137. The Neighborly Thing To Do with David Burton

My guest on today's episode is David Burton. David works with the University of Missouri Extension almost exclusively in the area of neighboring. David reached out to me through a fellow podcast guest and said, you know, I'm doing this work, I've listened to your show, I think it'd be relevant. And lo and behold, it was. And I was so glad that he reached out and that he found himself on our show today. We had really, in my opinion, a beautiful conversation about, um, the value of caring about each other and the social fabric that can get built when people feel a deep sense of belonging and a sense of connection to the people they do life with. He quotes research, which is always super helpful, but you're going to hear some of the stories too of impact of just what it means for somebody when they feel like they've been neighbored well. So without further ado, enjoy this wonderful chat with my new friend David. Well, hey David, welcome to the Growing Small Town Show.

Yeah, it's great to be here. I feel very much at home.

Yes, good, good. That's what we want. We want people to feel like they're at home. That's fantastic.

I grew up in a small town, so this is familiar territory.

It's awesome. So to the full disclosure of our listeners, you and I just met right when we hopped on ahead of this recording.

That is correct.

Yeah. So why don't you tell us a bit about your work? Because— and this is also a note for our listeners— you were referred to me by Aaron Baker. We're going to go ahead and tag his episode so people can go back and listen to Aaron's episode. So thank you for the referral, Aaron, first of all. But I love it when people like you reach out and say to me, well, in this case, it was Aaron referred me, and I have this really specific take on an aspect of work that I think would make sense to you. And it would maybe make sense for your listeners. It's like my favorite emails in the world because I've done this podcast for 4 years. We're not gonna run out of people at all. Like, there's gonna constantly be plenty of people to have on the show, but finding people that the work is aligned, that I can really see having a conversation with them, that's not always so easy to find. So thank you to Aaron, and thank you to you for reaching out and telling me about this. And as I dug into it, I was like, yep, we need to have a conversation. So why don't you tell us a bit about your work and then we'll go from there.

Wow. Where to even start? 6 years ago, if you would have asked me if I was a good neighbor, I would have said yes. I wouldn't even have hesitated. And that's because I don't throw loud parties and I pick up after my dog when I take him on a walk. And I don't bother those that are living around me and I keep a nice yard and stuff. But through a series of circumstances, I came to understand or realize that over the 18 years that my wife and I had lived at our spot at that time, as people had moved and new people had moved in, I didn't even bother to get to know them. And so here I was at this point where we really only interacted with one of our neighbors, only knew the names of one household of neighbors, and the others were just there. But still, if you would have asked me if I loved my neighbor or if I was a good neighbor, I would have said, emphatically, "Yes." But I came to realize that really the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is apathy.

Yes, sir.

And I just had apathy for those that were around me, and that was not the best way to be living and not what we're called to do. And so my wife and I really set out to change that as a personal endeavor, to get to know our neighbors. And really, I'm a little more of an extrovert. And so, I really just began by putting together a plate of cookies that my wife made and putting our contact information on it and really just going and ringing doorbells and eating crow, as the saying goes, and saying, "I know you've lived here 5 years and I've not even spoke to you, and we want to do a better job." And A, it's a little intimidating to do that, even if you are an extrovert. And it was, you know, eating crow, and some of the crow was not young and tender at that point because they— people had lived there for a while. And 3, it was a great sacrifice because my wife makes outstanding chocolate chip cookies, and here I was just giving them away, giving them, giving them away. But everybody, all of our neighbors were very receptive to that approach. Not, not all of them shared their contact information immediately, as though sometimes say, neighboring is a crockpot, not a microwave. It takes time.

Slow simmer, right?

Slow simmer, slow simmer. But that was the starting point. And then, and somewhere along the way, as we were making these personal individual choices to do this differently, it dawned on me that this was actually absolutely relatable to my professional work in community development.

Yes.

This was like the ultra in grassroots community development. And as we start having neighborhood get-togethers, and as the neighbors around me then started reaching out to the neighbors around them, and as we saw that sort of move down the street and unfold, like, oh, this has all sorts of asset-based community development principles involved here. And my neighborhood, sometimes it feels a little bit like a laboratory because I try things out there a little bit. But this absolutely applies to the work that we're trying to do around the state in Missouri. And my regional director at the time agreed to give me some time to tinker with the idea, but he kept saying, "This is not your whole job." And just really as the concept exploded and the opportunities exploded, it's now pretty much the full focus of my work in Missouri. So, there's definitely a need and definitely a lot of interest in it. And we could be doing so much more.

