Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood
390 comments
·March 25, 2025afavour
happytoexplain
>just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
This is a bitter stereotype that is leveled against both city-dwellers and suburb-dwellers, and, like many stereotypes, has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity. Some people don't want to interact with their neighbors, regardless of whether they live in a city or a suburb. Others are sociable with their community, and express it just as well whether they live in a city or a suburb.
jimbokun
Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen. And even if you are sitting in front of your house, neighbors are more likely to be driving by instead of walking so not very likely to stop and chat.
In densely populated cities, you are often in close proximity with other humans you haven't met yet. But there can be social and cultural norms to keep walking and avoid eye contact because social interaction with all the countless people you pass is completely impractical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AoNuz1gjQo
So both environments have their challenges for impromptu social interactions.
xattt
This is the entire thesis of Jane Jacobs’ work: urban living works because of friction-by-design.
Inadvertent interactions between people you see every day build a sense of community over time — the “sidewalk ballet”.
I always wondered what she would have thought about her ideas in the context of COVID.
tptacek
I live in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago (Oak Park) and stoop coffee would be much easier to do here than in San Francisco (where I lived many years ago).
This is what my suburb looks like:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9014246,-87.791197,3a,75y,17...
lolinder
> Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen.
This has not been my experience in the surburbs. A typical suburban home has both spaces: a front yard/patio and a back yard/patio. If anything the physical constraints are substantially more conducive to hanging out out front than what I'm seeing in these photos here—people in the suburbs have some amount of space that they actually own in front of their home, they don't have to occupy the sidewalk.
As OP said, which one people choose to use depends on the personality of the individual, not the layout of the space. For example: our last four homes, like every home in each neighborhood, have had both, and I always prefer to be out back while my wife loves being out front interacting with the neighbors as they walk by (which, yes, they have regularly done in all four neighborhoods!).
mcculley
Suburbs can also be hostile to pedestrians. In many designs, neighbors only see each other when one or both is inside of a car.
Suppafly
>Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything.
Sure, but they are a lot more setup for walking dogs and casual walks and bike rides with your family and friends. The version of stoop coffee in my neighborhood is people walking their dogs and then stopping to chat. That and leaning on their fence talking to their neighbors.
eweise
Suburbia houses are usually right next to each other. Densely populated cities stack housing so you have to go down to get out. I've found that its much easier to meeting people in single family homes than five level flats. In any case, the US even in cities, is not set up for gatherings like it is in Europe where there are large spaces people go to socialize.
jll29
San Francisco is a great city for that, because it is very walkable (if you have the energy to manage its steep hills).
There is a close connection between urban architecture and whether or not community building can take place, and sadly, many places are not like it.
Kunstler's TED talk is a fantastic way to become more aware of that topic: https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_the_ghastly_...
His thesis is some of the US must be torn down to rebuild it in a friendlier community-enabling way.
Curiously, to the OP's "stoop coffee" topic, he already recognized the communicative potential/value of the space in front of houses, and he points out that old European cities "got that right" (and having a central market square, too).
badc0ffee
In my city, the only places I see neighbours gathering on their front porches is in prewar neighbourhoods with single family style homes (many actually split into apartments).
These houses have narrow lots, a porch right up to the sidewalk, and are on narrow streets. Newer neighbourhoods don't have that magic combination - even when the lots are narrow and there is no garage in the front, there is always a setback, a useless front yard, and more often than not no porch (or a "vestigial" porch that's too shallow to use comfortably).
Editing to add: The old neighborhoods are nearly always on a grid of streets, where every street has passers by. Newer neighbourhoods will have hierarchical streets that include crescents and cul de sacs, which connect to nothing and have nobody just passing through (although that does seem to be changing in the newest neighbourhoods).
dm03514
In my experiences of living in suburbs for 30 years, I’ve seen the default is to ignore neighbors.
I don’t really get this. Our communities have so much in common and so much overlap, we shop at the same stores, go to the same parks, get stuck in the same traffic, our kids are at the same schools,our neighbors care for us medically, teach our kids, maintain our dwellings, work on our cars, and contribute to our local municipalities through property tax. We vacation at the same places.
