"Safe Neighborhoods are Everyone's Business"
Neighborhood Summit -- March 16, 2002
Thousands of eyes and thousands of ears.
Watching everything.
Listening to everything.


It's just the neighbors, doing what they do every day.
Friendly.  Unobtrusive.  Enjoying the neighborhood.
Enjoying the community.
Maybe gossiping a bit...

But when something is amiss...
and needs immediate attention

911
or perhaps 503-823-4824
or perhaps. . . ??

because the neighbors know what those phone numbers can do
and which ones to use. . . when and for what.

It's a Neighborhood Watch!

 
Community
Communications
Knowledge
Community
. . . a web of acquaintances  and 
friendships.  If you don't know one of your neighbors, somebody else you know probably does.  Three or four connections away connects most of the people in the City into a community.
 
 

Neighborhood Association Meetings
Neighbor Night Out (see ONI)
Community Center Activities

 
Communications
. . . informal and formal; over the
fence and via technology.  Evening parties, Neighbor Night Out, and block parties.  Get-togethers and gossip.  Telephones, email and snail mail.  And these days, the Internet, and it's World Wide Web, is our most potent communication system.
 

Community Web sites
Personal Web sites
Phone trees (Block Captain Program)
Neighborhood Emergency Teams



A proposal and an invitation

Knowledge
. . . of the neighborhood and of
the neighbors.  Who needs help, and how can I help?  Where is what, and what's the best way to get there?  What resources are available and how do we access them?  Where might I stroll (or run, or bike) to enjoy our wonderful City?

Accurate maps
OHSU Lectures
SWTrails Group
Portland Parks & Recreation
Walk (run) guides
City of Portland Web sites, e.g.:


 
Web
Sites
. . . can be easy.
Easy to set up.
Easy to maintain.
and they are
Useful for a variety of purposes.
 Putting up a simple Web site is easy.  Your site can be set up to be easy to maintain.  If you have access to the Web, odds are that your  Internet Service Provider makes available, for free, enough server space and download capacity for a reasonably rich site for your Neighborhood.  You probably have sufficient expertise coming to your neighborhood meetings that could help your Neighborhood  put  together a dandy site.  Portland's Office of Neighborhood Involvement  has been conducting meetings of Webmasters in the Portland area who are willing to help.

 
A sample easy-to-do Neighborhood Web site

Look at these Neighborhood Web sites:

Bridlemile Neighborhood Association
Crestwood Neighborhood Association
Hillsdale Neighborhood Association
King Neighborhood Association
Go to the King Neighborhood Association site and click on "Build a Site" to see the Oregonian's "CommunityConnection" service.

Jere Retzer (Crestwood NA) has presented an excellent set of guidelines for developing and maintaining Web sites. 


We can use this space to help further develop community Web sites and organizing efforts.
Please contribute (email us)

 


Why
. . . we need
more accurate maps.


Guides
. . . for walkers
and runners, who are learning the shortcuts thru the neighborhood and bringing more and more eyes and ears

. . . to watch.
Non existent streets are outlined in red.

Most street maps of this area show many of these "paper" streets--often owned by the city as "dedicated" streets.  On a map that guides a walker or driver they only confuse.  One map shows 95 of these non-existent blocks.  This actual number of blocks (that you can drive around) is zero.

We have used accurate maps to help Block Captains organize Crime Watch efforts.
Mailbox breakins and identity theft have been on the increase.  We have made maps for Block Captains that show where nearby block captains are located and prominently show their phone numbers.  When a break-in is seen, nearby Watches can be quickly alerted.  The theives move fast; the telephone messages move faster.