Okay, David, number of things here. First of all, I so connect with the concept of grassroots community development, for one, just conceptually, because grassroots simply means that nobody told you to do it, that it came from within and it started on the ground, right? Like, that's, that's what it means. So I love that. I think too, now more than ever, like everybody that's in the world of either economic development and/or community development, or if you're just a person in your town, like a lot of our listeners are people in their towns that just give a crap, for lack of— like they really care and they want their communities to thrive and be better. Those are the humans that can and will change the faces of their communities. And the way that you're talking about this, it's— I think there's a shift in the kind of fields of economic and/or community development to really think more about quality of life, because that's, that's really kind of the touchpoint that this hits on, at least as I listen to you. And it's all about personal connection. It's personal, it's human-centered. And so therefore, yes, there's social risk involved. You identified that the ability to look at someone and say, shame on me, you've lived here for 5 years, and I've seen you, you've seen me, because like 5 years— Missouri has different climate than we do, but you have 4 whole seasons up here in North Dakota where you're mowing the lawn and then you're raking the leaves and then you're blowing your snow, like whatever, you're seeing each other. And I just think it's really, really cool. So I love how it started. Explain now, like, what's your job? What's the program? Who do you work for? What do you do? What is it? How does this work and how do you deploy it in other communities?

Sure. Well, I work for the University of Missouri Extension. Okay, perfect. Extension program. Every state has an extension program through their land-grant university. It's all about adult education and outreach. And so my first directive was when I was given 5% of my time to dedicate to this was to come up with a literature review.

5 whole percent?

5 whole percent. So that was my first endeavor. I'm like, okay, is anybody writing about this? Is this even something on eBay's radar. And there were some books at that time, and that Leisure Review— I keep a, a blog, and that complete review is on my blog, and I can share that with you later.

Yeah, we'll link that, we'll link that in the show notes so people can see it. Yep.

And interestingly, there were some books, and I started reading those. I'm a voracious reader anyway, and started reading those and gleaning information and stuff. But right about that same time too, there's just there's been an outpouring of new books. Yeah. In this subject area. And you talked about what it kind of touches upon, but it also— neighboring and neighbor connections also touches on sense of place, sense of belonging.

Yeah.

Loneliness epidemic is a big part of that.

Mental health. It, it tips over into mental health. Yeah, for sure.

Social capital. In fact, the Wall Street Journal today had an article about people working from home and how that relates to the loneliness epidemic and that your neighbors may be, you know, overcoming that loneliness epidemic. You don't have somebody working in the cubicle next to you, but you may have somebody working next door to you. I've just gleaned the article. I haven't read the whole thing or followed up with the author, but that was sent to me today from the Wall Street Journal. So that's a good note.

I'll be checking that out.

A lot of new information focused in this area and stuff. So I did the literature review and then— you know, we're always big on research and curriculum. And so, I developed a curriculum to teach what I thought would be like a 3-week class on Zoom at the time. And then, we'd rotate and we'd get a few more people. And I thought, you know, if I could get 5 or 6 people in Missouri to jump on this class, I think that'd be a success. And so, we rolled the class out and somewhere, social media, somehow, I'm not sure still, is a mystery to me. Word got out, and by the second class, I had 365 people signed up from across the United States.

That's incredible.

And so now suddenly, because I'm still in the experimental stage, I'm— or as I say, I'm just, I'm just throwing things at the wall.

Yeah, that's an entrepreneurial mindset, David. We support that here at the Growing Small Town Show. You gotta try things. How do you know? You're not gonna know.

And so suddenly at this point, I'm saying, okay, this is something else. This is not a 3-week class I just turn around and try and find more people. This is something else. So it's still called Neighboring 101, but I see it more as like a network. Sure. Individuals, we do have monthly guests and things, a monthly class. We got people from 36 states in the class. They either attend live or they watch the video afterwards, but that's a way to disseminate research and thought leaders. And really, I love to focus on practitioners that we want to emulate, that we want to say, hey, you can do this in your community and neighborhood as well. That's a big part of it. It's not the only part. We talked earlier about that. I would have said I was a good neighbor. Extension's big on research, and so I have completed two very significant research projects, 2022 and 2024, in Missouri. We call it the State of Neighboring research project. It is a scientifically valid study. There'll be a research document coming out at the end of the year, a guide sheet as we call them. But I think one of the most significant findings in that study is the last question. We gave people 30 traits of what someone might do if they were a good neighbor. You know, invite a neighbor over for dinner, watch my children, watch my property while I'm away, those types of things. And we asked them to, what are the traits that make someone a good neighbor? And they could pick as many or few as they wanted to. And two traits on those lists in 2022 and 2024 floated to the top, 5 percentage points ahead of anything else as to what makes someone a good neighbor. And I know you're dying to know.

I am.

Because you want to be a good neighbor and you want to be sure you're doing these two things. And these two traits are be quiet and respect my privacy. In other words, a good neighbor is someone who's quiet and leaves me alone. And that's where we are culturally. See, that's not—

Wow, that's not what I was hoping to hear.

Right. So we're pushing against the cultural narrative. That's why there's work here to do. That's why we call our program the Engage Neighbor Program. We don't need more good neighbors. We need more engaged neighbors.

Wow. Okay. Can I ask a quick question? I don't want to derail your train of thought.

Sure.