We have so much in common but we put our heads down and duck into our homes ignoring our neighbors. To be honest it makes me really sick to think about. Like the internet has allowed us to live these parallel lives, highly dependent on our neighbors but completely isolated from them. We smile and nod then go to the ballots and kick our spite up to the federal level (in the US).
To me, we have the majority of our lives in common.
Social media and the political engines preys on our differences making them the focus of our interactions ignoring the fact that 90% of our day-to-day lives are overlapping and our concerns are similar: health, wealth, prosperity, safety, education and recreation.
It’s not much, but as I get older I’m making a point to slow down and talk to my neighbors, have real conversations with them, many of them fly political flags that are contrary to my political beliefs but I find out we have so much In common because we have such similar day-to-day lives and experiences.
dkarl
> we shop at the same stores, go to the same parks, get stuck in the same traffic, our kids are at the same schools,our neighbors care for us medically, teach our kids, maintain our dwellings, work on our cars, and contribute to our local municipalities through property tax. We vacation at the same places
I think this is only true if it's true. If you have a neighbor who doesn't have kids, doesn't shop at the same places you do, doesn't vacation at the same places you do, and doesn't work on their car, how do you think they feel about you characterizing the neighborhood that way?
After growing up in a small town, I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life explaining that no, I don't have kids (and hearing them say, "oh, I'm so sorry,") no, I'm not fascinated by how my car works, no, I don't want my lawn to be a perfect uniform shade of unnatural green. I feel much more comfortable in the city, but I'm aware that it's only because I fit my liberal city neighbors' assumptions much better than I fit the assumptions in the small town I came from.
To me, being on good terms with my neighbors is work. It's sometimes pleasant and almost always worth the effort, but it's work, and I'm always aware that I'm participating in the same game that felt so alienating and excluding when I was a kid in my hometown. The only differences are that the gap is a lot narrower and I've become more pragmatic about it. I skip past questions that uncover differences. I help guide the conversation towards commonalities. I try not to think about how it feels for people who have to paper over bigger differences than I do.
bigiain
> In my experiences of living in suburbs for 30 years, I’ve seen the default is to ignore neighbors.
This rings really true for me.
My last house was in a small gated set of 16 townhouses.
I knew everybody's cat or dog's name, but only on of the human's names.
Most people I knew by descriptive tags. There was saxophone lady, federal drug cop, potsmoking couple who lived on the other side of federal drug cop and who's pot smoke I could smell if I opened my back doors, there was ski boat guy, Harley riding girl, there was shouty dad and annoying child.
I still live nearby, and I passed an older couple from there in the street a while back and greeted their dog by name, and they said "No, this isn't Oscar, he died a few years back, this is (new dog name that I've already forgotten)."
glitchc
Part of it is politics. Totally correct about everything in common, and yet in the multicultural fabric we call society, politics could be vastly different:
Neighbour 1 cares about Trump, neighbour 2 about Ukraine, neighbour 3 is focused on Palestine, neighbour 5 about public transit, while I might not care about any of those. All of them are going to seek like-minded people who are unlikely to be their next door neighbours. It wasn't like this in the past, where economic mobility was relatively limited.
Multiculturalism coupled with economic mobility means often neighbours and you don't really have much in common. As an example my next door neighbour: He's a major, I'm in the sciences. We travel in different circles. I have a dog, he doesn't like pets. We both have kids but they are of different ages, don't go to the same schools and basically don't know each other. We met a few times then realized that we have very little in common and stopped interacting. There's nothing binding us beyond a shared geography.
kortilla
You would be surprised how little in common you can have with your neighbors. You likely don’t shop at the same places, don’t frequent the same restaurants, bars, parks, etc.
It’s not even politics related, people just don’t like the same activities. Some people cook, some people eat out, some people buy in bulk, some people hit farmers markets.
Easy transportation, internet shopping, etc make it trivial to have zero overlap with your neighbor’s day to day, regardless of city or suburb.
eleveriven
It's wild how much we depend on and live alongside each other without actually knowing one another
bloomingeek
I don't discount anything you have said. But my experience is different.
