i-Neighbors

i-Neighbors is part of an ongoing research project directed by Prof. Keith Hampton at The University of Pennsylvania designed to help connect the increasing number of neighbors who live steps away from each other, but whose lives somehow never manage to intersect. i-Neighbors was first launched in 2004 and bills itself as “the place where neighbors come to meet, plan and stay informed,” and roughly 73,000 of them are doing just that across the United States and Canada.

The six-year-old website aims to meet people where they are today—online, that is—and encourage them, in turn, to meet their neighbors and start forging stronger local connections. i-Neighbors and other hyperlocal sites are not the norm in cyberspace, but they are multiplying. Burlington, Vermont’s Front Porch Forum and private residential community sites built by companies like LifeAt offer neighborhood networking; larger sites like Yelp and Outside.in aggregate news, reviews and blogs at the neighborhood level. The Web excels at creating connections between people half a world away, but developers and researchers are starting to see evidence that it can also connect people to their neighbors next door.

Anyone can create an account on i-Neighbors for free and either join an existing neighborhood group or start a new one. i-Neighbors lets users define the neighborhoods themselves by entering a short description and marking the neighborhood on a map. Once launched, the neighborhood platform works and feels a lot like other social media sites. Users can create a profile and upload a photo, there are message boards and email lists, places to add photos, links and files, local reviews and other features like a neighborhood calendar and directory.