So the research is showing you that that's what people are saying they want. So is this somewhat one of the core parts of your program or your work, an actual awareness of the problem of that being what people think they want? Because this is such a challenge in my brain. Like, I think about the work that we're trying to do here. Oftentimes people are not problem aware.

Yes.

Does that make sense? So is that something you feel like— you said you're bumping up against the research. It's their actual answers. Some conventional wisdom might be, well, like, you're selling them the wrong thing. They don't want what you're selling them. And again, you're not selling anything. I understand. But what kind of conversations are you having with yourself? Are you having with your team about that? Because again, I'm going to quote another guy that I love and I've had on the show 2 times now, Jeff Sigler, who writes for Revitalize or Die. He and I had a really beautiful conversation about my area, my neck of the woods, flyover country, if you will. That we like our space, right? We like wide open spaces and we don't mind if neighbors aren't for miles. Well, we say we like that, and of course there's pieces of that that we like, but there's an actual shadow to that, and it's isolation. And then isolation leads to potentially depressive thoughts, all of the mental health things that we're also actively trying to overcome in rural places, especially. And I feel like those things, I feel like that's tied, this desire to have neighbors that are quiet and leave you alone, it just exacerbates that as a mental health challenge. So talk to me a little bit about that. Like when you saw that, did you like just lay down and weep or what did you, what did you do?

No.

What did you do and how are you tackling it like yourself and with your team?

And to tie with what you just said, the separation doesn't just lead to isolation, that ultimately leads to reduction. So social capital, which leads to a reduction in sense of belonging, which causes people to say, oh, I hate living here, I'm moving somewhere else.

Yeah. Okay, real quick, just pause it. That's exactly it, right? Like, we are all trying to get people to move to our towns. They don't stay if they don't tap in and feel a part of the fabric of the makeup of something. They've got to get that somewhere. So yeah, totally.

And you don't— you don't get it through social media. No, you don't get it by watching Netflix on the couch. You get it through face-to-face interaction, even with the neighbor that voted differently than you, even with those that live around you. It's got to be face-to-face. And so early on, as I was reading, there was a book called The Lonely American by Schwartz and Olds, and they make sort of this anecdotal comment in the first of the book. And I've talked to Richard Schwartz, and, you know, they didn't do any research, they just asked is kind of their foreword, and they just had this impression. They're like, it's kind of like Americans just want a neighbor who'll be quiet and leave them alone. And that was his kind of cast-off comment, his observation from what they were seeing. So that's one of the reasons we delved into that research topic, because we thought, I think there's something there. And partly— and also when you look at the research in the 1950s and '60s, there were some, uh, really great studies done about the connectedness of neighbors and people talked about their neighbors as part of their social fabric. My neighbors have us over for dinner. They watch my kids. We play cards. I mean, it was a big part of the social connection. And I'm not saying this from a nostalgic point of view that we have to go back to the 1950s. That wasn't a great time period for everybody. And so, I'm not saying that at all, but I'm just saying there is a better way to live. And the better way to live is with connectedness. And that is in your wheelhouse. That is, you can accomplish that yourself. And so, having this conversation is like pushing against the culture. That's how I've always seen it is the cultural narrative has shifted 180 degrees from the 1950s to where we are now. And so, there's this story about culture. This old fish is swimming through the lake and these two young fish meet him. And the old fish says, 'Hey boys, how's the water?' And they swim on past, and the two young fish look at each other and go, 'Water? What's water?' I mean, they were immersed in it and didn't even know what it was. And that's kind of what culture is. We are immersed in it and we don't know how it impacts us. And the cultural narrative is be quiet and leave people alone. And it's not good for your health. It's not good for your community. So it really is—

God, I'm happy you're on this show with me, David. I'm so happy to be listening to you. Seriously, you're also doing me so many favors. You don't even know it. I happen to tend to be a really anecdotal human where I experience things and I go, that's significant. Like, that means something. I don't often get to the point of research because it's not my wheelhouse. I don't have time. Right. I think I'm a storyteller probably more by nature. Right. But you're actually giving such structure and concrete context around something that I feel like I've known forever. And it is this— what we're talking about is the core of Growing Small Towns as an organization. Like, the work that I care about, that I think matters so much, it's all human-centered. And I just seriously, I'm just like, everything's lit up in me. I'm so excited to be listening to you. And again, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I get excited. So, well, you know, you carry on.

You and I may light up over research, and we may light up over books and studies, and there's an abundance of it now in this subject area.

Yeah.

That doesn't light most people up. I always include that in presentations because I have to. I work for University of Missouri Extension. We're research-based, so I'm going to include that. That's my foundation. But it doesn't seem to be what always moves people. Well, I'd say it almost never is. And but there is that awareness aspect. I love how you use that word, right? Just making them aware, hey, there is this issue and you can do something about it. I usually end my presentations with a reminder saying, just me personally, I feel like there's There's nothing I can do that will change Washington, D.C. There's very little I can ever do that would impact my state capital, but I can make a choice and decision every single day that impacts my neighbors and neighborhood.