One of my neighbors I lived next to for over thirty years, was so nosy, passive aggressive, and judgmental, I avoided them like the plague. They finally moved and the new people called the city on us because my dog barked for more then ten minutes during the daytime, on the second day after they moved in! (She was only outside for an hour.) On the other side of us is a car on jacks and 'stuff' in the front and back yards.
I've learned to keep my head down and not worry about them.
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rcpt
I installed nextdoor and now I actively avoid interacting with my neighbors
volkk
i think most of the types of people you'd want to hang out with aren't posting on nextdoor
neilv
When they started mentioning WhatsApp, I did have the briefest thought that this could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
There's certainly opportunity. NextDoor comments here are of mixed quality. And the NextDoor feed seems to have the ad saturation cranked up unpleasantly high.
> Thus, the WhatsApp group was born. At first this was just a place to announce when we’d be out having stoop coffee, but we soon realized people wanted to connect over more things than just coffee. So we ended up converting the group into a WhatsApp Community where we could have chats dedicated to certain topics or groups and plan other types of events together.
UncleOxidant
I mean, I know you're kind of kidding, but there's also a lot of truth in it. When I was last on Nextdoor, a woman had posted asking for any information about a car that hit her as she was riding her bike and sent her to the hospital. She was trying to find people who might have witnessed the incident. People were answering that it was her fault for being on a bike. I uninstalled the app right then and there.
jjice
Why's that? Never used the app. Is it just a lot of negativity and you get negative vibes from them?
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mauvehaus
On the way home from the subway one snowy Boston evening, I joked with my wife that what the world needs is yelp, but for snow shoveling. People could get out all their passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive crap about their neighbors by complaining about the quality of the snow shoveling in the sidewalks in town.
It seems Nextdoor has fulfilled that need and more.
SoftTalker
Social media tends to bring out the worst in people.
screye
Many Americans still think of cities as modernist concrete, interstate exits and parking lots. In this imagination, social trust is eroded by homelessness, drug addicts and variety of crimes endemic to inner cities. Unfortunately, cities that were razed for cars fit some of these stereotypes.
In fact, parts of SF match the description too. This story would have unfolded differently in SOMA. Even in safe neighborhoods, (eg: Mission Bay, Rincon Hill) large towers, 5 lane roads and 35+ mph thru-traffic discourage neighborhood vibes.
> has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity
I disagree. This isn't a case of 'both sides'.
Cars destroyed American cities. Then Americans moved to gated suburbs that did everything in their power to limit through traffic and therefore the destructive onslaught of cars. Suburban residents demand easy access to the city by car, but reject the car in their own neighborhood. Suburbs want to have their cake and eat it too, at the expense of city residents. In contrast, cities do not impose their wants or needs onto suburbs. The resentment by city dwellers towards suburbanites is justified.
Fortunately some cities escaped razing. Boston, NYC, DC & SF have many neighborhoods that enable wonderful stories such as this.
eleveriven
That said, I think it's worth acknowledging that not everyone in the suburbs actively chose that setup
PaulDavisThe1st
Very much so.
For a very different example, I live in a small village of about 250 people in rural New Mexico. Of the 250, there are between 50 and 75 people who are sociable and interested in forming, maintaining and enjoying community. Of the remaining 200 or so, about 1/3 of them are friendly and social, but generally do not want to participate in community activities. The remaining 2/3 live here because it offers them (amongst other things) a chance for privacy.
PaulDavisThe1st
I should have said that about 50 of them live here because their families have been here since the early 1600s, too.
enaaem
The thing is that whether you click with your neighbours or not is pure luck and it's no one's fault. That's why you read many opposing anecdotes in this thread. When there are more local third places, there is a higher chance you will find a nice community to hang out with.
more_corn
Pro tip. Being a good neighbor helps you click with your neighbors, and that can be the difference between life and death in an emergency, or your house burning down or not if a neighbor catches something and calls you because you’re chill, friendly and helpful.
