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Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

• collingreen 2y ago
  I love this and you're inspiring me to copycat on our little street in twin peaks.
• afavour 2y ago
  > 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 city living should enable.
  • happytoexplain 2y ago
    >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 their community, and express it just as well whether they live in a city or a suburb.
    • rcpt 2y ago
      I installed nextdoor and now I actively avoid interacting with my neighbors
      • jjice 2y ago
        Why's that? Never used the app. Is it just a lot of negativity and you get negative vibes from them?
        • RankingMember 2y ago
          It is exactly that. A lot of "saw a black guy walking down the street...should I call police?"
          • Kevguy 2y ago
            NextDoor used to be bad about that, but they are now much more careful to remove it quickly if anyone does post racist crap. Now it seems to be 50% paid ads, 30% lost/found pets, 10% unpaid ads, and 10% everything else. Worth checking to find the owner of a stray dog or cat, but not much else.
            • RankingMember 2y ago
              I deleted the app a few years ago because it was a drag. Glad (and honestly surprised) to hear you say they remove the racist stuff quickly, and not surprised it's mostly ads these days.
            • kortilla 2y ago
              The problem is people say the same thing without saying race. “Did anyone see this suspicious character?” with a picture from a doorbell cam of a black guy. It’s still obviously racist to everyone but it’s not reportable or treated as such.
        • roflchoppa 2y ago
          I don't use it, but some family members do... From what they describe, it sounds like an app to complain/snitch on people.
          • JoshTriplett 2y ago
            It attracts the same kinds of people who love homeowners associations, yes.
        • hombre_fatal 2y ago
          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 <LARP armor>. It can get in the way of a foundational part of the social fabric: being able to assume your neighbors are normal, nice people.
      • SoftTalker 2y ago
        Social media tends to bring out the worst in people.
      • volkk 2y ago
        i think most of the types of people you'd want to hang out with aren't posting on nextdoor
        • abalashov 2y ago
          Underrated insight of the week.
          • leethargo 2y ago
            "I want to make cypherpunk friends, but none of them are on Facebook!"
        • throwway120385 2y ago
          Yeah -- my partner and I moved to a small island in WA and this is so intensely true that I feel it to my core. Nextdoor attracts mostly vain self-promotion where we're at. Where we move to after this, I'm going to get on their Nextdoor and make a list of names of people who post there regularly, and when I meet them in real life I'm going to avoid them as much as possible.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • neilv 2y ago
        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.
        • margalabargala 2y ago
          > NextDoor comments here are of mixed quality. You're lucky, sounds like your local NextDoor community has above average (for NextDoor) comment quality...
          • neilv 2y ago
            Even before we had some unelected mentally ill person making Nazi salutes at a US Presidential inauguration, and then still handed them unprecedented powers to disassemble our government... and a whole lot of people seeming fine with that... The signs of a populace with wildly conflicting values, a lot of anger, a lot of mental illness, and a lot of cognitive problems and knowledge deficit... has been apparent in online comments for a couple decades. One thing with NextDoor might be that it's developed a reputation. So that many people expect that the typical post will be some alarmed retiree posting a doorbell cam photo of a "suspicious person" going to doors on their street, who was obviously delivering packages while being nonwhite. In real life, most people would minimize interaction with the alarmed person, not install an app to get more of it. Another thing with NextDoor is that some aspects of the experience are really user hostile. Besides the ad saturation-bombing, and the user interface that could use some cleanup and straigtening-out, there's things like 2FA (for Nextdoor!). I'd love to see numbers on how many users that 2FA alone cost them, and what they got in return. A UI cleanup is possible only if it's not overruled by the people doing the ad saturation, where user confusion just means more opportunity to show ads (until those users dont' come back, and don't bring their friends, but that's someone else's KPI this quarter).
      • mauvehaus 2y ago
        On the way home from the subway one snowy Boston evening, I joked with my wife that what the world needs is yelp, but for snow shoveling. People could get out all their passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive crap about their neighbors by complaining about the quality of the snow shoveling in the sidewalks in town. It seems Nextdoor has fulfilled that need and more.
        • jimbokun 2y ago
          Pretty sure it was a conversation just like this that led to the creation of Nextdoor.
      • UncleOxidant 2y ago
        I mean, I know you're kind of kidding, but there's also a lot of truth in it. When I was last on Nextdoor, a woman had posted asking for any information about a car that hit her as she was riding her bike and sent her to the hospital. She was trying to find people who might have witnessed the incident. People were answering that it was her fault for being on a bike. I uninstalled the app right then and there.
    • drcongo 2y ago
      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.
      • drukenemo 2y ago
        Very similar story to mine. Moving from Amsterdam to the “suburbs” of a smaller city in the Netherlands AND getting a dog was the only way I’ve found to meet new people and befriend neighbors.
      • LawnGnome 2y ago
        The dog part is definitely key. We moved a few blocks — so within the same neighbourhood — shortly after getting our dog, and it was amazing how much more quickly we got to know our new neighbours with our (extremely extroverted) then-puppy compared to the previous place. (And, on the flip side, I'm on a first name basis with every dog on my block, which usually implies also being on a first name basis with at least one of their humans.)
        • sokoloff 2y ago
          I can recognize and name more dogs on our block than people.
          • drcongo 2y ago
            Ha, me too. I have a terrible mental block with human names but for some reason I can hold the names of 100 dogs in my head.
            • chrz 2y ago
              are you me? Maybe we should pretend people are dogs so we can remember their names
    • dm03514 2y ago
      In my experiences of living in suburbs for 30 years, I’ve seen the default is to ignore neighbors. I don’t really get this. Our communities have so much in common and so much overlap, we shop at the same stores, go to the same parks, get stuck in the same traffic, our kids are at the same schools,our neighbors care for us medically, teach our kids, maintain our dwellings, work on our cars, and contribute to our local municipalities through property tax. We vacation at the same places. We have so much in common but we put our heads down and duck into our homes ignoring our neighbors. To be honest it makes me really sick to think about. Like the internet has allowed us to live these parallel lives, highly dependent on our neighbors but completely isolated from them. We smile and nod then go to the ballots and kick our spite up to the federal level (in the US). To me, we have the majority of our lives in common. Social media and the political engines preys on our differences making them the focus of our interactions ignoring the fact that 90% of our day-to-day lives are overlapping and our concerns are similar: health, wealth, prosperity, safety, education and recreation. It’s not much, but as I get older I’m making a point to slow down and talk to my neighbors, have real conversations with them, many of them fly political flags that are contrary to my political beliefs but I find out we have so much In common because we have such similar day-to-day lives and experiences.
      • glitchc 2y ago
        Part of it is politics. Totally correct about everything in common, and yet in the multicultural fabric we call society, politics could be vastly different: Neighbour 1 cares about Trump, neighbour 2 about Ukraine, neighbour 3 is focused on Palestine, neighbour 5 about public transit, while I might not care about any of those. All of them are going to seek like-minded people who are unlikely to be their next door neighbours. It wasn't like this in the past, where economic mobility was relatively limited. Multiculturalism coupled with economic mobility means often neighbours and you don't really have much in common. As an example my next door neighbour: He's a major, I'm in the sciences. We travel in different circles. I have a dog, he doesn't like pets. We both have kids but they are of different ages, don't go to the same schools and basically don't know each other. We met a few times then realized that we have very little in common and stopped interacting. There's nothing binding us beyond a shared geography.
    • russellbeattie 2y ago
      Every house has a front yard, and many have large front porches. And no one uses them. I'd say "anymore" but I've rarely seen them used for socializing in my lifetime. They're almost vestigial. I remember one beautiful June Saturday afternoon cutting through a gorgeous neighborhood on my bike and amazed it was like a ghost town. All the houses with their beautiful yards on a quiet street, and literally no one outside. It was so weird.
      • pkamb 2y ago
        Air conditioning and TVs are the answer to this unfortunate problem.
    • jimbokun 2y ago
      Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen. And even if you are sitting in front of your house, neighbors are more likely to be driving by instead of walking so not very likely to stop and chat. In densely populated cities, you are often in close proximity with other humans you haven't met yet. But there can be social and cultural norms to keep walking and avoid eye contact because social interaction with all the countless people you pass is completely impractical. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AoNuz1gjQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AoNuz1gjQo So both environments have their challenges for impromptu social interactions.
      • tptacek 2y ago
        I live in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago (Oak Park) and stoop coffee would be much easier to do here than in San Francisco (where I lived many years ago). This is what my suburb looks like: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9014246,-87.791197,3a,75y,177.64h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sp9IMOrbuL7PL0rGB6IbVlg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0%26panoid%3Dp9IMOrbuL7PL0rGB6IbVlg%26yaw%3D177.64!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMxOS4yIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9014246,-87.791197,3a,75y,17...
        • azdle 2y ago
          There's no official definition of what the "the suburbs" means, but when people say that they usually mean "areas that follow a post-war suburban style of development". Think culdesacs and no sidewalks. The area you linked looks to me more like an older "streetcar suburb", which I think most people would just call "the city".
          • RHSeeger 2y ago
            Nobody I know would call that street the city. In my mind, "the city" is, minimally, houses that are a few feet apart, small yard in back/front, pretty much nothing on the side. Frequently, it's 2-3 story buildings, with whole floors rented out as an apartment. That's my "least dense" vision of a city. Anything less than that (ie, full yards) falls into my vision of suburb.
    • screye 2y ago
      Many Americans still think of cities as modernist concrete, interstate exits and parking lots. In this imagination, social trust is eroded by homelessness, drug addicts and variety of crimes endemic to inner cities. Unfortunately, cities that were razed for cars fit some of these stereotypes. In fact, parts of SF match the description too. This story would have unfolded differently in SOMA. Even in safe neighborhoods, (eg: Mission Bay, Rincon Hill) large towers, 5 lane roads and 35+ mph thru-traffic discourage neighborhood vibes. > has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity I disagree. This isn't a case of 'both sides'. Cars destroyed American cities. Then Americans moved to gated suburbs that did everything in their power to limit through traffic and therefore the destructive onslaught of cars. Suburban residents demand easy access to the city by car, but reject the car in their own neighborhood. Suburbs want to have their cake and eat it too, at the expense of city residents. In contrast, cities do not impose their wants or needs onto suburbs. The resentment by city dwellers towards suburbanites is justified. Fortunately some cities escaped razing. Boston, NYC, DC & SF have many neighborhoods that enable wonderful stories such as this.
      • eleveriven 2y ago
        That said, I think it's worth acknowledging that not everyone in the suburbs actively chose that setup
    • enaaem 2y ago
      The thing is that whether you click with your neighbours or not is pure luck and it's no one's fault. That's why you read many opposing anecdotes in this thread. When there are more local third places, there is a higher chance you will find a nice community to hang out with.
