More about the Sharehood

[mrsbrown]

Here's a conundrum:

The Sharehood is intended to connected neighbors within 400m of home.  I live within 400m of a large public housing estate.

If I were on the outside looking in, I would say, of course the people on the Estate should be included in a letter drop!  Of course they are part of my community.


OTOH, approximately 1/4 of Richmond's population live on the Estate - that might be too many people for my ideals of community.  And  I also have the NIMBY problem - I don't want to have to deal with the transient population and any issues they might have with being part of such a scheme.  Or the high proportion of people just plain having a hard time.

Where's my socialist ethics when I need them?

Should I only letterdrop the houses near me, and leave out the estate?  What about the public housing townhouses?

Comments

[tangent_woman]

Erk. That's a hard one.

The people of the estate thingy... are they likely to share your ideals, therefore use the sharehood fairly? I suppose you could letter drop the estate and hope that only Good Socialists show up, but Freecycle demonstrates the potential for abuse: I notice that freecycle has far more "wanted" posts than "offering" posts. The "wanted" postings can be quite strident, persistent and have a "speshul snowflake" element that makes me glad that I do not have to deal with certain individuals face to face on a regular basis, and I am glad that they do not know where I live, or think that I, personally, owe them anything. Does this make me unduly selfish?

I can see potential for the perceived division of the sharehood between the "rich" who live in houses and the "poor" who live on the estate might cultivate one-way "sharing", a sense of entitlement, resentment and fear in a way that a more particulate distribution of SE statuses around another neighbourhood would not.

Another question; will inviting the estate residents into the sharehood scare off your non-estate neighbours for just such reasons?

Rather than take the decision on yourself and possibly blow a good idea away, how about starting with a smaller area letter drop (not taking in the estate) and see if you get a response, and if you do, find an appropriate time to ask your share-neighbours what they would prefer?