As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

The single best thing you can do is pick a neighborhood - not the whole city - and invest deeply.

Get to know everyone in the neighborhood and understand what they want and need, then try to find ways to bring that.

When you have a strong network of neighbors and a little bit of cash, you can ramp up investment by cleaning up dirty corners and getting the basic services that a neighborhood is missing.

Here’s an example of how folks in Memphis, TN did this Over time: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/21/this-is-what-w...

If you’re interested in connecting with people who already have this mindset, there are a lot of them in Strong Towns, and there may even be a group in your area.

Hi there from Detroit. I'm a relatively recent transplant but my partner has been here for quite a while. Here's what I've learned from her:

- Getting involved in local politics. There are many opportunities to attend public meetings and many accessible public programs that most folks don't know about — even something as simple as requesting a speed bump to be installed on a neighborhood street with speeding problems or requesting a pickup of illegally dumped trash can make a real difference.

- Supporting local businesses, co-ops, urban farms, and folks building the future you'd like to see. Volunteering at local community organizations is a wonderful way to meet folks on the ground doing real and necessary work.

- Creating friendly dialogues with your neighbors and those around you. There's occasional violent crime around us, but the neighborhood watches out for one another. Our neighbors selflessly help each other in ways I could never imagine in SF or NYC.

- Investing in the community when and how you can. My partner bought and renovated an abandoned house in a less desirable neighborhood and has created a great small community of optimistic tenants and friends. There is a lot of unused and available land in the neighborhood and we're actively working on ways to reimagine it — for farming plots, new housing, community spaces and more.

None of these are as hard as they sound, and the impact from small actions is huge compared to wealthier areas.

"community organizer" is not a bad word. It means that you should walk into your local YMCA, public library, boys and girls club, food pantry, homeless shelter, religious center, etc. of your choosing, find someone who looks like they're too busy and thus must be in charge, and say "Hi, I'm Bob. I have Mondays free for the foreseeable future. What do you need?"

Then, pay attention, show up every Monday promptly on time, and see where you wind up.

As a public policy and budget wonk, advocate, lobbyist, and five-year veteran of city government (Washington, DC), as well as a social worker by training, I LOVE the question and am stoked 1) by the responses and 2) by the number of responses.

I am a firm believer in doing something. As others have said, get informed, get connected, and then get and stay active. This can be personal stuff or political stuff. It all needs doing. Play to your strengths.

And I would document even if it's just for you. What you did and why you did it. What worked, what didn't. It's good to have a contemporaneous written record.

Would you mind linking to the list you’re referring to?

My off-the-cuff thought was, “join Transportation Alternatives and push for more bike lanes, public transit, etc.”, as I see automobiles as one of the most significant dangers to both urban areas and even the planet. But when I google "ten most dangerous cities," they seem to list places whose danger is more poverty-driven.

In addition to the many great answers here: consider putting on performances, whether you organize them or perform. Make art, and leave it in unexpected places. Sell some homemade food outside your house once in a while. Add a little surprise and delight into people's lives. It's contagious. And everyone needs joy, entertainment, and even some good-weirdness in their lives; it's not just for those with disposable income and spare time.

Don't. Get out. Get powerful. There is a threshold effect. Unless you have a non-normative path to power (organized crime or powerful family or lots of money already), don't do it.

What you're doing is the equivalent of trying to get strong by pulling a 500 lb barbell every day without moving it. It is not effective. Go somewhere where you pull the 100 lbs first and get it off the ground. Then move up. One day you will be able to pull the 500 lbs. Then you can go back and move it.

In the most dangerous places, all the barbells are 500 lbs. You will not get strong. The barbell will not move. The barbell will never move.

Poor and dangerous cities usually suffer from a lack of institutional capital.

Historically the answer would be: go to church. More likely you’re not religious, so go to a similar regular event that places you in touch with your neighbors in the city. Join a committee or a choir or a volunteer group or arts group or the like that serves the community.

Do not join an organization dedicated solely to political advancement of its preferred party, at least not as a substitute for this. It is at serious risk of being more about power and less about helping, particularly in a bottom-ten city, and will be an inferior way to gain social capital and trust. If you do join one later you can use your connections to the community to make power more accountable to the community.

My own project (https://plantogether.city) hopes to help make cities better from an urban planning perspective by enabling two things:

1. Giving people a voice. People don't feel a sense of belonging because they a single individual amongst thousands/millions. Being able to discuss things directly on a map with other citizens is empowering.

2. Serving as a spatial knowledge base. Allows users to collaboratively catalog the best, worst, most interesting etc. parts and elements. For example all items tagged with cycling in Waterloo (https://plantogether.city/tag/cycling?area_id=3).

Having more organized information and discussions could go a long way in improving decision making.

If you're interested in helping New York City, you can volunteer your technical skills to solve meaningful problems there! It won't be the latest whiz-bang 5G Blockchain AI tech stack, but you'll have a shot at making a real difference. As cities further adopt open source approaches to technology infrastructure, these improvements will also benefit other cities.

https://www.usdigitalresponse.org/nycx-innovation-fellows/

Please DM me on Twitter (in my HN profile) if you have questions. I can help to answer or find someone who can.

Second suggestion: be involved in local government. Go to the city council meetings, zoning and variance boards, etc. We all love to complain about the local government not having enough money, but lots of local governments end up wasting money on projects that nobody needs simply because they don't know the communities needs. They can do studies to try and figure it out, but it's a lot better if a significant portion of the community just shows up and tells them.