That's it, man.

That's it. And that's where I'm going to choose to focus and put my time and energy and resources to do that, to make my little corner a better place. And there's— I sometimes will show the picture by— George Seurat, I believe I pronounced his name correctly, he was a French painter and he did a painting in the 1880s that's made up of all these individual dots. You know, at that time everybody did brush strokes and he had all these little individual dots.

Yep.

My Neighbors and Neighborhood is one of those little dots in the bigger picture.

Yeah.

And I'll take responsibility for that dot, but others have other dots to take responsibility for.

Well, that's absolutely true. I just think that it's such a beautiful reminder though, because This is why I'm not an overt fan of the media, the broader media, as it were, because it does, it takes our eye off the ball, I think, of, you know, if it's not local to you and you're suddenly all fussed up about something happening, this like, let's find the injustices and complain about 'em and then get all like worked up about 'em. It feels so counterproductive. To me because, a, and so not even to say that maybe that national issue isn't actually happening in some way, shape, or form locally, but I just think it keeps our eye off of our sphere and our locus of influence. Everything right around me is within at least my influence. And we can— every single person can make a difference, especially when it comes to this important work of connecting and helping other people tap in or dial into something that they need to feel that sense of belonging. A sense of belonging is just— it's everything to feeling like a fulfilled human. And so it's such important work. And I think for the longest time, it was kind of dismissed out of hand as fluffy and unimportant. But even— I'll just tell you again to make the tie more clearly. My background was in org development. And so all companies are trying to do, right, is hire talent, recruit talent. Everybody's fighting over the same people, like the talent pool. I mean, it's not necessarily gonna get bigger cuz you'll have retirees and then incoming people, right? So we're all trying to figure out how to get the best, the brightest, the smartest, the talented, most talented people to work with us. Well, that's where culture comes in and it matters now more than it ever has. It's always mattered. Totally different world we live in now, right? Yeah, that those same principles apply to communities. It's really thinking about like, what do people need to feel like they matter, that they can contribute, that they belong?

There's neighborhood research too, but I think of something you said there made me think of a group called Apartment Life, and they work with apartment complexes. They embed a couple usually in the apartment. Maybe they'll get a discount on that apartment. Right? And that person that's located there has to give 20 hours a week to facilitating gatherings and activities and things in the apartment complex. And if there's two of them, they, they both are giving 20 hours a week to these activities. And ApartmentLife's own research has shown that apartment complexes that they are in, people are 7 times more likely to renew their lease.

That's fantastic research.

That's money on the table.

Yeah, never heard of this group, but I love that. I love it.

And so, people built, they get connections, they feel connected, and they have a sense of belonging. And they say, "I'm going to renew the lease. I'm going to stay here another year instead of moving down the road and saving $10 a month at this other place." Right. And so, I think from having read that material, I think those same principles apply to our communities too. You know, there's also a study about churches, people who attend a church. If you can give them 7 friendships, they're going to stick, they're going to connect and stay there. And but same in a community, you got to have some connections, some friendships to give you that sense of belonging. And this is a place you want to put down roots and that you want to stay. And if you have those roots, it's harder to pull you up. You're not going to get aggravated over one water bill or something, you know.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

And so, I think those same principles apply. But I just, you know, I mentioned before we started recording, I grew up in a small town. I have hometown of Ash Grove, Missouri. Shout out to the Pirates. Population 1,200 when I grew up there, population 1,200 now, but a lot has changed over the years, uh, how that— the culture of that community and what it looks like. And I can just think of growing up, we would actually have people come by unannounced and unexpected and ring the doorbell, and we would be excited to see them. I mean, can you imagine that? And my mom always had something in the kitchen for a, a neighbor or somebody who would come by and visit. That was just a normal part of life growing up, this interaction with neighbors. And I know now around our house, the doorbell rings, man, we turn off the lights and hit the floor. We always laugh that we peek to see if it's Girl Scout cookies, and if it's not, you know.

Exactly, yeah.

And I always tell this little story on my kids, you know, we always said, kind of did the whole stranger danger thing because they would get home from school and mom and dad weren't home yet and don't answer the doorbell, that sort of thing. And one day my mom had called me and said, "I'm going to bring some books by for you." But my wife and I were not home. And I said, "I'll tell the kids so they'll get the door." And I sent my daughter a text saying, "Doorbell's ringing. It's your grandma, so please, you know, open the door." And I got home and my daughter said, "Hey, it's a good thing you sent us a text or we wouldn't have answered the door." And so, from that, I realized that, A, I'd done a really good job of teaching stranger danger to them, but, two, I realized I had another problem because my children were now age 24 and 21. And they really should have been past the stranger danger fear of the doorbell. They're just so used to when that doorbell rings, it's an Amazon package or it's a salesperson. It's not anybody coming to visit. It's not a neighbor is how they see that. And so, I think that just sort of in a nutshell typifies kind of how we relate to those around us. We go to extra efforts to be visible and approachable. We talk about front yard living. Having a meal on the driveway in our lawn chairs, you know, just being available and visible. When I take my dog Otis for a walk and somebody's out, taking my earplugs out and holler saying, you know, "I'm available," you know, try and initiate a conversation. Because it's easy to go by with our head down, to be a clicker neighborhood as the saying is. You drive in the driveway, click, you open the garage door. You drive in, click, you shut it back down, never to be seen again. And I just know from those, taking those moments to be available and approachable has just presented so many benefits to us as a family. Ministry opportunities in abundance, but friendships and connections that I never would have dreamed, but just lots of opportunities and a better way to live.