      • more_corn 2y ago
        Pro tip. Being a good neighbor helps you click with your neighbors, and that can be the difference between life and death in an emergency, or your house burning down or not if a neighbor catches something and calls you because you’re chill, friendly and helpful. It is worth extreme efforts to cultivate good relationships with your neighbors.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      Very much so. For a very different example, I live in a small village of about 250 people in rural New Mexico. Of the 250, there are between 50 and 75 people who are sociable and interested in forming, maintaining and enjoying community. Of the remaining 200 or so, about 1/3 of them are friendly and social, but generally do not want to participate in community activities. The remaining 2/3 live here because it offers them (amongst other things) a chance for privacy.
      • PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        I should have said that about 50 of them live here because their families have been here since the early 1600s, too.
    • jaredklewis 2y ago
      Yes, but the geographic scale of suburbs just puts limits on this type of thing. “Everyone with a five minute walking me” is a very different number of people in Brooklyn vs the suburbs. Let’s say 50 vs 500? I think it’s way easier to end up on an anti-social block than in a city, where the law of large numbers draws blocks toward the average.
      • bluGill 2y ago
        You only have room for a few hundred friends in your life. Sure there might be 500 people who live in 5 minutes walk - but that is too many and so you will learn to take steps to limit the number of people who will accept an open invite. If you are a Hindu living in a small US city you will find and becomes friends with every other Hindu in the city - there are not very many and you stick together. If you move to a slightly larger small city you will discover that there are too many Hindus and it is hard to make friends with them because their friend groups are already full. (This is a real example from someone I work with, names and exact cities not given for obvious reasons)
        • jaredklewis 2y ago
          I guess my comment wasn’t clear, but I’m saying if on average half the people are not social, then in a city that leaves 250, which as you point out is plenty. In a suburb, because the total population of a block is smaller, the variance in the percentage of anti-social people is going to be much higher, even if averaged across all blocks you still get 50% (or whatever the population average is). If the number drops to 20, for example, my experience is this is less likely to form into a “community.” Twenty is a lot of people but you need more because any given person isn’t available much of the time. This matches my own experience of living in the suburbs where some streets are way more interconnected than others. To be clear I’m not claiming this is rigorous social science. Just sharing my intuitions based on experience.
    • throwaway894345 2y ago
      I don't think it's "just" a stereotype. There's a lot of literature around how American suburbs are designed to be isolationist. The most obvious example is how much more difficult it is to meet your neighbors when you have to get into your car for every slight errand (FWIW, I've lived in all densities--I'm not some urban chauvinist).
    • chongli 2y ago
      It's all down to the design of suburbs. Many cities have bylaws and zoning regulations that prohibit human-centric suburbs from being built [1]. Older neighbourhoods (prior to these ill-advised laws) are incredibly livable and naturally produce a sense of community. They also feature mixed-use zoning with quaint little corner cafes, restaurants, and small shops. These are incredibly important as third places [2] which have largely disappeared from our society. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
    • anon291 2y ago
      In reality, many criticisms of suburbia are simply criticisms of HOAs
  • celticninja 2y ago
    yup, they probably mean small town/village life as opposed to suburbs, which is what this community has come to resemble, which is what they wanted so a great success, even if the terminology was off.
  • potato3732842 2y ago
    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 neighbors do. You go down the economic ladder and things get a lot better because people have enough real problems they don't give a shit about whether their other neighbor pulled permits or what the setbacks are or how long their project car/boat has sat on blocks, and they interact with each other because being friends with your neighbors well enough to share tools and trade favors is worth it.
    • happytoexplain 2y ago
      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.
      • germandiago 2y ago
        How can you label as pointlessly negative something that, in your own words, is statistically real? Reality is what removes the bias more than anecdote, and statistics is what tracks these facts. It would negatively biased if it was more of corner cases than not.
    • Baeocystin 2y ago
      FWIW, this has been my experience as well. When I lived in poor neighborhoods, yeah, we had more property crime. We also had a tremendous sense of community; I knew everyone, they knew me, food & favors were traded happily. The block parties we had during the summer were tremendous amounts of fun. Meanwhile, the more wealthy neighborhoods are full of busybodies sniffing around for the slightest HOA infraction, and high-anxiety individuals reflecting and amplifying each other's tensions. Each home is a fortress unto itself. I feel pretty lucky to be in the middle, where we don't have as much crime as the poorer areas, but we still know one another, and still trade food on the holidays.
  • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
    Yes, my experience in the suburbs is that most residents hop in their cars and take off somewhere with their tinted windows rolled up, and there are no "third places" around to casually encounter your neighbours. Sometimes there will be yard sales, BBQs, or birthday parties though. But my experience in an urban apartment building is not very different. You might encounter someone in the elevator but it's polite to keep quiet. A lot of dense townhouse neighbourhoods are built without any corner stores, cafes, or bakeries mixed in at the ground floor. I like that this family found a way to make do without any third place at all, just occupying the sidewalk and roadside. But I'm sure it would be a lot more comfortable if they had at least a shady patch of grass!
    • lolinder 2y ago
      > I like that this family found a way to make do without any third place at all, just occupying the sidewalk and roadside. But I'm sure it would be a lot more comfortable if they had at least a shady patch of grass! Exactly. This is a story about intentionality, which is required regardless of whether you're living in the suburb or the city. In the US, neither culture prioritizes spontaneous interaction by default, they're only different in the manner in which the isolation manifests.
  • shortrounddev2 2y ago
    > 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. I've found the opposite. My neighbors and I (apartment, in the city) rarely speak to each other in the city, but when I lived in the suburbs I knew LOTS of my neighbors
  • UncleOxidant 2y ago
    I came here to say the same. Sense of community in the suburbs? That has not been my experience and tends to be one of the main complaints about the suburbs.
  • nbaugh1 2y ago
    Lol exactly. I 100% cannot imagine this happening where my parents live, in a typical US suburban subdivision. On the flip side, I can absolutely see something like this taking off on my block in Brooklyn and would just be another addition to the already established community
  • scubbo 2y ago
    100% same here!
  • tptacek 2y ago
    It depends on the suburb. Some suburbs are effectively just city neighborhoods in a different school district, and they have blocks and block parties. Other suburbs are nests of culs-de-sac, where you'll say "hi" to your next door neighbors but not know anybody else.
    • h3half 2y ago
      This is very true; I've experienced both extremes. In one neighborhood there was a yearly block party where we closed the street and cooked out, kids played together in the street consistently and visited each others' houses, neighbors babysat, etc. Everyone on the street knew everyone else's name. Whether this was a suburb is maybe up for debate, I don't know, but it was at least all single family homes. I moved directly from that to a more rural suburb. Homes were still pretty close to each other - nobody had much land - but there were no sidewalks and the neighborhood was a network of cul de sacs. I knew the last names of my two next door neighbors but only talked to them maybe three times in about ten years. I knew of some people ("a fire chief for a nearby town lives in that house, that one has a family") but that's really it. My assumption is that this is getting worse over time as entertainment gets more and more individually catered. Basically _Bowling Alone_ but moreso and as the most civically-minded people die off. Not sure if there's anything individuals can really do about it other than be friendlier with your neighbors
  • nunez 2y ago
    We had block parties like this in Brooklyn while I was growing up. People would make or buy food and we'd just occupy half of the block with loud music, running around for the kids and drinking for the adults. Cars could still pass by, but they were careful and people would move out of the way. It was fun!
    • bilbo0s 2y ago
      Pretty sure in Brooklyn, and other NYC boroughs, that is more of a cultural thing rather than a "try to create a sense of neighborliness" thing. As a cultural thing, that type of community behavior has likely been going on for most of the past century in NYC. But the person in the article tries to create that in a place where there is no cultural proclivity to that kind of behavior. That's actually a far more difficult thing to do. Still, it is awesome to have it just as a cultural practice. No question.
      • nunez 2y ago
        Definitely not knocking stoop coffee. Super cool that they built that from scratch.
      • nbaugh1 2y ago
        There are definitely places now within Brooklyn that do it with an intent of creating a sense of neighborliness and community, as well as many that still do it just because that's what people have always done on their block. My block and many of the surrounding ones in the neighborhood have block associations that organize events like block parties, clean ups, stoop sales, holiday events, backyard garden tours, workshops etc, as well as being able to advocate for the block's collective interest as a legal entity.
  • shanemhansen 2y ago
    I used to live in a suburb. I met people the same way you meet people anywhere: common interests. A dozen or so people with dogs met at the park every day. We knew each other, watched each other's houses/pets on vacation, and sometimes did dinner or BBQs. A few people organized a DnD group after advertising on nextdoor (which is a cesspool but only 70%). Of course those with kids the same age often knew each other because of school or activities. The neighborhood park had a system of "pea patches" where you could grow some stuff next to your neighbors. There's nothing that unique all in all about this space other than there was a "third place" we all had built and took care of (the park was originally supposed to be a school that never got built so the community got it to become a park but at least half the work came from the community. The county provided some matching work). The weird thing is people are people no matter where they are, mostly. And if you are lonely, you can go fix it. Lots of people move from somewhere they hate so somewhere they think will solve all their problems. And they are right. Or they move from somewhere they love to somewhere that they know will be terrible. And they are right. It seems like whether you think your neighborhood is great or terrible, you're not right.
    • ryandrake 2y ago
      My suburban neighborhood is great. They have a voluntary group that you can join with a donation, and all that group really does is organize parties and events. It's not a HOA and doesn't have rules. We have a full community get-together event every two months or so, with volunteers who host at their houses. We also have once-a-year events like a community-wide garage sale event, and a car show. I've also lived in neighborhoods where nobody knew each other. I think all we can get out of this HN thread is: "Not all suburban neighborhoods are the same."
      • gobeavs 2y ago
        Out of curiosity, did you know the neighborhood was like that before moving in? Or was it luck? I agree there's a huge variety in neighborhoods in the suburban umbrella, which is unfortunately ignored in urban/suburb discussions. We're house shopping and want to find a "good" neighborhood, but short of knowing someone in the neighborhood already or spending significant time in the neighborhood it's hard to get a good indication of vibes.
  • llm_nerd 2y ago
    Is that your lived experience of the suburbs, or just what you've been led to believe on online forums filled with both a) city dwellers, b) angsty teens? As someone who lives in the suburbs it threw me because it's so rare for anyone to acknowledge any positive of the suburbs. The suburbs are always some lifeless dystopia where we all drink away our days and wish we could visit the bodega and get a fresh baguette or something. Here in suburbia in an exurb, everyone knows each other. We have regular street parties. All of the kids play games together frequently.
    • Baeocystin 2y ago
      My suburban neighborhood here in the bay area is mostly cul-de-sacs, and on the 4th of July about half of them close off the entrance to non-residents/family, and have a collective BBQ in the middle of the circle. Several of our neighbors are musicians, so we get live music from people we know, and we all know how to cook up good stuff for the party. It's genuinely a lot of fun, and I look forward to it every year.
