When the Vanishing Neighbor Comes to Class: Sept. 3, 2026

 

On September 3, something special is going to happen in my Neighboring 101 class.

Marc Dunkelman, author of The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community, will join us as a guest on this Zoom link.

And I’ve decided that this shouldn’t be an ordinary class session. I’m opening the class to others who want to come, listen, ask questions, and wrestle with a question that I believe is becoming increasingly important: What does it take to be a good neighbor in America today?

I first encountered Marc’s work in 2018 while reading The Vanishing Neighbor, and I was struck by how closely his argument connected with something I have been thinking.

Marc writes about something we have all experienced: the disappearance of the neighbor.

Not necessarily the physical disappearance of the people who live next door. They are still there. It is the relationship that is disappearing.

We can know hundreds (or thousands) of people through our phones and social media. We can communicate instantly with people halfway around the world. We can belong to online communities built around almost any interest imaginable.

And yet we can live beside someone for years without really knowing them.

That is the paradox Marc explores.

His book describes the decline of the institutions and relationships that once connected people to one another in the places where they actually lived. Neighborhood organizations, clubs, volunteer groups, civic associations and other “middle” institutions that helped turn individuals into members of a community. When those connections weaken, something larger than social interaction is lost. We lose some of the social capital that enables communities to solve problems together and democracy itself to function well. 

That is why I believe The Vanishing Neighbor still has lessons for us. Perhaps even more importantly, it raises questions for us.

Are we really too busy to know our neighbors?

Have our technologies helped us become more connected or simply connected differently?

What happens when our strongest relationships are with people who live far away while the people living a few doors down remain strangers?

And perhaps the most important question: Can we intentionally rebuild the habit of neighboring?

I think the answer is yes.

In fact, that is one reason I teach Neighboring 101. The class isn’t really about learning a definition of “neighbor.” It is about recovering something that is easy to lose in modern life: the simple practice of paying attention to the people around us.

Neighboring begins with noticing. It continues with conversation. It grows through small acts of kindness, shared experiences, mutual help and trust. And eventually, if we keep at it, those small things can become community.

That is what makes Marc’s visit via Zoom on September 3 so meaningful to me.

When I reviewed his book, I noted that one of its strengths was the way Marc combines research, history and personal stories to explain a very real transformation taking place in American life. I also wondered whether his analysis sometimes leans toward nostalgia for the communities of the past and whether we should give more attention to the new kinds of communities being created online. 

That makes his visit even better. Because I don’t want September 3 to be simply a lecture about what we have lost. I want it to be a conversation about what we can build next.

If the old structures of community have weakened, what new structures might take their place?

If technology has changed how we connect, how can we use it to strengthen—not replace—our relationships with the people around us?

If the “vanishing neighbor” is real, can we become the generation that brings the neighbor back?

Those are questions worth asking together. And that’s why I’m opening my Neighboring 101 classroom to the public.

I want people who have taken the class, people who are thinking about taking it, community leaders, educators, students, neighbors (and anyone who cares about the future of community) to have a seat at the table.

Because neighboring shouldn’t be an academic subject. It should be a community practice.

On September 3, I’m hoping his visit will help us take the next step: moving from understanding the problem to imagining what we can do about it.

The question isn’t simply, “What happened to the neighbor?”

The question is: “What are we going to do about it?”

I hope you’ll join us on September 3. Come listen to Marc. Come ask questions. Come share your own experience.

And most of all, come ready to think about what it might look like if we decided that being a neighbor was something worth practicing again.

Because perhaps the neighbor isn’t really vanishing. Perhaps we’re just waiting for someone to knock on the door.

WRITTEN BY

David L. Burton

For more information, visit the Engaged Neighbor website. Take our pledge and become part of a movement! Or subscribe to our newsletter. Access some of the research documents written by David Burton, the author of this blog. Or better yet, purchase one of his books off Amazon. Contact David L. Burton via email at dburton541@yahoo.