So as we, as us, our listeners and myself as well, What does bringing your program or a focus on your program to a state like North Dakota or anybody else that might be listening, what does it look like? What does it take? How do we implement this? Is it a state, is it a city at a time, a town at a time, or what does it look like?

I think it's a person at a time because we're still trying to change the cultural narrative. So we're looking for opinion leaders, right? And people that embrace it early on. And I say we, it's not like I have a mouse in my pocket. It's really me. There are a couple of other specialists in the state that, that help with some programs and things now. But we're really just trying to teach those principles. We'll help someone think through an asset-based community development approach in their community if they want to. We do have other tangible programs that we do in Missouri. You can always sign up for Neighboring 101 if you want just a little bit of monthly encouragement or new ideas on something you can do in your community. I always say, if you're really wanting to know where do I even start with this, Here are the 3 steps: learn the names of your 8 immediate neighbors, whether it's a subdivision or a farm, the, the 8 that kind of adjoin your property typically. So learn the names of your neighbors, find ways and excuses to use the names of your neighbors, and organize a social get-together. Once a month we do coffee in our garage on Saturday morning. I don't invest a lot in that. I do clear out the garage Last month we had 55 neighbors and for bad coffee, but people show up because they want to visit and have connections. Now we did have somebody running for city council that came on that Saturday, so this is their chance to meet.

Brought their campaign materials?

They didn't bring campaign materials. I asked them not to.

That's good. Yeah, that's good.

Let them know you're here and stuff, but this is the chance to meet you and you meet them. So just things that give people connections. Like, it's not about the entertainment, it's about connections. And so there are other groups, something called the Neighboring Movement in Wichita, Kansas, something called the Hopeful Neighborhood Project in St. Louis, a group in the Great Lakes region called Community Works. Some of those that you can actually hire and they will come to a community and help you craft a plan and, and things. We're not doing that outside of Missouri, but I'm I see myself more as a connector, as a resource person. I just got back from Neighborhoods USA. It's an annual conference.

I had never heard of that until you mentioned it in your email, by the way.

Yeah, this is the 49th year of it, and that's a great networking opportunity for people that work as neighborhood executive directors, or maybe they're president of their local neighborhood association. So we encourage people to find something like that and connect and get involved and again focus on building those Social connection. It's not about entertainment. Don't put that pressure on yourself. It's about connection. And we'll help people, you know, navigate some of that if they want, or looking for the assets in their neighborhood as to what they could do and connect over. I have some neighbors who have artistic abilities and backgrounds. And so, several years ago, we had a small pocket park that bumps up to one of the entrances. And the city lets us have the corner there. To put in an art display for the neighborhood, kind of an entrance, but it's not just gonna be any art display. This is going to be art created by neighbors. So every year we pick a different theme and the neighbors get together and we create the art that goes on that display. This year we did barn quilts.

Okay.

And so two different Saturdays, everybody came to my garage and painted barn quilts. And now those barn quilts are on display there at the start of the neighborhood. Builds social connection and social capital. It's kind of a beautifying project that can add to our sense of belonging there at the neighborhood.

How big is the community you live in now? Where do you live?

I live in Republic, Missouri, bumping right up at 20,000.

Okay, now a relatively small town, as it were.

It's been growing faster, and really in the time that we've been there, it's probably added 10,000 in the last, you know, 18 years that we've been there. And there's some signs it's going to grow faster than that. And some people have been born there and grew up there lament the passing of the small town feel. I hear that all the time. Republic's losing their small town feel.

What do they mean by that, do you think? Or do you ask the question, or what do you think they mean when they say that?

I think most people, when they say that, or the ones that I know in Republic, when they say that, they mean the town's getting too big. There's things going on here with buildings I don't like.

Sure.

Too much road congestion. There's people moving here that don't look like me and I don't really care for. That's how I would group that together. But really, when you talk about that topic, what they're really saying is, I have lost connection and power. I don't like the loss of my connection and power.

Right.

And so my pushback on them is always, and part of why the City Republic has kind of embraced this Engaged Neighboring approach is it's not about the size of the town, it's about your connections. And that is within your power, right, to develop those, the social capital and connections around you. Usually the same ones that are lamenting the loss of small-town feel also don't know their immediate neighbors and also walk away from the table or conversation when I start pressing them on that subject. Yeah, they're not really wanting to make those connections. They want their old connections and their old way back. That could be another element. Just those who are just opposed to progress or growth. They seem to think there's a middle ground of staying the same and there's not. It's grow or die.

