The North End Agora: Design Conversation at the Neighborhood Level

Sustained and constructive conversation may prove to have its most powerful societal effect if it can be carried out among neighbors in the context of a common goal or challenge. Neighborhood — and its corresponding forms in the small town and village — has the following characteristics that can make it an ideal setting for conversation that adds value to the community and to the lives of its participants: diversity in a small area; familiarity with those who live around you; numbers that can make a difference; shared concerns that pull people together at a basic level; physical proximity, providing easy opportunity for planned and accidental encounters between people on a fairly regular basis; equality, insofar as there are no formal organizations or structures in which certain people hold authority over others; and a dysfunctionality or non-existence as social systems, which makes them “greenfield” opportunities for innovation and broad-based grassroots participation.