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Evolutionists, how did life start?

How to find / start a group exploring problems of 21st C. city life?

  • I'm a lifelong city dweller (New York is my town), and looking to connect with others who are having trouble coping with / adjusting to dramatic changes in city life that have taken hold over the past 15 years or so. The hope is to find or start a group: to find creative solutions, ways of coping, preserving sanity, and considering appropriate legal action when warranted. But I'm not sure where to start! ... If this is not the appropriate forum - my apologies: please forgive and delete, moderators. I'm a New Yorker, for better or worse. I love diversity, can handle throngs, dirty pavement, variety, eager tourists, and noise. I'm a realist about life in the city. But I'm finding ... even I am having a very difficult time adjusting to dramatic changes that have taken hold over the past 15 years or so. The changes grow out of the sorts of economic and structural changes natural to a city - but have become turbocharged, increasing congestion to a tipping point of tolerability, destroying social and economic diversity, killing scores of beloved independent businesses (it sometimes seems that only large chain stores and tourist-oriented merchants can survive on Manhattan streetcorners) and drastically diminishing the life of the street (eye and face contact lost to Candy Crush and Facebook). I realize this is beyond my control, that I need to adjust, not just 'complain'. I also realize I am not alone - and that New York is not the only place where this phenomenon is causing emotional and economic distress, with a degree of alienation. I practice mindfulness as best I can, have friends, a great therapist (workin' on this problem there!) enjoy my work - I have resources. Despite them, I find myself upset much of the time. When the bodega across the street lost its lease, it felt like another death in the family. So: I'm thinking of finding or forming a group to meet with in my city, for kinship and brainstorming...to find creative solutions, ways of coping, preserving sanity, and considering appropriate legal action when warranted. But I'm not sure where to start. While my 'problem' may be in New York, I know it arises from global changes in finance culture, and communications. I'm interested in hearing how others, in other places, are dealing. And wider, web-based ideas for community on this issue are also welcome.

  • Answer:

    Down here in Durham, we have neighborhood listserves to address some of these issues. Highly, highly recommended.

ferkit at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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Jeremiah Moss's blog http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/ covers these issues. He had a http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/de-blasio-unchain-city-article-1.1905361 in the Daily News with some ideas of what can be done. http://savenycjobs.org/about-us is the type of organization you're looking for. This http://thevillager.com/2014/09/11/theres-only-one-way-to-save-our-small-businesses/ talks about the http://savenycjobs.org/jobs-survival-act which was first proposed in 1986.

Sophont

Some of this sounds like the sort of things that neighborhood associations typically address. That might be a good place to start and from there you could recruit like-minded people to form a new subgroup that addresses the rest.

Jacqueline

In Madison, the City Planning Dept keeps a list of all neighborhood groups and mailing lists.

Jesse the K

Can you move to a different part of the city? I live about a half mile from Central Park now, and it has made a big, big difference in my perception of the city.

roomthreeseventeen

Perhaps consider starting a Meetup.com group to connect with likeminded people and address the issues that concern you? Lots of mindfulness, environmental, urban planning, etc. groups on there.

quixotictic

You reminded me of http://thevillager.com/2014/07/10/the-east-village-is-replaced-by-its-own-simulacrum/ article in The Villager. Clearly you are not alone, though some neighborhoods will be worse than others.

Obscure Reference

These are all wonderful responses - thanks (and by all means keep 'em coming...for a little while longer!). I posted a less constructive cri de coeur in this vein a few years ago ... but it was so cranky that the moderators wisely deleted it. I feel I've ... matured! Jacqueline, oceanjesse, Jesse the K - The neighborhood association idea is a sound one, and I will indeed see if some municipal council has a list ... as recently as 15 years ago, it would have been my 'go-to'. However, I wonder whether there are as many engaged people as there used to be... and this is part of the larger problem. A neighborhood message board or listserv - that would be great ... I'll look. I was unable to find a Meetup, quixotictic - I may have to invent it myself. Thanks, Obscure Reference (wonderful moniker!) for the Villager article - perhaps I'll contact Bill Weinberg. The East Village is certainly one of the hardest hit areas of the city. As to sites that chronicle the current situation, there is also http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/ and http://lostnewyorkcity.blogspot.com/ . My father, who grew up in Greenwich Village in the '20s and '30s, used to remind me that people were complaining about the Village being destroyed back then. However - the wild pace of destruction, and the fact that it is inorganic (not evolving from the needs of people rooted in neighborhoods) makes it ... different.

ferkit

Sophont - we were clearly typing Vanishing New York simultaneously (!) Thanks for the additional info.

ferkit

mon-ma-tron - thanks! Urban Omnibus is a treasure.

ferkit

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