Those are the two options.

Yeah, totally right.

Yep, yep, yep, for sure.

So there's part of that.

I think one of the key feelings that they're having that isn't easy to articulate or to let yourself feel is grief. A grief over what they feel they've lost. And because that feeling is real, and yet it doesn't have to just be that way. You know, I think like with everything, it's so important to learn the emotional literacy to like name our feelings. You're like, what is it that we're actually feeling? Instead of just saying, I don't like it. That's a, not a feeling. It's also not something that you can catalyze around, you know, like, okay, so you don't like it. Well, you have to ask about 10 million questions. Well, what don't you like about it? What do you miss? What do you wish it could be? What if What's missing that if it were there would make all the difference for you? Like all of those questions. So I just— this conversation and this work, it is demanding more of us, right? I think as citizens. But ultimately, I think this is the key to having a fulfilled life in whatever place you're in. Yes, I do. And it's such a key part when I think about practitioners, whether they're formally in economic development or community development. Chambers of commerce often play a role in this, you know, depending on the size of your community. Again, or just those people that love their place. Thinking more about making those connections, that's where it's at. And I think for my really small town listeners, so our town's 1,800 people, so not that much bigger than where you grew up. Of course I know my immediate neighbors, like of course I know them, right? So if you feel like you've got that unlock, take one step further out. Do you know the names of the people that live just a block down from you or a couple blocks down from you? Because even the face of my community, it changes all the time, David. It's, it's incredible how many people I don't know. And so we can kind of resign ourselves to that and start saying things like, this is just not the town I grew up in, or this is not the way it used to be. You know, we can do that, or we can say, what is my role And building some of those bridges, reaching out. What would it look like if you— the idea of canvassing a neighborhood and just— I'm laughing in my brain imagining like Oaks people listening to this like, you better not start knocking on our doors. We will, we will flip the lights off and not come and answer it. But it's special. And again, it taps into humanity because whether we're talking about today or we're talking about the 1950s, It's human behavior that drives culture.

Yes.

And what's crazy about culture too is I like to distill it down to, again, whatever context, if it's a company, a church, a community, it literally is just the way we do things around here. Right. And the reason it becomes the way it is, is because we've accepted it. And so if we don't like it or we aren't happy about it, then we have to also take the responsibility to do something about it.

Yes, it's on us. And some people just don't like change at all. So what they're saying is they just don't like to change. And there's sometimes there's changes that happen that I'm not thrilled about either, but I've always been more geared toward, I may not be crazy about it, but that's the way it is. So let's give it a try. Let's jump up and let's jump in and see what happens. And generally it works out just fine. You can be adaptable and sometimes it's even better than before and you have to admit that.

Yeah. The other thing with changes like that, right? Any change. Is that community is meant to serve all kinds of people with all kinds of interests, all kinds of needs. And so that can be some of the hardest stuff, I think, to really sink down into is the fact that I may not like this thing, but if one other person in this community loves it and that sense of belonging is fostered through that thing, then who am I to say it's not important to be here?

Yes.

And that's hard. I mean, especially if you're in a fairly homogeneous place. And again, you've got a lot of people maybe that either never left or have boomeranged and come back. Right. We really do. We hold on to like how things used to be. I understand that. I really do. I think the challenge is what was great about it and what does a today version of that thing look like?

Yes.

Right. But that ability to let changes unfold, even if they're not your cup of tea, It's really hard.

Yes. Well, let me push back just a little bit, or maybe not push back, or just respond to something you said earlier. You mentioned the size of your town and knowing your neighbors, and that's great that you do, but you would be an exception to the rule. There's been some national surveys done by Pew Research Foundation and State Farm did one in 2016. In fact, State Farm did something they called the State of Neighboring study in 2016. The results were so concerning to them that they end up dropping their tagline song, Like a Good Neighbor. You know, there was about 4 years there where that was not their tagline.

I didn't even recognize that because I always associate that in my head.

Correct. Well, it's so embedded they couldn't even run away from it. But, but after they did this research, like, oh, a neighbor may not be such a positive thing anymore. And wow, that's why they shifted. Now they've I'll come back to it now, but the State Farm, the Pew study both showed this less difference in neighbor relationships between urban and rural than you would think. And in fact, I had an interim boss at one time a few years ago who was giving me a lot of pushback about doing this type of work. And her comment was, I just think it's stupid that we have to teach people to be neighbors now. And I said, well, it's not exactly a fair encapsulation of what's going on here. But two, I do think it's necessary. The research out of Colorado that Dave Runyon talked about in his book The Art of Neighboring, they use criteria, three criteria: do you know your neighbor's name? Do you know a fact about your neighbor? Have you talked to them in the last month? And when you use those three criteria, less than 10% were able to say yes to those.

I would fail. Yeah, I mean, For sure.