It is worth extreme efforts to cultivate good relationships with your neighbors.
chongli
It's all down to the design of suburbs. Many cities have bylaws and zoning regulations that prohibit human-centric suburbs from being built [1]. Older neighbourhoods (prior to these ill-advised laws) are incredibly livable and naturally produce a sense of community. They also feature mixed-use zoning with quaint little corner cafes, restaurants, and small shops. These are incredibly important as third places [2] which have largely disappeared from our society.
jaredklewis
Yes, but the geographic scale of suburbs just puts limits on this type of thing.
“Everyone with a five minute walking me” is a very different number of people in Brooklyn vs the suburbs. Let’s say 50 vs 500?
I think it’s way easier to end up on an anti-social block than in a city, where the law of large numbers draws blocks toward the average.
bluGill
You only have room for a few hundred friends in your life. Sure there might be 500 people who live in 5 minutes walk - but that is too many and so you will learn to take steps to limit the number of people who will accept an open invite.
If you are a Hindu living in a small US city you will find and becomes friends with every other Hindu in the city - there are not very many and you stick together. If you move to a slightly larger small city you will discover that there are too many Hindus and it is hard to make friends with them because their friend groups are already full. (This is a real example from someone I work with, names and exact cities not given for obvious reasons)
potato3732842
As usual, the people you fill the space with make all the difference. The stereotype gets reinforced by the kind of suburbs HN people tend to live in and to have been raised in.
Wealthy white collar suburbs almost universally suck because people don't really miss out on much by not interacting with each other and people have no real problems so they tend to make each other their problems and not like what their neighbors do.
You go down the economic ladder and things get a lot better because people have enough real problems they don't give a shit about whether their other neighbor pulled permits or what the setbacks are or how long their project car/boat has sat on blocks, and they interact with each other because being friends with your neighbors well enough to share tools and trade favors is worth it.
happytoexplain
Another bitter stereotype contributing to the US cultural divide. I live in an economically diverse but mostly well-off white collar suburb (not in CA), and we have a strong sense of community. We walk to each other's houses on a whim, we help each other get things done, we shovel the snow for the older folks, we watch out for each other and text each other, we organize community get-togethers. I realize this is an anecdote - I am not saying the correlation you're describing isn't statistically real, just that it's pointlessly negative.
germandiago
How can you label as pointlessly negative something that, in your own words, is statistically real?
Reality is what removes the bias more than anecdote, and statistics is what tracks these facts.
It would negatively biased if it was more of corner cases than not.
kulahan
Exact opposite experience for me. When people have nothing, they have no buy-in, and give no craps about what their neighborhood is like. They’re too busy dealing with their “real problems” to care if someone is robbing a house right in front of them.
Wealthier neighborhoods tend to have massive buy-in from the residents, because who wants to lose something that nice?
Point being: the experience is best when avoiding extremes. Poverty and incredible wealth both lead to issues in a neighborhood.
Baeocystin
FWIW, this has been my experience as well. When I lived in poor neighborhoods, yeah, we had more property crime. We also had a tremendous sense of community; I knew everyone, they knew me, food & favors were traded happily. The block parties we had during the summer were tremendous amounts of fun.
Meanwhile, the more wealthy neighborhoods are full of busybodies sniffing around for the slightest HOA infraction, and high-anxiety individuals reflecting and amplifying each other's tensions. Each home is a fortress unto itself. I feel pretty lucky to be in the middle, where we don't have as much crime as the poorer areas, but we still know one another, and still trade food on the holidays.
mtalantikite
Same, but I think it really depends on the design on the neighborhood, regardless of if it's a city or a suburb.
When I lived in "Brownstone Brooklyn" I had a stoop and would often hang out on it, as is common in neighborhoods with this feature. I knew tons of my neighbors, people would stop and talk to each other, etc. When I moved to Williamsburg years ago, that stopped. There are stairs that lead to my apartment, but it's not like a stoop that you'd find in other parts of Brooklyn -- they're steeper than you'd get on a brownstone and don't really encourage sitting at street level. I'd hang out on them sometimes, but then a few years back all the street lights and building lights switched to bright LEDs, making it gross to sit under them at night. But if you go to other parts of this neighborhood just a 5 minute walk away the building design is more conducive for gathering and chatting on stoops at street level, and I notice that that happens in that part of the neighborhood.
