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Good Neighbors Create Better Neighborhoods
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Building Community in a Neighborhood
What's a Good Neighbor?
Neighborliness describes and defines age-old patterns of human interaction. These patterns are the building blocks of a healthy, functioning neighborhood.
Left to right, Lauren Becker, from Lafayette Square, and sisters Emme and Kaylen Hoffman. |
"Good neighbors are an asset," comments Kaylen Hoffman, an eighth grader who lives in Soulard with her parents, Terry and Linda Hoffman, and sister Emme. "The computer and e-mail are fine, but they cannot replace face-to-face communications between neighbors," she believes.
Kaylen defines a good neighbor as "someone who cares about me, and I care about them. It is a two-way street," she says. Kaylen attends the St. Margaret of Scotland School in the Shaw neighborhood.
Good neighbors are reassuring. "One of the things I enjoy about Soulard is that the social environment here reminds me of the village life we enjoyed in Africa, where neighbors know and help each other," explains Bobbie Lautenschlager, another Soulard resident and the secretary at Trinity Lutheran Church, located in Soulard.
She and husband John spent 20 years in villages in Nigeria and Sierra Leone as medical missionaries before moving to Soulard in l994. John is a physician in the health department in St. Louis County. Bobbie is a trained nurse. "Neighborliness here, as elsewhere, provides an enjoyable and comforting backdrop of knowing and caring," she explains.
Bobbie Lautenschlager works at Trinity Lutheran Church. (People Productions photo by Clark Rowley) |
Maureen McMillan, a Soulard resident for over 30 years, adds that good neighbors are a glue that ties a neighborhood together. "A good neighbor is somebody who is connected with those around them," she observes. "Good neighbors develop relationships with others, and the result is that neighbors can depend on one another," she explains.
Maureen, a tax credit consultant, wife and mother of two small children, adds that "a good neighbor is aware of things on the block, on a micro scale, as well as events on a larger scale which impact the neighborhood." She concludes that "a good neighbor is willing to act, to defend and strengthen common values and accepted standards."
Jennifer Florida, alderwoman for the l5th Ward and resident of the Tower Grove Heights neighborhood, also feels that an essential ingredient of a good neighbor is a willingness to act. She defines good neighbors as "those who are working toward a common goal - building a better community. Good neighbors act together for their neighborhood, defining what is acceptable and what is not acceptable," Jennifer believes.
"By acting together, you receive a richer existence, a social existence. Similarly, your neighborhood is enriched. Dividends of neighborliness, of organization, are found everywhere," Jennifer believes. "Successful neighborhoods recognize that strength stems from community, from the cultivation of neighborliness," she explains.