      • jrnichols 2y ago
        I see a fair amount of that here in Sacramento. People having block parties, chairs out in the driveways, etc. One of the newer neighborhoods in the area seems like it was designed with this in mine as well. ' It's been a lot of fun. We know our neighbors, people are frequently out walking, talking to each other, and so on.
  • eweise 2y ago
    I live in suburbia and one of the neighbors periodically hosts coffee and pastries in their front yard. I also do happy hour at different houses. I never got this community feel living in SF for 10 years.
  • dismalaf 2y ago
    Dunno, I've found suburbs more friendly than the city. Someone's more likely to say hi when you're grilling, mowing your lawn or just walking around. Urban settings have more 3rd spaces which can be good places to socialise, but your immediate neighbours are less likely to speak with you in my experience. And having a toddler amplifies the experience since most families move to the suburbs when they have kids, urban spaces are far more likely to have young people without families.
  • mlhpdx 2y ago
    Just not so. My neighborhood has a tradition of summer “wine walks” even though homes are widely spaced. It’s not about place, it’s about attitude.
  • mclau156 2y ago
    Would still benefit from eventually moving the initial meetup group to a green space, especially if there can be a community garden to work on (yes I realize we are re-inventing the wheel of a village)
  • anonu 2y ago
    > in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this I think you had a bad experience. The center of activity isn't the street in the suburbs - its schools, churches, events, etc...
  • pchristensen 2y ago
    Suburbs are typically more socially homogenous, with more institutional connections between residents (kids go to the same school, people work for the same local employer, same church, etc) with a physical environment less conducive to connectivity. City neighborhoods (again, typically) have better physical presence with neighbors that are less likely to have things in common. I think that's what the author is trying to say.
    • mmooss 2y ago
      > more socially homogenous An old rationalization of prejudice. Everyone seems homogenous to me and what was heterogeneous yesterday (e.g., Italians and Irish) is homogenous today. Just stop worrying about it. People with different backgrounds are much more interesting, all else being equal. All are Homo sapiens. Also, kids in city neighborhoods also go to the same schools. In suburbs I've seen people don't generally share an employer and church - that's a small town. It depends on the definition of suburb (some are pretty urban), but my experience in cul-de-sacs is neighbors rarely interact. Lots of places don't even have sidewalks.
      • pchristensen 2y ago
        Those were generalizations covering 100M+ people in each category, just in America, and my guess at what the original author meant by the statement that GP was surprised by.
  • acchow 2y ago
    The running joke is that nobody in NYC knows their neighbors. In a sense, you no longer need to since you now have thousands of people within about a dozen-suburban-house's distance away.
  • alistairSH 2y ago
    I believe it's both/and. Cities are that too dense (Manhattan) don't have the space to do "stoop coffee" or equivalent. Everybody is in a tall apartment. The cookie-cutter suburb is too spread out and too car-dependent. You could have "stoop coffee" but your neighbors are in their cars, so don't stop to talk. An older bedroom community, or smaller city with single family dwellings (row homes or tightly-packed detached) hits the balance - enough people on foot, enough space to spread out and not block the sidewalk.
    • kasey_junk 2y ago
      I live in Chicago, in a denser part, and we have all the things you mention. I think this idea that a “city” is like Manhattan just doesn’t hold up in the US. Manhattan is approaching unique here and there are places in Manhattan that could be described by your ideal.
      • alistairSH 2y ago
        Yeah that was kinda the point. :shrug:
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • bilsbie 2y ago
    Community is as community does.
  • kbenson 2y ago
    I've lived in suburbs where I had a good idea of who lived in each house, talked to some of them semi-regularly, and kids ran around the neighborhood together every day, and I've lived in neighborhoods where everyone stays inside and nobody interacts with each other and even the few group things explicity set up (neighborhood street potluck, chili cookoff at the attached park) couldn't be sustained. I moved directly from the former to the latter, so the difference was stark. I think it has much more to do with demographics and type of people that happen to be living there, and whether there's an existing community. The more lively neighborhood in my case was in a "worse" neighborhood with cheaper houses, while the new neighborhood was all newly build housing. We were all starting from scratch with each other, with some people maybe having a year or so more history than others (as they staged builds 5-10 houses at a time). Community is a frail thing, and needs to be tended or it will wither, and sometimes it dies before it even has a chance to flourish.
  • askvictor 2y ago
    Where I currently live, in a medium-density area of town-houses (actually, pretty high-density for town-houses), seems to be the perfect density for community. I see my neighbours all of the time, just doing our things, and you say hi and chat because that's what humans do. Any more dense and you have apartments, where strangely people are more distant (even though closer) (unless effort has gone into the apartment design to get people interacting), less dense and you have a suburbia with its fortresses.
  • mgfist 2y ago
    I think it's a classic "grass is greener" story. If they haven't lived in the suburbs, they might think it's got elements it doesn't actually have.
  • caycep 2y ago
    my cynical take on this is that the suburban gentrifiers appear to have replicated behaviors of the people they displaced.... It's not like communal behaviors or venues in SF/Oakland/Berkeley did not exist prior to 2025...
  • brailsafe 2y ago
    Ya, came here to say the same thing and I'm glad others are similarly surprised. I do think that people who live in the most downtown of downtown areas are more similar to cul-de-sac style suburb dwellers, because there's often a similar kind of implied distance to third-spaces that people want to be in, as if taking the elevator down is equivalent to getting in the car and driving somewhere, and being elevated is like having your fenced off yard in a way, but there's so much more to urban spaces that include skyscrapers than there is in suburbs that include cul-de-sac car centric hellscapes, imo. If you move to the city from a particularly isolated suburb, please leave the social isolation where you came from, and do what you can to just be present and open to conversation, it's amazing how it feels to be connected to people that you can by on the street because you're both going to the train stop or cafe, and it's this sense of connectedness that makes the thought of moving back to my hometown quite repulsive, despite the individuals who live there otherwise being alright
  • mtalantikite 2y ago
    Same, but I think it really depends on the design on the neighborhood, regardless of if it's a city or a suburb. When I lived in "Brownstone Brooklyn" I had a stoop and would often hang out on it, as is common in neighborhoods with this feature. I knew tons of my neighbors, people would stop and talk to each other, etc. When I moved to Williamsburg years ago, that stopped. There are stairs that lead to my apartment, but it's not like a stoop that you'd find in other parts of Brooklyn -- they're steeper than you'd get on a brownstone and don't really encourage sitting at street level. I'd hang out on them sometimes, but then a few years back all the street lights and building lights switched to bright LEDs, making it gross to sit under them at night. But if you go to other parts of this neighborhood just a 5 minute walk away the building design is more conducive for gathering and chatting on stoops at street level, and I notice that that happens in that part of the neighborhood. Anyway, I wish we'd consider these things when building our environment.
    • mbokinala 2y ago
      I think another part of neighborhood design that influences this feeling is how walkable a neighborhood is — anecdotally, I feel like I've had way more run-ins and conversations with neighbors when I've lived in places that had grocery stores and coffee shops within walking distance, as opposed to when I've been in neighborhoods that required driving 10-15 mins to get to anything.
      • mtalantikite 2y ago
        For sure, walkability is an important factor. Although I think even with that it depends on what sort of shops are within walking distance. Years ago my current neighborhood of Williamsburg had mostly local shops -- a locally owned grocery store or two, cafes, bagel shops, bookstores, pharmacies, bodegas, etc. Now it's mainly a corporate wasteland -- Whole Foods, Apple, Sephora, Hermes, Chanel, North Face, Trader Joes, etc etc. By all measures I live in one of the most walkable parts of the most walkable city in the country, but as this corporate takeover has happened the small third spaces are dying or have fully died out (depending on the block). And I find that the feeling of community really has evaporated as that process has unfolded over the past 15-20 years.
  • nextts 2y ago
    Depends on your burb but yes in general this seems to be the case these days.
  • EasyMark 2y ago
    I know all my immediate neighbors, and am great friends with one, and amiable with all the others. You just have to not be shy, I have a type A personality so not afraid to walk over and say howdy. Most people are good with small talk if you open. Not everyone wants to be your best friend and I keep that in mind, but would rather say hello than a total stranger.
  • weitendorf 2y ago
    Not all suburbs are built the same. My dad grew up in suburban Cleveland in the 50s, which has a bunch of some of the very earliest style of suburbs. When I have been there, and from what I remember my dad telling me, there was actually a pretty decent community there despite it being a suburb. Personally having been there, and also many suburbs in the rest of the US, I think it's more complex than just "typical suburban problems are inherent to the suburban environment". That is to say, very early-style suburbs like Eastern Cleveland, suburbs of major cities like NYC, suburbs of smaller cities like Cincinnati, cities that are almost entirely suburban like LA or San Jose, and very old/organic suburbs like the gold coast of Connecticut are all completely different from each other. Even within places like Cleveland or New York, the time period in which the suburb formed (50s-60s suburbs are completely different from 2000-2010's suburbs) and the circumstances of how it formed (it could be completely organic and decentralized, totally centralized in a big development project, organized as a purely residential community with hoa fees and gates and community pools/golf clubs, or organized as a natural extension to the city and include spaces for business and schools) make it so that two places can both be suburban but have very different problems. And then of course you have demographics as a major confounding variable. In suburban Cleveland in the 50s and 60s almost every house was occupied by a nuclear family with school-aged kids, most men were actively employed (mostly unionized blue collar workers in eg steel). But the rust belt happened, people started living longer and stopped having so many kids, upper middle class people started preferring bigger houses, etc. so now that community is significantly more elderly, fragmented, and not really upper-middle-class any more despite the suburb itself not changing much. Similarly, Palo Alto is not really built that differently from many nice parts of Florida, but the culture is completely different from the physically-similar communities in Florida, because one place has lots of upwardly mobile people in tech/finance/affiliated with Stanford, and the other is a retirement destination. I guess my point is that "suburban problems" are oftentimes just "problems in suburbs" or "a problem in that suburb" or "a problem with that kind of suburb", not "problems with suburbs in general". Suburbs can have a sense of community but their residents need to want that and make it happen.
    • lolinder 2y ago
      And just as true: being a city does not by itself make for good communities. Residents need to want to make that happen—as in this story in TFA. If they don't want it, most cities are just as poorly designed for more-than-cursory spontaneous interaction as most suburbs.
  • NautilusWave 2y ago
    Hard agree. Especially in widely spaced suburban/exurban neighborhoods that mysteriously lack sidewalks and have suspiciously wide roads.
  • hinkley 2y ago
    Little boxes on a hillside Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on a hillside And they all look just the same.
  • eleveriven 2y ago
    It's not just about where you live, but how you choose to show up in that space
  • CalRobert 2y ago
    It really depends on the suburb. American ones are mostly garbage for social interaction, but I just moved to one (Houten, NL) that is really good for this. The key, of course, is to get cars away from people so that the streets (or bike paths and gardens in my case) are a place for humans, where it's comfortable to chat, let your kids run around, etc.