Anyway, I wish we'd consider these things when building our environment.
mbokinala
I think another part of neighborhood design that influences this feeling is how walkable a neighborhood is — anecdotally, I feel like I've had way more run-ins and conversations with neighbors when I've lived in places that had grocery stores and coffee shops within walking distance, as opposed to when I've been in neighborhoods that required driving 10-15 mins to get to anything.
mitthrowaway2
Yes, my experience in the suburbs is that most residents hop in their cars and take off somewhere with their tinted windows rolled up, and there are no "third places" around to casually encounter your neighbours. Sometimes there will be yard sales, BBQs, or birthday parties though.
But my experience in an urban apartment building is not very different. You might encounter someone in the elevator but it's polite to keep quiet. A lot of dense townhouse neighbourhoods are built without any corner stores, cafes, or bakeries mixed in at the ground floor.
I like that this family found a way to make do without any third place at all, just occupying the sidewalk and roadside. But I'm sure it would be a lot more comfortable if they had at least a shady patch of grass!
lolinder
> I like that this family found a way to make do without any third place at all, just occupying the sidewalk and roadside. But I'm sure it would be a lot more comfortable if they had at least a shady patch of grass!
Exactly. This is a story about intentionality, which is required regardless of whether you're living in the suburb or the city. In the US, neither culture prioritizes spontaneous interaction by default, they're only different in the manner in which the isolation manifests.
shanemhansen
I used to live in a suburb. I met people the same way you meet people anywhere: common interests.
A dozen or so people with dogs met at the park every day. We knew each other, watched each other's houses/pets on vacation, and sometimes did dinner or BBQs.
A few people organized a DnD group after advertising on nextdoor (which is a cesspool but only 70%).
Of course those with kids the same age often knew each other because of school or activities.
The neighborhood park had a system of "pea patches" where you could grow some stuff next to your neighbors.
There's nothing that unique all in all about this space other than there was a "third place" we all had built and took care of (the park was originally supposed to be a school that never got built so the community got it to become a park but at least half the work came from the community. The county provided some matching work).
The weird thing is people are people no matter where they are, mostly. And if you are lonely, you can go fix it.
Lots of people move from somewhere they hate so somewhere they think will solve all their problems. And they are right. Or they move from somewhere they love to somewhere that they know will be terrible. And they are right. It seems like whether you think your neighborhood is great or terrible, you're not right.
ryandrake
My suburban neighborhood is great. They have a voluntary group that you can join with a donation, and all that group really does is organize parties and events. It's not a HOA and doesn't have rules. We have a full community get-together event every two months or so, with volunteers who host at their houses. We also have once-a-year events like a community-wide garage sale event, and a car show.
I've also lived in neighborhoods where nobody knew each other. I think all we can get out of this HN thread is: "Not all suburban neighborhoods are the same."
askvictor
Where I currently live, in a medium-density area of town-houses (actually, pretty high-density for town-houses), seems to be the perfect density for community. I see my neighbours all of the time, just doing our things, and you say hi and chat because that's what humans do. Any more dense and you have apartments, where strangely people are more distant (even though closer) (unless effort has gone into the apartment design to get people interacting), less dense and you have a suburbia with its fortresses.
tptacek
It depends on the suburb. Some suburbs are effectively just city neighborhoods in a different school district, and they have blocks and block parties. Other suburbs are nests of culs-de-sac, where you'll say "hi" to your next door neighbors but not know anybody else.
h3half
This is very true; I've experienced both extremes.
In one neighborhood there was a yearly block party where we closed the street and cooked out, kids played together in the street consistently and visited each others' houses, neighbors babysat, etc. Everyone on the street knew everyone else's name. Whether this was a suburb is maybe up for debate, I don't know, but it was at least all single family homes.