So it depends on, do you just say, do you know their name? Right. Yeah, but I've not talked to them in a year.

Right, totally.

That gives a little more of a measurement to it. And so my boss was giving me pushback on this, and she lives in a very rural area. She goes, we don't know our neighbors. I don't see why it's even important. And this was during my review, I might add, but I'm still employed and she's no longer the interim. So there is that. But anyway, I said, well, when you're in a rural setting, you'd have to be more intentional to make those connections, to run into your neighbor. And I had a person in my Neighboring 101 class who was in a very rural area of Missouri, and she decided to set out to meet her rural neighbors. They had moved there, they were about a year there, they'd met no one. She decided to host a little cookout, do hamburgers. She took flyers around to all the neighboring farms. She had some interesting stories about how that all transpired. Invite people to their place. She had 36 people show up. Many of them had lived there for years, and they didn't know each other. They never had any interaction. While they were there, she said, here's a clipboard, give me your name and your phone number and your address. Let's put together a directory so we can stay in contact, so we can do this type of thing again. You know, it was kind of one of the principals from our neighboring class. She put this together, got distributed to everybody, and I kid you not, she made the case for me with my boss. A week later, one of their— one of the neighbor's houses house was caught on fire and that neighbor called Echo, can you start calling neighbors for help? And neighbors got there before the real fire department did to help with some of the livestock, to go find the dogs that ran away.

Absolutely amazing. It's absolutely amazing.

The timing could not have been any better for Echo, for her neighbors, and for me, because I got to go and say, okay, here's why it matters.

And so I love this so much, we have a neighborhood directory One of my neighbors put it together. There's pictures of all of us.

Wow. I mean, so that's fantastic.

It's legit. So I love that this is— because I, I do, I think I can understand, I really can understand the sentiment of your former boss or your former interim leader saying, I think it's ridiculous that we have to teach people how to be a good neighbor. And I guess my answer, you know, and again, I am glad that you were able to come back with a concrete thing that you could because it almost always has to translate into something like that for some people to grab onto it. So I can respect that. I think with all things, it's like, yeah, well, we don't have to like it, but that doesn't make it not true. People don't know how to be a good neighbor. They don't know what naturally is given to that behavior. Like, they don't know. So, yeah, I don't like it either. I think it's crazy too that we have to teach people how to be good neighbors. But again, if you really just look at all the change that's happened, I love being in the generation I'm in so much. I'm a Gen X. Let's see, I'm 43. I'll be 44 this year. So I went through all of my high school years without a cell phone in my hand, right? Like computers were just coming. Like we, we took typing class and stuff, but like I didn't have a cell phone. I have seen that entire evolution and I see what like my kids, how absolutely adept they are at just intuitively picking up technology. It's absolutely fascinating to watch. So when all of that became the primary driving skill set, of course, social connections, social interactions, and social skills on the whole have been deprioritized. To me, it's absolutely understandable why we are in a place now where we need to learn how to be good neighbors. Because some of it isn't being taught and isn't being practiced even in a classroom.

Yes.

Right. Like, so much of this beautiful back and forth that really is the founding principles and foundational blocks of good interaction and good connection. It's not happening, the face-to-face thing. So it's practice. They're less practiced. That's it. If we look at it that way, then nobody's at fault. It's still something to acknowledge and do something about, though, if we want to make things better, right? I mean, I think we can rail against these things or we can accept, like you said, it is a thing. Let's do something about it and then try things. Because besides a little bit of social risk, what else do we have to lose here?

Right? Right. You have the world to gain. And yeah, I would say that's been my own experience. And I think, you know, you have that pushback a little bit in the rural setting in that way.

I bet. Oh, I bet you do. And I didn't mean to say, by the way, that I'm like the perfect neighbor because, like, oh my goodness, I'm really not.

You know, I get pushback more in suburban areas where there's HOAs. I've been asked to come speak to I don't know how many homeowners association boards, and I can tell I'm never going to get invited back Usually it's somewhere in the presentation when I say an HOA needs to be more about social connections than enforcing the rules. And I am correct when I say that, but people on the HOA boards are there to enforce the rules, and they're— lots of times they don't have other people willing to serve, and that becomes a focal point. But generally, if you would focus on the assets of your neighborhood and the connections you can create, social connections over those, assets, the rules would resolve themselves.

Absolutely.

The problems would resolve themselves. We've got it backwards.

Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, man. Ain't that the truth? I have said that so many times. You just think about it. It's like it would allow us to live in the gray instead of everything having to be black and white.

Yes.