  • losvedir 2y ago
    > 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. This post and the comments here are genuinely interesting to me, because it shows how much people have different experiences in "suburban" and "urban" living. That, in turn, puts a whole new spin on everything I read about NIMBYism and urban development and whatnot. People don't even have a shared basis for what a city or suburb is and totally different experiences in each, so it calls into question how well we can even agree on or communicate what we want! Personally, having lived over (urban: Manhattan, Boston, suburban: Houston-ish, Chicago-ish, rural: California, Missouri), I tend to agree that suburbs are the sweet spot for knowing your neighbors to some degree. In my Manhattan apartment, I lived in a tiny studio crammed into a building with tons of other people who I never met. In my rural living, people were mostly too far apart to mingle. In my suburbs, we were "friendly" with people about 6-7 houses in either direction, and front or back. I live now in what I'd call a suburb (along this street: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7VfBtjzq3fMJRGXL9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/7VfBtjzq3fMJRGXL9), and there's lots of people frequently "going for walks". There's not that much to walk _to_ but people are generally pretty active when the weather is nice, and so you run into your neighbors a fair bit. I'd say I know by name the families (so, multiple people) of about 10 houses in my near vicinity, and have the cell phone numbers of a handful. I love this stoop coffee idea, and am going to have to try it here with my wife and kids.
    • ecshafer 2y ago
      I think that part of the issue is “suburbs” means different things. Suburbs can be pre-war streetcar suburbs or villages, often pretty walkable and dense. It could mean a housing development which can be large with hundreds of houses or town homes or small. My development has 13 houses on two culdesaca and everyone knows everyone, gives a great neighborly vibe. But ive lived in a town home development with 200 houses and most people didnt know anyone. Urban environments and apartments I didnt really know my neighbors. Small villages, street car suburbs that have individual houses but walkable, and small developments seem best. The biggest differentiator I have found is: do the majority of people consider this place their long term home or a temporary home? an apartment or town home people know they will only live 2-4 years or so, makes different behavior with a house that everyone plans to spend the next 20 years in. I think suburbs with porches and stoops help as well, too much garage/car focus means people dont spend time in the front of their house.
  • skeeter2020 2y ago
    So I live in a big city in the beltline area around the core and the problem is it's a car culture and we all have detached garages. This means a big majority never use their front door, they enter their garage via the alley and go in the back. The suburbs typically have garages at the front and people who are driving to work are likely to leave and return at the same time so this increases the odds of bumping into your neighbor. The equalizers: dogs and younger kids. Dog walkers seem to fall into 2 camps: friendly and most definitely not friendly; the former give you lots of chances to have a casual conversation. Young kids are likely to be playing out front too. I'm sure other cities have this too, but we have an annual neighbor day that only takes a little bit of effort and bravery to kick start this sort of community: https://www.calgary.ca/events/neighbour-day.html?redirect=/neighbourday https://www.calgary.ca/events/neighbour-day.html?redirect=/n...
    • paulgerhardt 2y ago
      I live in a big suburb outside downtown Denver with the alley situation you describe but we have a thriving community with monthly or bi-monthly events. Previously lived in the Bay Area for 15 years. Factors that help: -Every house is within two small blocks of a park. -We don’t have individual mailboxes so most people walk to the park daily as part of the USPS CBU initiative -Every park has a different theme and two different age appropriate activities -Walking trails around the suburb -Amazing community pools -Very well run HOA with transparent communication, minimal intervention, low ($50) monthly dues. -High number of families with young children -Walkable grocery store and bike paths
  • fatnoah 2y ago
    >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. I've lived in both settings, and my own experience has been a mix. In the (walkable) suburbs I've lived in, I've connected with my immediate neighbors, strength of connection rapidly dissipates with distance. We are friendly, occasionally have a BBQ or meal together, and lots of random chats while going for a walk or doing yard work. When I've lived in cities, it's been a much larger and more active community where the connection is less about proximity of our homes, and more about being in the same place at the same time since our daily errands and living were generally on foot. For those and the simple reason of small homes, we were more likely to meet somewhere or do an activity. I was also FAR more likely to run into someone I knew in my city than I was in my suburbs.
  • freeAgent 2y ago
    I now live in a suburb and it’s plenty social. We baked cookies and took them to every house up and down the block when we moved in and we greet new neighbors with treats when there’s turnover. We also exchange holiday cards and cookies every year. We either know or recognize most people within a few blocks and we have become friends with a few families that also have kids the age of ours whom we met at the neighborhood park. Suburbs can be great!
• hombre_fatal 2y ago
  What a shame to fit all those people in a space that could have been better left for one person to park their SUV. /s
• tinyoli 2y ago
  Ah nice, you've invented southern Europe! Seriously though, great concept and keep it going :)
  • barrenko 2y ago
    Was just about to write. My 69-year old neighbour just knocks on my door at random interval and asks if I want a coffee. * I had an 80 year old neighbour as well, but she got sick and moved in with her daughter.
    • barbazoo 2y ago
      > My 69-year old neighbour just knocks on my door at random interval and asks if I want a coffee. That is a dream of mine that I have yet to make happen.
      • stronglikedan 2y ago
        Don't let your dreams be dreams! Go knock on their door and ask them if they want a coffee.
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
        • bfors 2y ago
          In my situation they would probably not respond, and then submit a complaint through the HOA
          • barbazoo 2y ago
            What have we done to the human experience. smh
          • aeontech 2y ago
            Maybe your neighbor is scared of the same thing happening if they knock on your door... so neither makes the first move :(
• volkk 2y ago
  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 somehow handle.
  • timerol 2y ago
    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
    • allenu 2y ago
      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.
    • BobaFloutist 2y ago
      Sure, if you have a house. I live in a neighborhood of apartment buildings. I'm always wishing I had a dog (I have cats so it's not an option) or that there was a small neighborhood park to use as a common space. It's hard to get a sense of and connect with people on different floors, or the other end of the hallway, let alone next-door neighbors, just because it's harder to see the same people repeatedly.
      • cycomanic 2y ago
• JoshTriplett 2y ago
  I'm glad to hear a story of someone constructing a community they enjoy. And this approach does have the virtue of drawing in the kinds of people who are enthusiastically interested, rather than those who aren't. In general, I and most people I know have largely found more fun and more sense of community in groups whose membership arises from intentional joining through some common interest, rather than groups whose membership arises from happenstance. Or, in short: you choose your friends, but you don't choose your neighbors.
  • guhwhut 2y ago
    [dead]
• renewiltord 2y ago
  Amusingly, we live in a high-rise in SF and it's like what people talk about neighbourhood living. We have a Whatsapp group and people meet for ethnic festivals, borrow an egg, or sugar, or flour, or a jump start kit, or an iron. It's honestly quite nice. It helps that you self-select for the audience by who can afford the building, just like they've done the same with their neighbourhood.
  • skyyler 2y ago
    >It helps that you self-select for the audience by who can afford the building, just like they've done the same with their neighbourhood. Heavens forbid we have to break bread with one of the poors. Did you mean to imply that you only prefer to associate with people that have around as much money as you?
    • timewizard 2y ago
      I believe you missed the OPs point. I believe he's suggesting that this couple has it on "easy mode" because of the affluence of the area they already live in. If they tried this same technique in a more working class neighborhood they would likely have a harder time creating and maintaining this group.
      • apocadam 2y ago
        If anything I would say it's the opposite - individuals in less affluent communities are more likely to need the help of their neighbors, and thus interact and form relationships
        • skyyler 2y ago
          Correct! I've never been to a crab boil in an affluent neighborhood. But boy howdy have I been to a lot of them in working class areas.
      • skyyler 2y ago
        >I believe he's suggesting that this couple has it on "easy mode" because of the affluence of the area they already live in. That's actually even worse than I thought. Working class neighborhoods already have stuff like this happening. Cookouts and block parties are pretty common! I'm not sure why it would be more difficult if the people were poor.
• josefritzishere 2y ago
  This used to be completely normal. It was caled being neighborly.
  • stronglikedan 2y ago
    Still normal in a lot of places that are not big cities.
    • bilbo0s 2y ago
      I live in Wisconsin. Let me tell you, it's not so normal here. I understand there's a lot going on with poverty, and opioid epidemics, and other menaces out here in flyover country. But man, it'd be nice if we could all at least make an attempt at being more neighborly. Just think it's not a big city - small city thing anymore. I think there has been a collapse of neighborliness across society in the US. Vast majority of Americans live in neighborhoods without a 2 block stoop coffee event.
    • mmooss 2y ago
      As many other people have said, I find big cities more neighborly. People you pass on the sidewalk won't say hi - too many people to do that - but neighbors know each other and can be friendly.
  • elric 2y ago
    I grew up in a small village in the arse end of nowhere, in the 80s/90s. Even there and then it was a rarity for people to engage with their neighbours, beyond saying hello. Being the precocious child that I was, I invited myself to their homes for snacks. But I was alone in that. In some (many?) places, people just want to be left alone. You don't choose your neighbours, much like you don't choose your family. Sometimes you luck out, and sometimes you're fucked.
• jcdavis 2y ago
  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.
  • archagon 2y ago
    Just curious, what neighborhood is this?
    • brian-armstrong 2y ago
      From the pictures it looks like it could be NoPa
    • jcdavis 2y ago
      Its roughly a 2x2 block area of The Mission (not a hard boundary to participating, but almost everyone lives in it). I won't get more specific than that in case the author doesn't feel comfortable since it wasn't mentioned in her post.
      • archagon 2y ago
        Cool! I live close to Valencia/17th. Was just wondering if it was somewhere in my area: the houses looked Missiony but I couldn’t immediately place them.
        • rahimnathwani 2y ago
          I'm so envious! I love browsing the books at Community Thrift, but most days I don't have time to walk that far.
          • archagon 2y ago
            That shop is great! I've found a variety of treasures there over the last few years, including a mint-condition red leather recliner for $150 and a 60's era Soviet toy house. My favorite was a beautifully executed, life-sized oil painting of a nude; it started at $1200 and went down to $200 over the course of a few weeks, at which point I just had to buy it despite not really having the wall space to hang it up. I wanted to find out more about the subject, so I Googled the artist's signature, found the painting on his website, and reached out to chat. Turns out the painting had been stolen from his friend's house decades ago and he'd been looking for it ever since! We met up after he told me his story and I "sold" the painting back to him for the listing price; he left me a very generous tip and an art book. (See "The Platonic Friend" at https://www.kevinkearney.org/portfolio/figures https://www.kevinkearney.org/portfolio/figures.)
• non- 2y ago
  When people say "you can just do things" this is what they mean. Fun article, I hope everyone reading this who wishes they had something like it in their neighborhood starts this weekend by inviting their nearest friend for coffee on the stoop.
  • dfltr 2y ago
    These people are anarchists! No really, they are. The stoop coffee to "It takes the hood to save the hood" pipeline is real.
