Sometimes when I’m out driving across the Ozarks for my work, I choose not to take the highways but instead turn onto the winding farm roads. It’s rarely the most direct route, and it often adds time to the trip, but oh, the surprises I find along the way.  Over the years, these backwood drives have led me to places I never would have seen otherwise: the Newtonia Battlefield tucked quietly into the landscape, one-room schoolhouses standing as reminders of simpler times, natural sites that inspire reflection, and peaceful lakes where deer, birds, and livestock seem equally at home.  The least direct route often brings the greatest beauty. That idea has been on my mind lately, because the same is often true for the route we take in life. Many of us start out with a clear plan, a destination firmly set in our minds. We imagine highways—straight lines from point A to point B—leading us to success, fulfillment, or happiness.  But life has a way of redirecting us onto fa...

Community leaders, neighborhood association volunteers, and residents interested in strengthening their communities are invited to attend the Neighborhood Leadership Summit on Saturday, March 28, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Resurrection Church, 545 S. Broadway Ave., Springfield . Hosted by Community Partnership of the Ozarks in collaboration with University of Missouri Extension, the summit will provide practical tools and encouragement for anyone involved in neighborhood leadership or community engagement. This year’s keynote speaker will be Dan Prater of FORVIS MAZARS.  Prater's annual studies on volunteerism in the Springfield, Missouri area look at the need for volunteers and what volunteers contribute. He will address finding and retaining volunteers from both a research and practical perspective.  Prater's insights will help  leaders think strategically about the future of their neighborhoods and the role they play in strengthening community connections. Worksho...

  In a previous column I argued that the new HBO series  Neighbors  (premiered Feb. 13, 2026) reveals something real about modern life — but also risks reinforcing a distorted narrative. The show centers on conflict because conflict is compelling. And to be fair, the creators themselves are honest about that. The directors say in a story from HBO that they didn’t set out to mock people. They wanted to understand them. The directors explain that neighbors occupy a strange category: not family, not friends, and not chosen — “a cosmic random destiny” that places two people side-by-side. They were fascinated by viral videos of people fighting because those clips only show one perspective. They wanted to see  what happens after the video ends  and understand both sides. That instinct is actually important. Because buried inside a show about conflict is an accidental truth: Most neighbor problems are not really about fences, dogs, noise, or parking. They’r...

  Welcome to the Super Bowl — not just the championship of football, but the championship of advertising and marketing. Every year companies spend extraordinary amounts of money to capture 30 to 60 seconds of American attention. The game is massive, but the audience is even bigger: well over 100 million viewers gather in one shared moment. No streaming algorithm. No niche targeting. One national living room. That’s why the advertising matters. The Super Bowl isn’t where brands test ideas. It’s where they reveal what they believe Americans feel right now. So when a mortgage company chooses to talk about neighbors instead of interest rates, that tells us something. Who Are the Ads For? Super Bowl ads don’t target a demographic in the traditional sense. They target a national mood . Families watch together. Teenagers scroll while watching. Grandparents comment from recliners. Party guests talk during commercials but fall silent when one grabs attention. Advertisers are not speaking t...

  W hen I first heard that a major network was releasing a drama centered on neighbors, my reaction wasn’t surprise — it was recognition. I said, " Of course they are!" Not because our culture suddenly became obsessed with property lines or petty disputes. And not because writers ran out of ideas. A show about neighbors works right now because it taps into one of the deepest tensions of modern life:  We live closer together than ever, yet know each other less than ever. And that creates a story waiting to be told for five major reasons. 1. The Neighborhood Has Quietly Become Emotional Territory For decades, popular storytelling drifted away from the neighborhood. Television lived in workplaces, friend groups, police stations, and hospitals. Those places made sense in an era when identity was tied to career, institutions, and social circles we intentionally chose. But something has changed. People spend more time at home. Remote work, digital entertainment, online shopping, an...

  Cities love big sports complexes. They’re tidy, legible, and easy to sell to voters. There’s a ribbon-cutting, a drone photo, and a weekend tournament that fills hotel rooms. You can stand beside a glossy rendering and say, Look what we built. Neighborhood fields are different. They’re uneven. They don’t photograph well. There’s no sponsorship banner fluttering over left field and no consultant estimating economic impact. Over time, many American communities have made a quiet tradeoff: in the name of safety, efficiency, and liability control, they’ve narrowed the circumstances under which play is allowed to happen at all. Locked school playgrounds are the clearest example, but they’re only the most visible symptom. No single official planned this outcome. It emerged from layers of reasonable decisions. Rules accumulated. Fences went up. Hours shortened. Permits appeared. Eventually informal play disappeared—not because people stopped wanting it, but because we stopped leaving spa...

As a longtime community development professional and the founder of Missouri Good Neighbor Week, I’ve spent more than two decades working with neighborhoods across Missouri—urban, suburban, and rural. That’s why, when I recently watched the trailer for HBO’s new series focused on neighbor conflict premiering February 13, I had a strong reaction. Not because conflict between neighbors doesn’t exist—it absolutely does—but because what we choose to spotlight says something important about who we are becoming as a society. Conflict Makes for Good TV—But a Poor Civic Diet Television thrives on tension. Loud arguments, boundary disputes, feuds, and outrage capture attention. That’s not new. What concerns me is how easily these stories become the  dominant narrative  about neighborhood life. Most neighbors are not at war with one another. In fact, my work—and the data we collect statewide—shows the opposite. Every year, tens of thousands of Missourians quietly check on elderly neighb...