I moved directly from that to a more rural suburb. Homes were still pretty close to each other - nobody had much land - but there were no sidewalks and the neighborhood was a network of cul de sacs. I knew the last names of my two next door neighbors but only talked to them maybe three times in about ten years. I knew of some people ("a fire chief for a nearby town lives in that house, that one has a family") but that's really it.
My assumption is that this is getting worse over time as entertainment gets more and more individually catered. Basically _Bowling Alone_ but moreso and as the most civically-minded people die off. Not sure if there's anything individuals can really do about it other than be friendlier with your neighbors
nbaugh1
Lol exactly. I 100% cannot imagine this happening where my parents live, in a typical US suburban subdivision. On the flip side, I can absolutely see something like this taking off on my block in Brooklyn and would just be another addition to the already established community
geverett
I'm the co-author of Supernuclear and editor of this post. We've been writing the blog for almost five years now, you never know what will go viral!
I've spent my adult life living in Istanbul, New York, San Francisco, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In Istanbul it sometimes felt like my neighbors knew too much about me - they would comment on who slept over (I had a lot of friends visit!) and once when I went out of town for a week my landlady said she nearly let herself into my home to make sure I hadn't died because no one had seen me in a few days. That being said, it was also comforting to know, 5000 miles from my home and my family, that people around me cared about my wellbeing and my whereabouts.
And this is the thing those of us who live in the US sometimes forget: knowing your neighbors isn't just about being able to borrow cup of sugar when you're out. It's about knowing someone will share their generator when a hurricane has knocked your power out. It's about someone noticing when something looks off and coming over to knock and make sure you're ok. We aren't just happier when we get to know our neighbors better, we're safer.
msapaydin
Greetings from Istanbul. Unfortunately what you describe in your blog post sounds impossible to me in (at least many districts of) Istanbul. The only place to "socialize" in a neighborhood is to sit at coffee shops.
geverett
I lived on a street in Cihangir for three years. In the walk to and from work I'd pass several shops and cafes, and got to know all of the owners and regulars.
cjbarber
Happy reader for a while. For HN readers, if you want to have a setup where you live near friends and/or family, check their posts: https://supernuclear.substack.com/archive?sort=top
balfirevic
> they would comment on who slept over
> landlady said she nearly let herself into my home to make sure I hadn't died because no one had seen me in a few days.
You sound way less bothered by that than I would be. I'm annoyed just reading it.
LeonB
I’ve lived in scenarios where people saying either of these things would be a huge violation, and I’ve lived in scenarios where people saying either of these things would be natural.
Living in the latter scenario is a far better place, and nothing like, the former scenario.
duck
100% agree! We had moved to a smaller community in New England and was eating an early dinner when we got a single knock on the door. Before we could get up, the UPS driver opened our door to place the packages inside (and out of the snow). He waved and welcomed us and then off we went. It was a bit odd, but then we realized this was a special place that we would come to love and we did.
csomar
I think it's a genuine concern as a landlord. Do you want to have a rotting corpse in your house/neighborhood just sitting there?
brulard
Well, you should be able to leave for a week without having to tell your neighbors all about it. It may be different for old weak people who are unlikely to just go to vacation all of a sudden.
freilanzer
While that might be the case, a 'landlord' can't just enter a house or apartment.
tptacek
This rules. I want to do it, but I know I can't personally, because I'm not awake at the hour people normally want coffee. Maybe I can figure out stoop whiskey.
Another thing that works for meeting and talking to your neighbors, and has the benefit of attaching you to people who live blocks away from you and not just the people you see getting into the car every morning, is local politics. I've met more people being engaged in local politics than I have through any other activity, including work.
My guess is that civic engagement across the United States works pretty much the way it does where I live in Chicagoland, which is that somewhere there is a message board, Facebook group, or mailing list, and you get engaged by joining it, getting the vibe, and then participating in the discussion --- it's very much (alarmingly much) like getting comfortable on Hacker News. Except you do it well and you can change laws.
eleveriven
The real magic seems to be less about the coffee and more about just showing up consistently and being visible
easton
My uncle does thirsty Thursday every week on his porch in his small town. People bring beer from all around.