    • lanfeust6 2y ago
      "anarchism is when you talk to your neighbors and do things that don't require permission in the first place"
    • kropotkinrules 2y ago
      Haha, I came here to post this and I was beaten! This is one of the clearest expressions of anarchist praxis I've seen in a while. (Of course, people will not understand this, because anarchism is seen as a weird, deviant, punk subculture.)
• ramkarthikk 2y ago
  This is such a wholesome post. It also shows how much agency we can have in our local community. It reminded me of the Derek Sivers story[0] about the dancing man and the first follower when I read the part about the first person (Luke) joining them. [0] - https://sive.rs/ff https://sive.rs/ff
  • chrisweekly 2y ago
    Yes! Awesome Sivers post.
• pkamb 2y ago
  Now, even better, allow any neighbor to open a legitimate (yet small-scale and cheap) coffee shop or wine bar by-right in the garage space under their SF home.
  • tinyplanets 2y ago
    I assume your being facetious?
    • pkamb 2y ago
      No? Small businesses like that are what make cities great.
    • bilbo0s 2y ago
      I hope this commenter is being facetious. How do you read that post and have the first thing in your head be, "Hmm? How can I monetize this?"
      • pkamb 2y ago
        It's not about monetizing friendship, it's about providing comfortable places where events like this can happen all over the city/country. People want this community but it kinda sucks to do (and mostly won't happen) if you're meeting up monthly on chairs in a city street. If small neighborhood pubs and coffee shops were legal to build...
        • DavidPeiffer 2y ago
          I have heard about areas in rural Wisconsin where front porches have been converted into very small bars. Low overhead, serving primarily to your neighbors, and no doubt creating community.
      • throwaway29812 2y ago
        [dead]
      • ketzo 2y ago
• Duhck 2y ago
  This is so endearing. I've been at odds with my HOA [board] since I moved in and its a decades long tale of my community where everyone is treated poorly by our HOA. I've asked the board for block parties annually, and events semi annually and theyve rejected it over and over again. Meanwhile I miss this type of community that I had in every building I lived in around NYC before moving to the mountains
  • floren 2y ago
    If everyone is treated poorly by the HOA, you should be able to get them together and dissolve the HOA. Read the documents, there should be a procedure for dissolution.
    • Kirby64 2y ago
      Depending on the location, the way to dissolve an HOA is nearly impossible. You need to find out what to do with community assets (in a condo situation, this is not possible), and you also usually need somewhere between 75-100% of all members voting 'yes' (not just present voting). If it's 100% of all members, just a single uncooperative board member could prevent dissolution.
  • polalavik 2y ago
    Are you an owner? the hoa is not the board - it’s the entirety of the home owners who can vote and amend any rules at any time with enough momentum and support.
    • Duhck 2y ago
      Yea totally. I am an owner and I've been fighting with the board for 3 years over failure to hold elections, and inconsistent treatment of members / rules. I have a lawyer, have won my first battle already but it cost me $6k out of pocket (and the HOA $25k) for something that should have never happened. Next step is to expose the board and get people to turn out to vote, sadly there are unelected members on the board since 1995, and not enough turn out for a quorum so I am a bit hamstrung
• ahstilde 2y ago
  You can just do things
• S33V 2y ago
  i've walked past y'all on many occasions and thought how cool it was! I had no idea there was such a large group of you :) I'll have to swing by and say hi sometime
• James_K 2y ago
  I can't help but feel we've failed as a society, that we seem to focus more on money than things like this. So much misery in the world.
• austinl 2y ago
  During COVID, the block I live on in San Francisco started doing outdoor happy hours every Saturday afternoon. People weren't traveling much then, so we had near 100% attendance of every person on the block for almost a year. I went from knowing none of my neighbors to knowing all of them quite well, and it has surprised me how much it has improved my day-to-day happiness. Since then, we've hosted a "progressive" Thanksgiving dinner, which moves from house-to-house on the block for different courses. We shut down the street one day each year and set up bounce houses for the kids. I've made pint glasses with the name our street engraved in them, and given them to my neighbors. It's shown me that there really can be something valuable outside of your immediate family and circle of friends.
  • kulahan 2y ago
    Getting to know your neighbors is an essential part of building a safety net, too. It makes us healthier and happier!
• iancmceachern 2y ago
  They do this at UCSF in mission Bay too, such a great idea
• tptacek 2y ago
  This rules. I want to do it, but I know I can't personally, because I'm not awake at the hour people normally want coffee. Maybe I can figure out stoop whiskey. Another thing that works for meeting and talking to your neighbors, and has the benefit of attaching you to people who live blocks away from you and not just the people you see getting into the car every morning, is local politics. I've met more people being engaged in local politics than I have through any other activity, including work. My guess is that civic engagement across the United States works pretty much the way it does where I live in Chicagoland, which is that somewhere there is a message board, Facebook group, or mailing list, and you get engaged by joining it, getting the vibe, and then participating in the discussion --- it's very much (alarmingly much) like getting comfortable on Hacker News. Except you do it well and you can change laws.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • edm0nd 2y ago
    If you figure out stoop whiskey, let me know. I'm all in for sure on the idea.
    • rrr_oh_man 2y ago
      What is there to figure out?!
      • paulcole 2y ago
        It’s just an excuse to let themselves off the hook when they don’t take any action.
        • rrr_oh_man 2y ago
          Haha. I really like your observational cynicism, Paul.
      • edm0nd 2y ago
• ojagodzinski 2y ago
  In countries where people are free (almost everywhere except the USA) you can simply open a coffee shop in a "residential district". You have these ridiculous zoning laws so at most you can drive to a Starbucks.
  • drstewart 2y ago
    Funny, in countries where people are free (everywhere except your city in Poland) you can use an electric leaf blower to clear your stoop of leaves so neighbors can sit with their coffee.
• czhu12 2y ago
  Really heart warming story. My 2 cents: The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling. No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat. Eventually, newer members will feel too far behind the current discussions, and too socially exhausting to show up to meetups. I've seen these eventually get to 400+ members, many of whom don't live in the city anymore. The best group I've ever been part of had a simple rule that worked amazingly: If you don't show up to an event at least once a month, you were removed from the whatsapp group. It keeps the group small, and comfortable, and it never felt intrusive to send a quick "Whats everyone up to today?" into the group chat.
  • soulofmischief 2y ago
    This seems unnecessarily harsh toward people who like to travel.
    • doomroot 2y ago
      I doubt you'd have much of an issue rejoining the group.
      • czhu12 2y ago
        Yeah should've mentioned that, super easy to rejoin, just trying to prevent bloat
    • paulcole 2y ago
      It’s harsh to be removed from a group chat around an event that you don’t attend monthly? What would be your personal threshold for non-harsh?
      • soulofmischief 2y ago
        I'm saying that I would generally avoid such a paradigm if I'm trying to make real, lasting friends and build a strong local community, given that I might disappear or travel for a month at a time. It's great if other people are finding enjoyment in such a process, but it doesn't fulfill my personal goals, and it does indeed come across as harsh and unwelcoming toward non-hyperlocal or family-oriented people.
• ashryan 2y ago
  I've been organizing a weekly morning coffee session in Astoria, Queens for the last 2 (or 3?) years. The morning coffees are connected to our local tech community's series of meetups, but they aren't hyper-focused on tech and they don't have an agenda. Just a chance to meet neighbors. It's really been beneficial for me and my family, who aren't from here, to get to know more people in the neighborhood. These days I feel like it's a rarity to go outside without bumping into someone we know. It's also been awesome to see friendships and even collaborations form among people in the group. I recommend people give it a shot wherever they live. And if you're in NYC, come visit!
• melenaboija 2y ago
  I’m from a small town in Spain, about 800 people small, and this is what everyone would do every night during the summer, each group hanging out in different spots with different gangs, lol. It was just a way to chat with your neighbors. Sadly, this has mostly disappeared, but I think it’s a good example of how the sense of community in Spain differs from that in the U.S. And this feeling isn’t limited to small towns, you can find it in big cities too somehow. Without knowing for sure, I’m almost certain that people in southern Italy and Greece do the exact same thing.
  • penguin_booze 2y ago
    I remember seeing a documentary or a video clip of this being followed. I don't recall whether or not it was in Spain, but it was definitely a Spanish-speaking village. That clip came to my mind when I read this post.
  • drstewart 2y ago
    >Sadly, this has mostly disappeared, but I think it’s a good example of how the sense of community in Spain differs from that in the U.S. The first part of your sentence disagrees with the second
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • jvidalv 2y ago
    I’m also from a small town in Spain, ~600 people. And while it’s not as popular as before it’s still going strong in summer. I’m Catalan so we call it “la fresca”, translates to “to the fresh air”. In my street, ~5-10 people, my mother and some neighbours still do it. The way towns are build in spain facilitate that, single houses but no garden. We live door by door. So if you want to be outside you are by definition accesible. Before TV people used to also be a lot in the balcony just chilling and chatting with people passing by. This is my street in google mapa in case someone is interested: https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps/@41.1203367,0.4101811,454a,74.7y,0.31h,98.39t/data%3D!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sBi1mHBLNIaJTyZwG1tPbxA!2e0!6shttps:%252F%252Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%252Fv1%252Fthumbnail%253Fpanoid%253DBi1mHBLNIaJTyZwG1tPbxA%2526w%253D900%2526h%253D600%2526ll%253D41.120337,0.410181%2526yaw%253D0.308435%2526pitch%253D-8.387611%2526cb_client%253Dgmm.iv.ios?g_ep%3DCAISEjI1LjExLjMuNzM1NDg4OTYwMBgAIIGBASpjLDk0MjI0ODI1LDk0MjI3MjQ3LDk0MjI3MjQ4LDk0MjMxMTg4LDQ3MDcxNzA0LDQ3MDY5NTA4LDk0MjE4NjQxLDk0MjAzMDE5LDQ3MDg0MzA0LDk0MjA4NDU4LDk0MjA4NDQ3QgJFUw%253D%253D%26skid%3Db4345e27-b6b5-40bb-898b-94b48f961344&apn=com.google.android.apps.maps&afl=https://www.google.com/maps/@41.1203367,0.4101811,454a,74.7y,0.31h,98.39t/data%3D!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sBi1mHBLNIaJTyZwG1tPbxA!2e0!6shttps:%252F%252Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%252Fv1%252Fthumbnail%253Fpanoid%253DBi1mHBLNIaJTyZwG1tPbxA%2526w%253D900%2526h%253D600%2526ll%253D41.120337,0.410181%2526yaw%253D0.308435%2526pitch%253D-8.387611%2526cb_client%253Dgmm.iv.ios?g_ep%3DCAISEjI1LjExLjMuNzM1NDg4OTYwMBgAIIGBASpjLDk0MjI0ODI1LDk0MjI3MjQ3LDk0MjI3MjQ4LDk0MjMxMTg4LDQ3MDcxNzA0LDQ3MDY5NTA4LDk0MjE4NjQxLDk0MjAzMDE5LDQ3MDg0MzA0LDk0MjA4NDU4LDk0MjA4NDQ3QgJFUw%253D%253D%26skid%3D0a97ec32-5bdb-4d85-a6f9-caefaaad266d&isi=585027354&ibi=com.google.Maps&ibi=com.google.Rzimuth&ibi=com.google.Azimuth&ibi=com.google.Bzimuth&ibi=com.google.Czimuth&ibi=com.google.Dzimuth&ius=comgooglemapsurl&ifl=https://www.google.com/maps/@41.1203367,0.4101811,454a,74.7y,0.31h,98.39t/data%3D!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sBi1mHBLNIaJTyZwG1tPbxA!2e0!6shttps:%252F%252Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%252Fv1%252Fthumbnail%253Fpanoid%253DBi1mHBLNIaJTyZwG1tPbxA%2526w%253D900%2526h%253D600%2526ll%253D41.120337,0.410181%2526yaw%253D0.308435%2526pitch%253D-8.387611%2526cb_client%253Dgmm.iv.ios?g_ep%3DCAISEjI1LjExLjMuNzM1NDg4OTYwMBgAIIGBASpjLDk0MjI0ODI1LDk0MjI3MjQ3LDk0MjI3MjQ4LDk0MjMxMTg4LDQ3MDcxNzA0LDQ3MDY5NTA4LDk0MjE4NjQxLDk0MjAzMDE5LDQ3MDg0MzA0LDk0MjA4NDU4LDk0MjA4NDQ3QgJFUw%253D%253D%26skid%3De23cf196-4e07-423c-823b-f84a15195095&cid=4064723246717064284&_osl=https://maps.app.goo.gl/EGiQ7YfQzLQt5atL8&_icp=1 https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps/@4...