And really, we live in the gray primarily. And I think too many times we try really hard to put black and white rules around things. And when humans are at the heart of all of those things, good luck. You know, like, it's just— so, I mean, there's so much about your work and the way and everything you've shared here that I'm just— oh, I'm just so grateful. I'm so grateful that you reached out because it really does feel very aligned with my entire outlook on the work, why it matters. And one of the questions that I get a lot, or I've been asked, is just this general question of like, how do we know if a community is going to make it or not? And who decides that, right? And sometimes that conversation's coming from kind of a public official perspective. Like, they're trying to deploy resources in our state. How do you make it fair? How do you make it equitable, right? These kinds of questions. I continue to come back to, like, the people in that town are the ones that are gonna make that decision every time. It isn't necessarily about what resources you give them. It's about their will, their intent, their fire. Their passion. And so if we want our communities to be better neighborhoods, and we want— and everyone wants to be a welcoming community, David, everybody, because if we're bringing in newcomers, we have to be. And being more neighborly, as you've defined it, is a clear path to being that. Yes, yes, it's a clear path forward. And it's also something every single human can do, which is always so empowering, I think.

So, what are you passionate about? I mean, I ask an individual, are you passionate about art? Then do an art festival, do a chalk festival, do something to get some people together and connected if that's what your passion is. In Missouri, there's a National Good Neighbor Day that's September 28th. And there's a team of us that have worked on that website and celebrating that holiday nationwide. And I had celebrated that some in my community first and then in my county. And I was at a Chamber of Commerce lunch and the state rep for my area just happened to sit at my table. And he asked me something no one else had asked me, which was, "So this National Good Neighbor Day thing you're doing here locally, what's your dream for that?" Nobody'd asked. And I thought, well, I kind of paused and just off the top of my head, I said, "I think it'd be really cool if we had a whole week to celebrate neighboring in Missouri." like a Missouri Good Neighbor Week. Well, next time I heard from him, 3 or 4 months ago, he'd written a bill and introduced it and wanted to know if I'd come up and testify about establishing Missouri Good Neighbor Week. And he told me, said, you know, maybe 5 minutes, that's probably all you're going to get, and this is the first year, it's no way it's going to get passed. And so I came up to committee and I ended up being in front of the committee about 20 minutes. We picked up a couple of co-sponsors coming out of committee It was a dysfunctional year in the legislature, but on the last day, it got tagged onto something else and it got passed. And so our governor signed into law Missouri Good Neighbor Week. It's September 28th to October 4th. And I think the value in having a holiday like that, A, the media loves it. Of course. We get lots of media coverage and running with it with this week, but also gives us a whole week of just media blitzing, all sorts of opportunities to say, do an act of kindness for a neighbor. You can come to our website and tell us about your act of kindness, be entered in a drawing. You can nominate other people who are great neighbors, and we're going to recognize them and celebrate them statewide. It's just been a, a great database and a collection of information. Last year we had almost 20,000 acts of neighboring reported during that week. That week was kind of the motivation for some groups that went out and did service projects in their community. We're hoping to grow that. Some cities jumped on board and did their own local Most Engaged Neighbor contest and then submitted their winner into the statewide Engaged Neighbor thing. So we're hoping to keep that momentum going and keep growing that from year to year. But that's, that's been an opportunity to talk about that, and that was just kind of something that came about because I was asked what my what my dream was. So I'd say the same back to you or back to a listener in your neighborhood. What's your dream for your neighborhood? And don't do it alone. Try and find someone else to go with you, right? We can go fast when we go alone, but you go further with others. And so—

That's right.

Get some others to join you in the work and set about making connections and adding to the beauty and strength of your community or neighborhood.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for this. It truly is beautiful conversation. It's wonderful to meet you. And I've written down so many things. So when I send you this email with stuff to send back to me, you're going to be loading it down with links for these folks because I really do, I really do hope we can link to as many of the things as you identified, especially the Pew Research, the State Farm Research, like those kinds of things for the people that love to dig in, man. I think that'll be valuable. And again, thank you for for leaving our listeners with just a thing to do. Everybody can do it. Everybody can, can look around and decide. And what I often tell people is, if you want it for your community, the community wants it because you're a part of it. You know, don't underestimate the things that you want to see happen. You might have a role in creating it, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Well, and I have a feeling you're gonna come back sometime too, if you're game.

On game, Rebecca. Maybe I bring a friend or a neighbor along next time.

I would love it.

I would love it. Examples of people who have really embraced the idea and set out to make a difference locally. That's really what— and you ask about the program and how people get involved in it. It's really, we're trying to have a discussion and push the narrative a little bit and get people engaged and just empower them to do something locally. There's only one of me, so I've got to multiply people who are willing to do this work in their neighborhood and try different ways to do it. That's what we're celebrating.

Absolutely.

Something in the physics, very small changes over a long period of time leads to incremental change, you know, a bigger change.

Oh, it's always, always tiny. And again, like, that's the other thing too, I want to remind everybody, if you try something and it feels like it quote unquote fails, just remember that that created a ripple. Like, some momentum, momentum is happening. And so take a minute and celebrate those little steps because there is an enormous cost to doing nothing and the costs to trying something are never as large. So get out there and risk a little of that social capital. Make yourself a little uncomfortable. Like, you'll push through it and really, really cool things can come from that.

Absolutely. Make some time. Go meet a neighbor.

Love it. Thank you so much.

Thank you.