It definitely works.
Tiktaalik
Your neighbours are likely absolutely game for stoop whisky.
My neighbours do this from time time, a tradition started during the pandemic.
Use some cones to block off a parking spot. Set up some chairs and a table. Hang out and have some drinks in the evening and catch up on the neighbourhood gossip.
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geverett
You 100% can do stoop whiskey! Or simply hanging outside with whatever beverage. My block in Brooklyn has a lot more stoop whiskey than coffee but also has a really strong neighborhood feel (and whatsapp chat). I feel lucky to have moved into an already vibrant community but also believe anyone can create this anywhere.
edm0nd
If you figure out stoop whiskey, let me know. I'm all in for sure on the idea.
rrr_oh_man
What is there to figure out?!
czhu12
Really heart warming story. My 2 cents:
The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.
No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat.
Eventually, newer members will feel too far behind the current discussions, and too socially exhausting to show up to meetups. I've seen these eventually get to 400+ members, many of whom don't live in the city anymore.
The best group I've ever been part of had a simple rule that worked amazingly: If you don't show up to an event at least once a month, you were removed from the whatsapp group. It keeps the group small, and comfortable, and it never felt intrusive to send a quick "Whats everyone up to today?" into the group chat.
AdieuToLogic
> The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.
The way to minimize this fear is by encouraging members to send welcoming messages to those new to the community. Celebrate the growth instead of fearing the unknown.
> No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat.
If new members are made aware that sending a message to the group is perfectly acceptable, then there will be trepidation.
Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.
kortilla
> Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.
Under an anonymous account to people you don’t have to see in person.
austhrow743
>while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board
It sounded to me like that’s been the intention since it was started. The in person meetings are the point and the whatsapp group exists to facilitate that.
mikesabat
I think things could also 'creep' in the other direction where the group communication becomes overwhelming. The article mentions that someone actually sold an item through the WhatsApp group. My worry would be that the WhatsApp group becomes and meetings turn into Craigslist, where it's people looking for dogsitters and Buy Nothing posts.
The point, if I have one, is that editing and saying no, especially with the technology, will help the group stay together. In person, obviously, neighbors can talk about whatever they like.
In my opinion a broadcast/newsletter would be the better fit for group communication.
rossdavidh
Often noted in other contexts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
soulofmischief
This seems unnecessarily harsh toward people who like to travel.
caycep
Not coincidentally about the size of a US infantry company...
jcdavis
I saw this and did a double-take - I live in the neighborhood and am fortunate enough to be a part of this community. Patty, Tyler, and Luke have done a tremendous job of creating a communal bond that makes everyone feel valued & welcome.
I now know 50+ people who live within ~2 blocks from me, who've gone from "random strangers" to "friendly neighbors" that I run into semi-randomly.
archagon
Just curious, what neighborhood is this?
jcdavis
Its roughly a 2x2 block area of The Mission (not a hard boundary to participating, but almost everyone lives in it). I won't get more specific than that in case the author doesn't feel comfortable since it wasn't mentioned in her post.
archagon
Cool! I live close to Valencia/17th. Was just wondering if it was somewhere in my area: the houses looked Missiony but I couldn’t immediately place them.
brian-armstrong
From the pictures it looks like it could be NoPa
fsargent
It’s Mission Dolores
benatkin
A lot of the people participating probably had some cliche in mind like Burning Man or Bay to Breakers that takes away from the authenticity of it.
They could have started having a group meeting up at Dolores Park. It would have just been one of many.
These are nice though.
redlampdesk
Rented a house with friends in sf in 2016. We created a facebook group for our neighborhood, put up signs, and very quickly had a similar experience. A few neighbors over for drinks one night, hosted a weekend bbq a few weeks later. Quickly got to know a lot of people on my immediate block. One guy fixed my bike. An older woman called me when her fire alarm was intermittently beepting, to see if I could fix it. Had a few other events through the group, they were a highlight of the year. Made it clear to me how much latent desire there is for connection / friends from your neighbors.
phil-lnf
Phil, editor of the Supernuclear Substack here. I wasn't expecting "hanging out on stoops" to boot AI out of the #1 slot on Hacker News :) Glad this resonated for folks
A great way of kick-starting stoop culture is having a friend or family member live right next door.