• mrweasel 2y ago
  It's interesting how different people can be, and what energizes us. The coffee on the stoop seems incredibly nice, and I love that they acknowledge that the simplest events are some of the best ones. Once they start taking about "watch parties" and potlucks I personally check out completely, that's way too much for me. The less official stuff sound really great though, just sitting down for one cup of coffees time, or just a beer or two at the end of the week.
  • tyhoff 2y ago
    You say the 'watch parties' are too much, but these are actually the events that are the best. They are at 8p, people come over when their kids are in bed, we have 4-10 people show up, everyone's in their sweat pants, and we watch a TV episode. We discuss it for 10-15m afterwards, and we generally part ways. It's such a low-effort and small event, and it allows people to get into other people's homes in a low-judgement way. It's been one of the more successful events at getting neighbors to become friends with each other.
    • balfirevic 2y ago
      Surely it's just very individual? Watch party of that kind sounds like something I'd never wish to do, but I'd gladly hang out outside for a beer or two.
    • mrweasel 2y ago
      > We discuss it for 10-15m afterwards Yeah, that sounds awful. That's the great part though, everyone can participate on their own terms. Do the stoop coffee, do the watch parties, whatever they feel energizes them and brings joy. It's such a great initiative.
• davidedicillo 2y ago
  I love this concept. I live by a popular head trail, and when I do work in the garage (on my bikes or other projects), I usually keep the door open. That simple thing led to meeting many people from around the neighborhood.
• conductr 2y ago
  I love these stories. My adult home city feels off compared to where I grew up in terms of neighborly-ness. So while I'm not a coffee drinker, I have been doing the pancake breakfast thing monthly in my front lawn/driveway for a decade, also an annual crawfish boil that is a big draw for the surrounding neighborhood (probably 300 people show up, free beer never hurts attendance) FWIW, I live in a mid-century suburb that's now part of the urban core but also still very low density and single family housing oriented. The challenge is that there is a huge disparity of the census in a neighborhood like this. You have 90 year old people who raised their kids long ago and you have newly married folks who bought their first home. You even have some people who are just renting houses and don't really care about getting to know their neighbors. Unlike in the the newer exurb/suburbs where most people are raising family and all going through similar life phases, or in the denser part of the city where most people are single or DINKs. It's also varies alot by when you moved here, because it started out as a very affordable middle class neighborhood and is now extremely affluent with people building new construction multimillion dollar McMansions, etc. Anywho, it's been a good way to get people into a super casual setting and let them get to know each other. It certainly feels more like 'home' to me now.
• TuringNYC 2y ago
  > 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. That is not my experience at all! Growing up in Brooklyn, hanging out on the stoop was a major social scene. (Also a factor: no AC indoors, which meant going outside for cool air) Now, in the suburbs, the homes are too far apart to have adhoc convos. Also, in many places the absence of sidewalks makes walking over to others' homes prohibitive.
  • bell-cot 2y ago
    THIS. To paraphrase Napoleon: For having a real community, the people are to the housing geometry as three to one.
• deadbabe 2y ago
  If you can change a neighborhood, you can change a city.
• bobbyfromnz 2y ago
  When you travel to most other countries this kind of community is present. Warms my heart that it’s finding its way to you.
• kelseyfrog 2y ago
  The format and delivery reminds me of Tree Raves: A Case Study in Social Protocols[1] - here's a series of behaviors you can implement if you'ld like to replicate this type of thing too. 1. https://prigoose.substack.com/p/tree-raves-a-case-study-in-social https://prigoose.substack.com/p/tree-raves-a-case-study-in-s...
• nickvec 2y ago
  Awesome article. Inspires me to try to form better relationships with my neighbors. nit: the header "Where We Today" seems like it's omitting an "Are"
  • geverett 2y ago
    good catch, fixed! thanks :)
    • nickvec 2y ago
      no problem :) just curious, what neighborhood of SF are you in?
      • geverett 2y ago
        I'm the editor of Supernuclear, not Patty who wrote the post. I don't think Patty wants her address shared but some other commenters have triangulated the general neighborhood if you feel like reading through!
• reactordev 2y ago
  We need more of this. People are isolated, afraid, not willing to make the first move. Do it! The worst thing that can happen is you just enjoy your coffee outside, the best - read the article.
• slothtrop 2y ago
  Man, I'd like to do this. My suburb doesn't have much foot-traffic though. I do my best to greet the neighbors, and sometimes chat up people at the coffee shop. Time constraints are a factor when it comes to socializing, as a parent to toddlers.
• dr__mario 2y ago
  Super amused that something so "deep Spain" (specifically from my region) arises in other places too: https://es-euronews-com.translate.goog/2022/07/12/salir-al-fresco-mucho-mas-que-una-tradicion-espanola?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://es-euronews-com.translate.goog/2022/07/12/salir-al-f...
  • mns 2y ago
    I think this is something very general, houses in Romanian villages have benches in front of them where people used to gather like this, in the summer this was somehow the norm, less now, but it's still happening. One of the other options was either the bar or probably church.
• unnamed76ri 2y ago
  I live in the suburbs on a busy road. The road is literally a dividing line between the village. One which means we only interact with the neighbors on the other side when there is a car accident.
• urbandw311er 2y ago
  Nice. By the way what’s a stoop?
  • cbracketdash 2y ago
    "A small porch, platform, or staircase leading to the entrance of a house or building." - Google
  • Dunan 2y ago
    I read this article and was pleased not just with the community development, but with the spread of the word "stoop" all the way out to the West Coast. It's a Dutch word brough over in the New Amsterdam era that was originally mostly confined to New York. It has the same etymology as English "step": https://www.etymonline.com/word/stoop https://www.etymonline.com/word/stoop
• phil-lnf 2y ago
  Phil, editor of the Supernuclear Substack here. I wasn't expecting "hanging out on stoops" to boot AI out of the #1 slot on Hacker News :) Glad this resonated for folks A great way of kick-starting stoop culture is having a friend or family member live right next door. We started a company called Live Near Friends (https://livenearfriends.com https://livenearfriends.com) to help people do this.
  • numbers 2y ago
    could I please just browse live near friends without logging in? signing-in/signing-up feels like too much effort to just browse
    • phil-lnf 2y ago
      try this: https://app.livenearfriends.com/hfc/home?dfm=Bay+Area https://app.livenearfriends.com/hfc/home?dfm=Bay+Area
  • wwarner 2y ago
    pff wish i knew abt this last year!
    • phil-lnf 2y ago
      what happened last year?
      • wwarner 2y ago
        bought a house, not as cool as these!
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• phkx 2y ago
  Douglas Rushkoff would certainly approve. Go Team Human!
• lofaszvanitt 2y ago
  Porch monkeys? :D
  • rottencupcakes 2y ago
    This comment comes across a little dismissive, but this was my exact thought. What if the people doing this were of another socioeconomic class and were drinking malt liquor? Or even if not imbibing, just smoking a black and mild. Very interesting thought experiment.
    • itscodingtime 2y ago
      Not a thought experiment. Black people do this or something similar all the time. It’s called loitering or “making the neighborhood look bad”
• Facemelters 2y ago
  The whitest thing I've ever seen
  • UnreachableCode 2y ago
    Are you white?
• eb0la 2y ago
  My father was born in a small village in Guadalajara, Spain. I remember in the village my grandma and other neighbours tool their chair outside their homes to talk at the end of the day. It is great to see good things coming again. Do it... MORE.
• makr17 2y ago
  At the start of Covid lockdown my group at work started having a daily "drinking alone together" afternoon Google Meet. When that job ended, our household started drinking on our front porch in the afternoons. Soon a few neighbors started doing the same, and we got close enough (15-20 feet) to trade cell numbers. After that we would text back and forth to communicate during "distanced happy hour". The friendships we made drinking _not_ together have lasted, and we still count those neighbors as friends...
• aprdm 2y ago
  I love this. I will bookmark / see what I can do once it stops raining everyday in Vancouver
• tediousgraffit1 2y ago
  I love this and I'm not trying to be a downer, but I do think it's funny that 'go outside and talk to your neighbors' is an innovative idea in 20xx
• jbverschoor 2y ago
  Yeah that’s actually illegal in the Netherlands. “Hanging”
  • schrijver 2y ago
    In Dutch: https://www.politie.nl/informatie/mag-ik-met-mijn-vrienden-rondhangen-bij-het-winkelcentrum.html https://www.politie.nl/informatie/mag-ik-met-mijn-vrienden-r... Legally it’s still the exception, the municipality has to make it illegal (although I imagine it happens far too often). But hanging in front of one’s house is legal and actually quite common, at least in Amsterdam, much more so than in for ex. Belgium. Like you see people put benches or even picknick tables in front of their house, which has no garden or clear separation with the pavement. The houses in this street have a back yard, so if you sit down in the front it’s also to be able to hang out in a social space, do people watching and say hi to your neighbours: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.351001,5.0003965,3a,57.6y,52.07h,83.58t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-uLBvNQfG3G5FvUTMnpe6A!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D6.423701503696449%26panoid%3D-uLBvNQfG3G5FvUTMnpe6A%26yaw%3D52.07106688827416!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMyMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@52.351001,5.0003965,3a,57.6y,52...
