"new condo villages" and "inhabit street"

[Ms. B. Havin]

Not sure if this is the right forum to post this to, but I came across two webpages the other day that seemed to be related in a pretty cool way, and that are about urban design in a social way.

First, there's a story by Jamie Kormanicki in the Friday (6/27) Globe & Mail, In new condo villages, fitting in is job one - Residents break the ice on the Internet, which is about condo residents not being able to get to know one another in the lobby or the actual physical space of their building, but managing to do so just fine once they use the internet to make connections.

I'll copy & paste a couple of quotes from the article, below. But before I do that, the other item is a new web-based service out of Vancouver, called Inhabit Street. These guys are still in beta, so their site looks pretty sparse and there aren't many buildings signed up, but the idea is this:

inhabit street connects residential communities

It's a place to create an online community for people who live in

* Apartments
* Townhouses
* Condominiums
* Cooperatives
* Other residential communities

We built inhabitstreet.com because we're apartment building residents and we wanted a place other than the elevator where we could get to know the people around us.
where is Inhabit st?

We're based in the beautiful city of Vancouver on the west coast of Canada. It's a great town so, if you want to find the cutting edge of urban life right in the heart of a city, come over and stay for a while in downtown Vancouver. We'll buy you a beer and show you round.

(That's from their about page.)

Anyway, in light of the Globe & Mail article, I thought this sounded like an interesting service. Here are some quotes from G&M:

Ms. Wilfong, 28, says the condo she's lived in for nearly four years, called Apex, is like a downtown singles club, populated mainly by young professionals.

"Why not band together, say 'hello' in the elevator?" she muses, but then admits that there's "a real lack of communication there."

Sometimes, though, it's easier to navigate websites than hallways. So, wanting to buff up with a motivating pal from the building, Ms. Wilfong turned to the Internet. She posted an online ad saying: "Live at Cityplace? Let's work out together."

Within days, she was in contact with a same-aged woman from her building, and the pair scheduled a workout session.

Brian Brown, developer of the Liberty Market Lofts in the King Street West area, would say it's all part of the new age of condo networking.

Savvy developers have long realized the importance of the social aspect of a condo.

(snip...)
In April, Alex Kahnjian started a Facebook group for his Pantages Tower building. Its mission? "To unite our building. To secure our building. Most importantly … to party it up in our building!" the site says. "This is a good way to familiarize ourselves with one another and to abolish those awkward moments in the elevator … cause, hey, we now know one another." (more...)

So does anyone know if there's a Victoria condo/ TH development with its own Facebook group yet? Or a potential candidate for an Inhabit Street type service?

[Ginger Snap]

That's interesting that they put townhouses on that list. I actually think townhouse complexes and cul-de-sacs are some of the remaining forms of city habitat that create a sense of community.

[Dylan Leblanc]

Wow, people have a problem conversing in the elevator and hallways? I know like half of the people in my building by doing things this way. Whatever works for them I guess!

[Ms. B. Havin]

^ I guess it's a question of scale, whether and how much you talk to your neighbors.

Once there's a certain density (and it therefore becomes difficult actually to know everyone), it's convenient to be able to match interests... For example, there's a bunch of people (neighbors) right next to me, who I never talk to (aside from a banal "hi!"), but maybe if it were more fine-grained and I knew about their interests, I'd want to know them.

That's probably part of what the online component can do: sort, identify, allow for connections based on mutual interests.

Uh-oh... I can't believe I just typed the word "sort." Check out Bill Bishop's The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. It's like Archimedes in The Sword in the Stone sang, "for every to there is a fro..."

[Marilyn]

This is a great idea. Our building has a newsgroup but it's not used much except to post the minutes of the strata council meetings. And those minutes are very sparse and cryptic. i keep informed about what is going on in the building by 'the grapevine.'

I think a Facebook profile would be better, like an official grapevine. Wonder if I could get more partners for Scrabulous, hmmm..

[G-Man]

This is just one more example of our lack of civility in North America. people in other countries have no problem both meeting and knowing their neighbours.

We used to be this way but I think that our fear based society has created so many mental blocks to meeting strangers that we will not do it.

If you go to pretty much any other country people are so much more open and friendly. Here we assume that knowing someone means that we are going to have to spend time with them or that they will try to murder us or steal our kids.

How about we all go out and next we see our neighbours, don't turn your head and pretend you didn't see them but say hi and smile.

[Caramia]

Haha, funny this thread comes up now. Yesterday I baked three loaves of walnut/apricot/flax/oatmeal/pumpkin seed/whatever else looked yummy bread, and realized I couldn't eat all three by myself, so I went and knocked on a neighbour's door. My neighbour took one look at me, with my bread hot from the oven held out before me, and said "I don't know you but please come in!"
That's one way to meet your neighbours!

[Nparker]

Caramia: will you be MY neighbour? (all apologies to Fred Rogers)

[Marilyn]

Caramia, you are so kind.

I'm actually hiding out trying to get some artwork done. But I have met all my neighbours all at once, two times. Once when a vandal pulled the fire alarm for fun and the entire building was evacuated onto the street at 1:00am and the second time was 6:30am when a sprinkler blew a gasket in the parkade setting off the fire alarms.

We did have a 'meet and greet' and about 20% showed up. Since I have quite a few guests and B&B overnights, I'm not really looking for company. But I know if there was an emergency, people on our floor would come through for each other.