"People Ain't Neighbors No More"

Chicago Tribune reporter William Lee connects the violence in Chicago to a decline in neighborliness between residents. Informants in the article place blame on the distractions of social media and the failure to follow legal forms for property inheritance.

Dan Kleinman think's it's "way cool" that Chicago's Block Clubs cites The New Neighborhood Block Club Manual.

Politics

What is more important to your neighbors: Your politics or how you look out for their kids?

A Nashville resident explains in the New York Times, "Knowing our neighbors’ party affiliations would tell you nothing about which one of them makes a killer margarita, or which one volunteers at a homeless shelter, or which one secretly hung a lime-green thong on the back side of a neighbor’s Christmas tree after the caroling party."

Pacing in the middle of the night

The intersection of race, gentrification, and neighboring, revealed in this Washington Post article.

Lake Effect Intervew

Lake Effect is the premier local show on Milwaukee's public radio station. Joy Powers interviewed me about Chicago's Block Clubs.

The HEPPAS blog asked me an irresistible question: What is Amanda Seligman reading now?

So, I didn't resist.

Garages and Fences

Apparently good fences don't always make good neighbors. Sometimes they symbolize neighbors' poor relationships. Today's Washington Post reports this story about an architect who built a trellis and is now building a "spite garage," to the annoyance of his next-door neighbors, whose view is blocked.

Publicity for Chicago's Block Clubs

Chicago's Block Clubs: How Neighbors Shape the City has been getting some nice attention from the media:

Claire Zulkey, "The History and Power of Chicago's Block Clubs," Chicago Magazine, September 7, 2016.

Sher Watts Spooner, "Mothers Fighting Chicago Gun Violence One Block at a Time," Daily Kos, August 26, 2016.

"'Sonny Boy' Williamson Biography Offers Glimpse of How He Shaped Chicago Blues," Chicago Tribune, August 26, 2016.

Chicago's Block Clubs: How Neighbors Shape the City is now available in hard cover, paperback, and digital editions. See the University of Chicago's Historical Studies of Urban America website for details.