NEIGHBORHOODS AREN’T DEAD. We don’t care what you’ve read or what you’ve heard. People like to complain about how times have changed and about the loss of neighborly customs. But our neighborhoods never died. Too many of us just stopped caring about them – even here in the Chippewa Valley.
In most cases, our neighborhoods are just … broken. We neglected them so they stopped working. But the need for a good neighborhood – and for good neighbors – is always here. And it’s time we made a serious decision to fill that need.
It’s time to stop complaining and pining for what we used to have. It’s time to rebuild our concept of “neighborhood.” Yes indeed – part of doing this rebuilding involves recapturing the “good ol’ days.” Many of us must relearn the basics of faceto-face interaction. But the bigger, more exciting part of the new neighbor-equation is in the creating of opportunities – opportunities for an evolution in what neighborhoods can be, and more importantly, in what they can do.
Hopefully, the following pages will convince you that, yes, our neighborhoods are still here, sprawling all around the city, waiting for us to re-imagine, rebuild, and remake them into something great. They’re not dead. But they need our help.
Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.
