A new neighborhood aimed at young middle class folk in Orange County seem to have benefited from a neighborhood intranet [article in LA Times – requires registration]. It brought people together by giving them an easy way to find common interests and solve common problems (like babysitting) without having to go knock on people’s doors. What is not clear is how beneficial such an intranet would be to existing neighborhoods and to neighborhoods with a mix of rich and poor in the same area.
Thanks to “Keith Hampton”:http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/index2.php?p=37&c=1 for the link (he did an influential academic study of the building of social capital in an earlier experiment outside of Toronto).
