Advice for New City Manager: Neighborhood Relationships are a City's Most Important Infrastructure

We often assume a city gets better when it adds things—another streetscape, a new brewery, a splashy event. 

Urbanist Jeff Siegler argues the opposite: places get better when people get closer. If residents aren’t connected to one another, no amount of concrete or branding will make a town feel like home. People fight for the places where they know and are known; indifference grows where relationships are thin.

Siegler’s core point is wonderfully plain: community isn’t an app, a slogan, or a construction project. It’s a lived experience that emerges in welcoming public spaces and low-friction social rituals. We don’t build community in our cars or behind our fences; we build it where neighbors can linger, talk, and create small traditions—on sidewalks, at parks, in front yards, and in storefronts that feel like living rooms. Design matters, but design serves a larger end: giving people reasons and opportunities to connect.

That’s why neighbor relationships are not a “soft” add-on; they’re a precondition for nearly everything cities want. Want cleaner streets? People pick up litter on blocks they feel proud of. Want safer neighborhoods? Eyes, names, and trust do more than patrol cars alone. Want a stronger local economy? Loyal customers are created by relationships, not algorithms. Civic life—volunteering, voting, showing up—rises when residents feel attached to place, and attachment grows out of everyday ties between neighbors.

So where should a city begin? Start at the smallest scale: the block. Encourage residents to trade isolation for invitation. The most cost-effective “program” in town might be a front-yard potluck, a porch concert, a weekly dog-walk meetup, or a standing game night at the library. As Siegler suggests, skip the hunt for big grants and instead “invite some people over.” Cities can help by making it easy: simplify block-party permits, offer micro-grants ($100–$500) for neighbor-led gatherings, lend out party kits (cones, folding tables, games), and promote a simple neighborhood events calendar so momentum builds.

Rethink public space with lingering in mind. Add benches where people naturally pass, not where nobody goes. Tame fast traffic on neighborhood streets so walking feels safe for a seven-year-old. Replace “No loitering” signs with “Stay a while.” Activate parks with recurring, low-cost programming: pickup soccer on Tuesdays, story time on Wednesdays, chess on Thursdays. Consistency is magic; it turns one-off events into habits, and habits into culture.

Local businesses and institutions can be bridge-builders too. Invite coffee shops to host block-captain meetups. Ask faith communities and schools to seed “neighbor circles” that adopt a block for a season. Recruit libraries as civic living rooms where strangers become acquaintances and acquaintances become friends. Measure what matters: not just attendance, but repeat participation, cross-block collaboration, and the number of new hosts stepping forward.

In the end, a thriving town is a network of relationships with streets in between. “People will fight for their community only when they feel connected to it,” Siegler reminds us. If we want cleaner, safer, more prosperous places, we don’t need to wait on a ribbon-cutting. We can start tonight—by learning a name, extending an invitation, and choosing, together, to linger.

Written by David L. Burton

MORE INFORMATION

Take the Engaged Neighbor pledge and become part of a movement! The pledge outlines five categories and 20 principles to guide you toward becoming an engaged neighbor. Sign the pledge at https://nomoregoodneighbors.com. Individuals who take the pledge do get special invitations to future events online and in person. Contact the blog author, David L. Burton via email at dburton541@yahoo.com or burtond@missouri.edu. You can also visit his website at https://engagedneighbor.com.