• Lammy 2y ago
  Not that it would ever be enforced against these people (and not like I agree with the ordinance existing at all) but the “typical weekend stoop hang” seems like it would definitely be illegal by a strict reading of San Francisco Police Code §168 a.k.a the “sit/lie law”: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/san_francisco/latest/sf_police/0-0-0-702 https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/san_francisco/latest/s... ======= > Present laws that prohibit the intentional, willful or malicious obstruction of pedestrians do not adequately address the safety hazards, disruption and deterrence to pedestrian traffic caused by persons sitting or lying on sidewalks. > (b) Prohibition. In the City and County of San Francisco, during the hours between seven (7:00) a.m. and eleven (11:00) p.m., it is unlawful to sit or lie down upon a public sidewalk, or any object placed upon a public sidewalk. > (c) Exceptions. The prohibitions in Subsection (b) shall not apply to any person: > 1. Sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk due to a medical emergency; > 2. Using a wheelchair, walker, or similar device as the result of a disability; > 3. Operating or patronizing a commercial establishment conducted on the public sidewalk pursuant to a sidewalk use permit; > 4. Participating in or attending a parade, festival, performance, rally, demonstration, meeting, or similar event conducted on the public sidewalk pursuant to and in compliance with a street use or other applicable permit; > 5. Sitting on a fixed chair or bench located on the public sidewalk supplied by a public agency or by the abutting private property owner; > 6. Sitting in line for goods or services unless the person or person's possessions impede the ability of pedestrians to travel along the length of the sidewalk or enter a doorway or other entrance alongside the sidewalk; > 7. Who is a child seated in a stroller; or > 8. Who is in an area designated as a Pavement to Parks project.
  • etothepii 2y ago
    Does this get covered in the post, "in front of neighbours drive" then one is covered by 5, no? or by the abutting private property owner;
    • Lammy 2y ago
      Those are all folding/portable chairs, not fixed chairs. There are a few fixed benches built into the sidewalk in front of a few houses in my neighborhood, and 5 would apply to them. I'm also curious how this could be interpreted for someone who is merely a renter and not the private property owner. edit: LOL they edited it out in response to my comment. There was a photo of a circle of folding chairs between the first selfie and the pancake party photo: https://i.imgur.com/Ygd8Of6.png https://i.imgur.com/Ygd8Of6.png
• chevman 2y ago
  We live in a mid sized city in the midwest, typical city block with single family homes. Folks keep to themselves a bit - not everyone, but enough that you have to make an effort to connect with neighbors. My son and I had the idea that we should just organize a block party. I think this was in early 2021 after covid was letting up a bit. He was 7 years old and said we should get a food truck to come. So that's what we did. Made homemade invitations and handed them out to a couple blocks around us and sent out emails to friends. I think we had like 75 people show up to the first one! It was great. Had a taco truck come, and the local fire station rolled the engine by for the kids. Blocked off the street so everyone could sit together and the kids could run around without worrying about traffic. We've been trying to do this every 6 months or so since then. Great way to meet tons of folks in the immediate vicinity and strike up some new friendships - highly recommend it.
• jacobsenscott 2y ago
  Careful though - remember what George Carlin has to say about forming groups https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m6TSv2vtvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m6TSv2vtvQ
• nickzelei 2y ago
  This is amazing! A few folks on my block in the lower haight started doing something similar during Covid. We’ve met some long term neighbor friends this way that we otherwise may have never met. Love to know that more of this was going on in the city.
• mckleroy 2y ago
  The Outershell brand in San Francisco does this on bikes, where a group bikes across the GGB, sets up coffee, drinks coffee, in a beautiful spot in nature. Love this concept though, very accessible!
• mparnisari 2y ago
  i'd love to participate in this where i live (not organize, just participate) but sadly it rains almost every single day and i doubt people would show up
• bobsyourbuncle 2y ago
  How do ppl do this if they have a 9-5?
  • guhwhut 2y ago
    [dead]
  • bonoboTP 2y ago
    At 6pm? At 7pm? At 8 am?
• geverett 2y ago
  I'm the co-author of Supernuclear and editor of this post. We've been writing the blog for almost five years now, you never know what will go viral! I've spent my adult life living in Istanbul, New York, San Francisco, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In Istanbul it sometimes felt like my neighbors knew too much about me - they would comment on who slept over (I had a lot of friends visit!) and once when I went out of town for a week my landlady said she nearly let herself into my home to make sure I hadn't died because no one had seen me in a few days. That being said, it was also comforting to know, 5000 miles from my home and my family, that people around me cared about my wellbeing and my whereabouts. And this is the thing those of us who live in the US sometimes forget: knowing your neighbors isn't just about being able to borrow cup of sugar when you're out. It's about knowing someone will share their generator when a hurricane has knocked your power out. It's about someone noticing when something looks off and coming over to knock and make sure you're ok. We aren't just happier when we get to know our neighbors better, we're safer.
  • cjbarber 2y ago
    Happy reader for a while. For HN readers, if you want to have a setup where you live near friends and/or family, check their posts: https://supernuclear.substack.com/archive?sort=top https://supernuclear.substack.com/archive?sort=top
  • balfirevic 2y ago
    > they would comment on who slept over > landlady said she nearly let herself into my home to make sure I hadn't died because no one had seen me in a few days. You sound way less bothered by that than I would be. I'm annoyed just reading it.
    • LeonB 2y ago
      I’ve lived in scenarios where people saying either of these things would be a huge violation, and I’ve lived in scenarios where people saying either of these things would be natural. Living in the latter scenario is a far better place, and nothing like, the former scenario.
• joshuaheard 2y ago
  My old neighborhood had "Front Porch Fridays" where neighbors would gather in front of someone's house and have a pot luck with cocktails. It was very popular.
• mixmastamyk 2y ago
  I'll mention a thing that I learned recently about apartment building design. We were in a building where all the unit entrances faced outward, and after several years only recognized two and knew one other neighbor's name, the guy with mgmt duties. Then we moved to another building on the same street. This one, all the units face inward towards a courtyard. We know almost everyone by name in this building (a few from the first week!) and often share tips about what is going on nearby, or facilities, send holiday cards, etc. There's an imessage group as well.
• marnett 2y ago
  Small world. I’ve run by the stoop coffee and their pancake parties in SF many weekends. Love seeing the details behind this intentional community building (:
• softwaredoug 2y ago
  Getting an outgoing dog has a similar impact. Suddenly on every walk our dog wants to meet their dog and we know neighbors we wouldn’t have otherwise. Even more so than our kids and their neighborhood playmates.
• marviel 2y ago
  oh my god. I literally walked past this group of people a few weeks ago and thought to myself "I should walk up and introduce myself because they seem like they're having a great time". But I had to rush past. Next time!
• chrisdhoover 2y ago
  I went to school in Richmond Va. Our flats had big covered porches. Summers there were brutal. The buildings were brick. While sturdy, bricks are excellent. Storing heat and releasing it slowly. None of us had AC. Porch life dominated. Everyone would sit out. Some folk had gliders. I once sat on porch as Dave Brockie strummed away on guitar working out some of his songs It struck me that no one really did that in San Francisco. For one there are few if any big front porches. For two the damn cold evening fog chases the women inside. It took me a minute to realize the social life was at the corner boozer.
  • ketzo 2y ago
    Based on other comments in this thread it sounds like this takes place in SF’s Mission neighborhood — among other things, the warmest and least foggy area in the city! I wonder about how to do this in my own, much chillier neighborhood… guess getting started in the summer is a big key (the author hits on the broadening/deepening event split re: weather)
• fma 2y ago
  Your community is what you make of it. Both suburbs I have lived in were tight knit. With kids now, in my current home, I know most of the parents with kids and we have a WhatsApp group. We host occasional BBQ and play dates and when the community pool is open we schedule time to hang out and swim. That's just scratching the surface at what I see. Other suburban community Diwali, Christmas light drive through etc. For those who have had a poor experience in the suburbs, unfortunately that is on you. The author here created stoops and you could have organized something too.
• aussieguy1234 2y ago
  For the political side of this, a good next step is to have a few peoples assemblies anyone can attend, where issues are voted on. In my ideal world, these votes would be the "law" of the land. But currently, you'd have to send the results to whatever government is in power. What is and isn't allowed in a particular area should be decided by the local community.
  • bonoboTP 2y ago
    If you do it too often, you won't get a representative picture of the entire community just those who have both time on their hands and either an ax to grind or are somehow very invested. This is a very typical failure mode. The people who are extremely active in such matters don't have an average personality profile. You know what I mean if you've ever used Nextdoor. Also if there are constant meetings and votes, regular people won't know when something important is being decided. It's a typical trick to hide important stuff among lots of other minor things to overwhelm the regular working person and make it impossible to track what's going on. Make the votes frequent enough to be able to course correct if people are dissatisfied, but rare enough so that people can know when they really need to focus on this topic. Maybe choosing a mayor and local representatives every 4 years is too rare, but I also wouldn't want my neighborhood decisions to be captured by some small clique of "in-crowd" who invest hours and hours into getting things there way and obscuring what's happening.
• kropotkinrules 2y ago
  Anarchism in action, baby! (Not "the purge" style anarchism, anarchism in the "self organizing to build nice things" style.) Turns out that this is the fundamental nature of people. People want to feel connected. People want do to nice things for one another. Bonding and socialization is the natural state for people. Organizing doesn't have to be hard, and often, the best organizing is just doing something visible and inviting anyone who is coming by to participate.
• ambicapter 2y ago
  > The First Convert > We met Luke a month or two after we’d been “stooping” on a regular basis. He came by to introduce himself and asked to exchange numbers so we could let him know if we’d be out there in the future, he’d love to join. At the time we didn’t realize how important this moment was for us. We’d been meeting many neighbors in passing but Luke was the first person to offer to sit with us and he wanted to know how to coordinate. In retrospect we should have been trying to get peoples’ numbers all along but hey, we were new to this! I feel like the last sentence is a mistake. I think it works way better that they let the first person come up to them first of their own accord. If they'd been pushing for numbers from the get-go, the stoop coffee definitely would have a different feel to it. I think it's important that the first people who want to be there are people who _really_ want to be there, and thus take the initiative to initiate contact. That way you (potentially) start your group with a set of strong connections.
• whiddershins 2y ago
  Great idea, but (as indicated in the article) there are no stoops pictured. A stoop is a series of steps that go to a second level, which makes for way better hang dynamics. Living on a block with stoops is superior to one without because people are far more likely to hang around outside when they can get some height and survey the whole block. https://www.brownstoner.com/brooklyn-life/brooklyn-stoop-sitting-coronavirus-photos-italian-photographer-francesca-magnani-on-the-stoop/ https://www.brownstoner.com/brooklyn-life/brooklyn-stoop-sit...
