there's a nice warm buzz before Mass," the priest said. And special collections for hard-hit families have drawn unusually generous donations, he said.
"There's kind of a key to community that's based on need," he said.
Historically, researchers say, dire times such as the Great Depression have been known to produce an opposite effect as people focus more narrowly on their own survival. But the researchers see new factors at work now - a burst of political involvement among youths and the rise of Internet social tools such as Facebook and e-mail.
"Almost anyone in America can think in terms of 'this could happen to me.' It evokes a kind of empathy that is leading people to reassess what they value, what they care about and what they believe in," Bridgehead said.
Around Omaha, "at least anecdotally, what we're seeing is a lot more cooperation," said Crystal Rhoades of the Neighborhood Center, an agency affiliated with UNO that helps set up neighborhood associations.
Rhoades said she sees not only more residents staying at home but also more community gardening, more home repair, more people borrowing from each other instead of buying new and more use of the center's resources, including grants and classes.
"Typically, people tend to organize around crisis," she said, but often then find their neighborhood association useful for doing other things - setting up after-school programs or getting potholes fixed. In the recession, "people are looking for more ways to meet needs."
Omaha's neighborhood associations numbered about 140 in 1995 but now total near 170, said Norita Matt, the city employee who maintains an online directory.
"I think they're strong, stronger than they've ever been," she said.
Sometimes what bonds resident to resident is a need for security.
Hard times mean potentially more property crime and certainly more reason for mutual vigilance, said Bridget Fitzpatrick, a lifelong Benson resident who coordinates the Omaha Police Department's crime-prevention efforts, such as Neighborhood Watch.
"Times are tough, and criminals are going to be more desperate," she said.
Perhaps the most striking evidence of a new neighborliness is literally growing on vacant lots across the city - vacant, that is, except for tomatoes, peas and a chef salad's worth of greens. Community gardening is surging like a magic beanstalk.
The Dundee Community Garden broke ground only a few weeks ago at 49th Street and Underwood Avenue, on land where plans for condos have been delayed by the down economy. All 44 individual plots were snapped up in two weeks.
"The demand for this is amazing," said the garden's aptly named co-director, Mary Green. Although desire for locally grown produce is the main motive, she said, desire for neighborhood connection is a factor.
"People are definitely getting to know each other" - young and old, renters and homeowners, expert gardeners and newbies, Green said.
Monica Erickson, while carefully mounding her cucumbers on a recent Saturday morning, observed that "there's always somebody here. It's really turning into a community event."
The recession has helped thrust a few people into the garden. Eric Williams, a civil engineer laid off twice in the past two years, said he has more time to grow veggies now. He was using his skills to rig up rain barrels.
Tancy Ellis was planting corn. She and a fellow pediatric nurse at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Lori Huebert, plan to give produce to some of the immigrant families they work with. And she said they might be able to teach young patients about where food comes from.
The Dundee gardeners also are laying plans for neighborhood picnics and canning classes, Green said.
Maybe the neighborly impulse is inescapable in the sun and fresh air.
"There's a thing about building community that has to do with working together outside," said Andrew Jameton, a UNMC professor and a veteran at City Sprouts, a 14-year-old neighborhood garden in Orchard Hills, at 40th and Franklin Streets.
Casting an academic's eye over the garden's history, Jameton said it has demonstrated to its neighbors a way of addressing multiple needs - not only for fresh produce but also for conversation, health advice, diet tips.
And this year, he said, it "is thrumming with activity. . . . the most active spring yet."
This report includes material from the Washington Post.
• Contact the writer: 444-1140, roger.buddenberg@owh.com
Published Saturday May 30, 2009
Links to more information
- List of Omaha's neighborhood associations, application form:www.co.douglas.ne.us/omaha/mayor/neighborhoods
- Resources, advice at the Neighborhood Center: www.unomaha.edu/ncenter
- Neighborhood Watch information: www.opd.ci.omaha.ne.us/crime-information/prevention/citizen-city-wide-programs/neighborhood-watch
- Dundee Community Garden: www.dundeegarden.org
- City Sprouts community garden: omahasprouts.org
- Informational meeting on community gardening: 4 p.m. June 2, Douglas County Extension Office, 8015 West Center Road