We started a company called Live Near Friends (https://livenearfriends.com) to help people do this.
numbers
could I please just browse live near friends without logging in? signing-in/signing-up feels like too much effort to just browse
non-
When people say "you can just do things" this is what they mean. Fun article, I hope everyone reading this who wishes they had something like it in their neighborhood starts this weekend by inviting their nearest friend for coffee on the stoop.
dfltr
These people are anarchists! No really, they are. The stoop coffee to "It takes the hood to save the hood" pipeline is real.
kropotkinrules
Haha, I came here to post this and I was beaten! This is one of the clearest expressions of anarchist praxis I've seen in a while. (Of course, people will not understand this, because anarchism is seen as a weird, deviant, punk subculture.)
DoingIsLearning
For the non-native ESL speakers like me, a 'stoop' is apparently the steps or porch leading up to a building entrance. The lack of an actual stoop further added to my initial confusion with this new word.
Very cool! So often we complain about a lack of community. These guys really show the whole 'be the change you want to see in this world'. I also loved the concept of let's just bring a few extra chairs as an ice breaker.
austinl
During COVID, the block I live on in San Francisco started doing outdoor happy hours every Saturday afternoon. People weren't traveling much then, so we had near 100% attendance of every person on the block for almost a year. I went from knowing none of my neighbors to knowing all of them quite well, and it has surprised me how much it has improved my day-to-day happiness.
Since then, we've hosted a "progressive" Thanksgiving dinner, which moves from house-to-house on the block for different courses. We shut down the street one day each year and set up bounce houses for the kids. I've made pint glasses with the name our street engraved in them, and given them to my neighbors. It's shown me that there really can be something valuable outside of your immediate family and circle of friends.
kulahan
Getting to know your neighbors is an essential part of building a safety net, too. It makes us healthier and happier!
esschul
This seems so foreign for someone living in Norway. The "what kind of weirdo are you" - vibe would be so real if someone did this.
melenaboija
I’m from a small town in Spain, about 800 people small, and this is what everyone would do every night during the summer, each group hanging out in different spots with different gangs, lol. It was just a way to chat with your neighbors.
Sadly, this has mostly disappeared, but I think it’s a good example of how the sense of community in Spain differs from that in the U.S. And this feeling isn’t limited to small towns, you can find it in big cities too somehow.
Without knowing for sure, I’m almost certain that people in southern Italy and Greece do the exact same thing.
bonoboTP
Also used to be very common in Hungarian villages, basically houses would have benches in front of the fences facing the street and people would hang out there in the afternoon. As a kid I remember watching the cows get herded back from the field while sitting there, people biking and saying hi, on the way to and from the store etc.
Nowadays this is mostly dead even in villages. Old grannies watch daytime TV Turkish soap operas, younger folks are on their phones, they anyway work in the nearby towns etc.
penguin_booze
I remember seeing a documentary or a video clip of this being followed. I don't recall whether or not it was in Spain, but it was definitely a Spanish-speaking village. That clip came to my mind when I read this post.
jvidalv
I’m also from a small town in Spain, ~600 people.
And while it’s not as popular as before it’s still going strong in summer.
I’m Catalan so we call it “la fresca”, translates to “to the fresh air”.
In my street, ~5-10 people, my mother and some neighbours still do it.
The way towns are build in spain facilitate that, single houses but no garden. We live door by door.
So if you want to be outside you are by definition accesible.
Before TV people used to also be a lot in the balcony just chilling and chatting with people passing by.
This is my street in google mapa in case someone is interested:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps/@4...
melenaboija
My town is also in Catalunya, 60 miles north of yours :)
danielhep
This is random, but I’m wondering why if you’re both Spanish why use miles and not km?
> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco.
This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
Still, a heartwarming story all the same. And yes, this is _exactly_ what city living should enable.