  • guhwhut 2y ago
    They explicitly mention this in the article.
• gorfian_robot 2y ago
  the Arizona version of this is the snowbirds who use their garage as their outdoor living room and social area
  • bilbo0s 2y ago
    This is so Scottsdale.
• coding-saints 2y ago
  This is amazing. I am (regretfully) the introverted one in the community that watches as my wife and kids make the most of it. This is something I would love to stumble on. Great read!
• ShayNehmad 2y ago
  This is so cool. I just moved to the Bay Area, and I know that if someone invited me to such an event I would be thrilled!
• dyauspitr 2y ago
  Eh sorry for being curmudgeonly but the themes are just not attractive to me. Pancake party, dips party, coffee, all those task assignments are just not doing it for me. It doesn’t have an interesting edginess to it like the fraternities and their secret rituals or dedicated niche fanatics like stamp collectors or D&D. It’s all so pastel and milquetoast.
• CHB0403085482 2y ago
  There were towns and cities BEFORE cars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMJaMy-0ChA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMJaMy-0ChA You can also wave to your neighbours passing by in their cars.
• MiiMe19 2y ago
  California people discover hanging out outside with people.
• bb88 2y ago
  Not everyone wants to hang with everyone. The more charisma you have, the more popular you will be. I question how much this is due to people's charisma versus the norm. Popularity is a factor of charisma and maybe looks. Not much else.
• ricardobayes 2y ago
  If anyone is interested in this, visit (or move to) Spain. Valencia and Madrid is full of experiences like this, even for foreigners/expats.
• eleveriven 2y ago
  Connection doesn't need to be complicated to be meaningful
• AStonesThrow 2y ago
  MC Frontalot would approve Seriously though, “we didn’t have to apply for permits” holds true until you blog about it and HN publishes it on Page 1 and someone contacts Public Health about your dumb electric griddle, or someone tries to monetize something and nearly succeeds.
• DoingIsLearning 2y ago
  For the non-native ESL speakers like me, a 'stoop' is apparently the steps or porch leading up to a building entrance. The lack of an actual stoop further added to my initial confusion with this new word. Very cool! So often we complain about a lack of community. These guys really show the whole 'be the change you want to see in this world'. I also loved the concept of let's just bring a few extra chairs as an ice breaker.
• sibellavia 2y ago
  this is very common in my city, Catania (Sicily)!
• javiercr 2y ago
  Burning Man morning vibes, walking to a neighborhood camp for good coffee and meeting some new friends. Love it.
• Fokamul 2y ago
  Sitting on the street of SF, for the whole day just like that? How many times have these people been mugged?
• fforflo 2y ago
  The "New World" is re-discovering what the Balkans / Southern Europe have been doing for decades.
• SirFredman 2y ago
  Ha, never knew the Dutch word 'stoep' had an English equivalent in 'stoop'!
  • englishrookie 2y ago
    Introduced into English most likely through Nieuw Amsterdam / New York.
• juleiie 2y ago
  Jesus even reading this makes me uncomfortable. I am glad for city anonymity and solitude forever Brrr this is horrible stuff of nightmares you guys advocate for. I want to escape my neighbours not having to meet them each time I go out Ideally we would even push notify button before walking out in a way that we don’t meet each other at all. People are disgusting, terrible and not to be trusted. least you need is more of them
• theyinwhy 2y ago
  I know this is offtopic but why are people pushing Whats App? They could have used Signal just as well. Privacy literacy seems to be neglected so so much.
  • kennyq 2y ago
    I've been thinking about this throughout the day and I'm not sure that I agree that Signal is a good candidate for this kind of communal group. Firstly, Signal doesn't have a way of separating topics. Sure, you can have multiple groups that are loosely linked together but it's not really seamless. Secondly, Signal's permission controls are lacking. Let's say you have a Signal group dedicated to posting meet-up details. You'd only want to allow trusted participants to be able to post. This can be done in Signal by making it so that only admins can send messages. However, admins can strip other admins of their role which means one rogue user can ruin the group. With that said, I completely agree that WhatsApp really isn't ideal from a privacy standpoint. I especially dislike the fact that any participant can find out the phone number of anyone else. I'd personally prefer something like Matrix for this purpose but onboarding strangers onto Matrix just sounds like a real nightmare.
  • huimang 2y ago
    It's likely the path of least resistance. Many people have whatsapp and it's far preferable to sms. Significantly fewer people have heard of signal, let alone have it installed. And privacy literacy, for a neighbor group chat?
• esschul 2y ago
  This seems so foreign for someone living in Norway. The "what kind of weirdo are you" - vibe would be so real if someone did this.
  • freilanzer 2y ago
    Germany as well.
• redlampdesk 2y ago
  Rented a house with friends in sf in 2016. We created a facebook group for our neighborhood, put up signs, and very quickly had a similar experience. A few neighbors over for drinks one night, hosted a weekend bbq a few weeks later. Quickly got to know a lot of people on my immediate block. One guy fixed my bike. An older woman called me when her fire alarm was intermittently beepting, to see if I could fix it. Had a few other events through the group, they were a highlight of the year. Made it clear to me how much latent desire there is for connection / friends from your neighbors.
• msephton 2y ago
  TIL what a stoop is.
• superkarn 2y ago
  Luke reminds me of the First Follower phenomenon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ).
  • Vinnl 2y ago
    Yeah was going to see, he's the real MVP.
• curtisszmania 2y ago
  [dead]
• ryan42 2y ago
  This is cool, it reminds me of some events in my home state. One is called Porch fest, and it is city-wide event: https://www.carmelporchfest.org/faq https://www.carmelporchfest.org/faq Another is a community event in South Bend, IN where people collectively organized a big art/music event in backyards, that spread and covered a fairly large area. I think it was originally back yards, then someone with a large wooded property moved the event there, as it grew too large? https://www.instagram.com/yart_southbend https://www.instagram.com/yart_southbend Also reminded of porch hangouts that happened by necessity during covid to allow socializing while masked/outdoors to reduce risk of larger groups of people gathering indoors.
• wuming2 2y ago
  They discovered sipping espresso with friends and neighbors. Weird. But Substack gained some clicks I guess.
• sfnative88 2y ago
  I just feel the need to point out how ridiculous the lack of socio-economic diversity appears to be in these images. California and the Bay Area specifically is suffering and this kind of privileged whimsical time-killing project comes off as insanely tone-deaf. To me at least. Just my opinion as someone born and raised in that city.
  • wcski 2y ago
    It's people gathering for coffee. We can't talk about the apocalypse at the dinner table every night.
• kerkeslager 2y ago
  If you look at buildings from before WW2 in NYC vs buildings from the last few decades, one thing that stands out is the balconies. Older suburban houses are similar, with large porches prewar and no porches or enclosed porches in the last few decades. Our architecture has simply evolved out of having spaces where we can sit around and chat with our neighbors. I admire the tenacity of the OP. If you look at the pictures, they're occupying a space that is clearly unfriendly to their goals. In cities, I think a lot of the motivation for this change is anti-homeless sentiment: good places to hang out and chat with your neighbors are also good places for homeless people to sleep. But this contributes to increasingly isolating residents as well. It's one of the subtle ways in which the war on the homeless has negatively impacted those in homes as well.
• QuantumNoodle 2y ago
  This is great! As a renter that is priced out of the market where I want to live/work, the greatest obstacle I've seen to long term communities are "transplants" or those who live for a few years and move. It is difficult living in a community where the overwhelming majority of your neighbors are all cycled in 5 years. We've found "transplants" are effectively anonymous :/
  • sequoia 2y ago
    You can create a community in a neighbourhood like this. Five years is a pretty long time. People will come and go but if you spend even an hour per month with neighbours and other people reciprocate, it will build a community that transcends individuals coming & going. Think of a university campus: community forms there in far fewer than 5 years through regular casual interactions.
• gergely 2y ago
  I love how people rediscovers the concept of "third place" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place). Maybe it is because we got so into technology and COVID that we have started to miss face-to-face human connections.
• jorkim32 2y ago
  This is a real cool thing (probs the best things I have seen this week!). It's great to see our society going back to fundamentals and seeing that hanging out together in simple settings make you feel good and included. Feels like a duh moment but a very needed reminder.
• riperoni 2y ago
  So hanging on the sidewalk is cool if non-homeless people do it?
• huy77 2y ago
  this is peak vietnamese culture
• _madmax_ 2y ago
  I think it's sort of sad that this simple act of trust in your community (having coffee and exposing yourself to others) has to be over-analysed and dissected into a blog. Broadening and Deepening events, just dividing the whole act as events it feels like i'm reading a post-mortem on adobe workfront. When the true meaning of that awesome initiative remains the human need for social interaction and the need to be part of something bigger (like a community!). I feel this is poseur-ish and project-managerial to a degree even detailed oriented people will find unauthentic.
  • Yhippa 2y ago
    I was reading this and thought to myself that I would have stopped at hanging out on the stoop and getting to know my neighbors that walk by. I don't want to yuck their yum, but as an observation, it does seem highly performative and overly organized. Almost like they are trying to proof this out to sell to other communities and eventually make money off of: "buy our community building platform for $20 a month".
• owenversteeg 2y ago
  I think the key is to keep things as low-effort as possible for both the organizers and the guests. One good way is to have some sort of recurring event, say movie night or drinks or whatever, happen every X day, with no coordination or input needed, just show up. Another is to live close enough together that people bump into each other and just start doing things. Even the smallest amount of planning/coordinating/etc is friction, and friction will eventually stop anything. When you start to look at the bigger picture - relationships, aging, childcare, morals, help for the needy, etc - you realize you just want to reconstruct a mildly religious community from the pre-industrial age.
• 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
  Sorry if it's been said already, but "stoop life" has been a thing in inner cities for... well, forever. It's more common with underprivileged communities in inner cities, so I can see how more affluent people would "suddenly discover" that hanging out on their stoop helps create community. In my experience, where the two intersect, it's usually the more affluent people pissed off that less-affluent (or perhaps "more culturally diverse"?) people are hanging out on the stoop. I've lived in DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and NYC, in multiple neighborhoods in each city, and I assure you, "stoop life" is everywhere, except on the wealthier stoops. But it doesn't have to be that way. Another thing that helps create community is stoop gardens. People will stop and gather round a stoop garden to marvel at what's being grown. Neighbors will lean out their window to yell a hello at a stoop gardener. I can't recommend it enough.
• mzmzmzm 2y ago
  I applaud the community building you've done, but the wealthy SF tech set is never beating the 'reinventing things that already exist' allegations. This is basically a block party only quiet.
• Rayvn7 2y ago
  A spreadsheet is not very "community". And most definitely, demanding you to suddenly allow extreme surveillence against you, and to also own a smartphone, and to also install things on the smartphone and be physically able to do so as well, is most DEFINITELY not a "community". By this definition of talking to your immediate neighbors and knowing the whole neighborhood and whatnot.