Yes, it's boring, and of course it can be hard if you have work and what not, but that's civic life for you and it can improve the situation drastically. If you don't want to go to every one, or have work on some days, etc. try to get a few neighbors together and just make sure you send a single representative from your neighborhood to every meeting.

EDIT: also, thank you for asking the question. It made me very happy to see someone thinking about this!

A simple one, that perhaps doesn't scale (unless you open multiple gyms) is to provide a boxing/MMA/BJJ gym with good coaches.

It's so cliche, but giving teens a physical outlet, where they can begin to understand that consistency leads to results, can sweat together, socialise and build comradery and true confidence will go a long way.

It's simple, and you might only be helping a few teens a year, but it's a good start. I've seen it transform some troubled kids (and grown ups) over the years (drug addicts, and extreme anti-social cases).

I've recently gotten interested in repairing technology. I bought the recommended tools from iFixit and I've been using them to fix up my wife's MBP Mid-2012 Unibody (one of the best laptops to fiddle with in my opinion).

Due to all of this I realized that I have just enough knowledge to help others with their computers - or at least I have the right tools. Once I'm more confident, I'm planning on starting a Repair Cafe[1] in my city.

Repair is daunting for a lot of people - but it doesn't have to be. I hope to use the Repair Cafe as a way to improve the longevity of people's technology (saving them money) as well as teaching people the skills and knowledge they need to fix things on their own.

With even more reliance on technology these days - especially due to COVID - repair is a great way to help struggling families save money.

[1]: https://repaircafe.org/en/

Strong Towns talks a lot about this: https://www.strongtowns.org/

They have a philosophy that centers on "small bets" (trying things that aren't disasters if they don't work) and economic rejuvenation.

I second the people who say "get to know a neighborhood" and add "learn about the cooperative business model and use it to solve the communities needs".

There's a big food desert in south Atlanta, but a group of neighbors who were sick of not being able to buy healthy foods got together and are opening a co-op grocery for example. If the grocery does well, it builds wealth for the neighborhood (since they're all co-owners), and they fill a need that the community had to boot without some big corporate grocery coming in and refusing to stock fresh vegetables because it's not a wealthy neighborhood and they think they'll sell more packaged goods or whatever the case may be.

In another part of the city, we're trying to start a co-operative ISP because the only options are AT&T and Spectrum, both of which are garbage in my opinion and screw their customers over at every turn. Others are building community gardens, or greenspaces, etc. and when these things are built they do more than just fix the individual need, they help foster ownership which makes people less likely to litter, or smash mailboxes, or whatever problems the neighborhood has.

Fight for just housing/zoning policies and against NIMBYism

Join orgs supporting the homeless and fighting against the criminalization of homelessness.

Buy from locally-owned businesses that treat their employees well. Not the gentrifying upscale cafes and restaurants and boutiques

Spend time with your neighbors and local businesses. That goes a long way. Learn more about what works well in the city, and what doesn't. Consider serving in a volunteer capacity with various organizations like local neighborhood councils or schools. Most importantly, if you can devote time, money, or both to local schools, you will make the biggest impact there.

Have kids? Send your kids to the local public school. That is an enormous difference maker. Don't push for dumb things (e.g. Latin), but be an effective advocate for students whose parents might be unable to get involved, and contribute time and energy to improving resources across the board.

There are a lot of good suggestions here. I will add recognizing that living in a city is about sharing.

I have lived in San Francisco for over twelve years and the most important thing I learned or realized is that living in a city is about sharing. I have to share with the other folks here. Walking and driving are two obvious examples. But we also share an aural space. Certainly with my neighbors but more generally too. I share the backyard with my building neighbors. I share the city services. We share the air we breath as you notice instantly walking near someone smoking. Outside of my home there is very little I can do without interaction with others around me. This is true generally but in a densely populated space, like a city, you can't avoid it. It's just the way it is.

The requirement that we share doesn't mean that everyone does so gracefully or respectfully. Myself included. Nonetheless I propose this is a fundamental personal step that contributes to better cities.

Maybe not a popular opinion, but: Encourage your neighbors to call the police when things happen. Call them yourself, too.

I lived in a bad neighborhood for about 20 years, and have had family living in the "same" bad neighborhood (about 10 blocks away), and the difference in crime is night and day. The main difference from what I can tell, is that nobody on my street called the cops, ever. If I didn't call, the cops/fire department wouldn't show up.

For example, we had a mentally ill meth addict wandering the streets, breaking into vacant houses, vandalizing property, etc... One day, I find him starting a fire in some brush outside our house. My neighbor's way of dealing with this? Get out the hose and put the fire out. That's it.

I called the fire department, who alerted the authorities, who detained him.

Later that day while driving around, I saw half a dozen piles of ashes where he (I assume) had set fires before wandering off to start a new one. All within a 1-2 block radius.

I honestly think I was the only one who finally called the authorities on him, because everyone else in that neighborhood is so apathetic (or maybe so suspicious of the police) that they refuse to call 911.

He could have set a house on fire and killed a family. I'm speculating, but I imagine he wouldn't have even got the first fire started in a neighborhood that is vigilant and willing to call the cops.

Pick up litter around your block. Smile and wave to neighbors. Become active in and or donate to community projects. Spread a general sense of kindness and support to others near you. These are the smallest and easiest things you can do that'll have an impact on people.

1) Know which problem(s) you want to help solve. A very bad city will have many of them. Many or most may share a common cause, but enumerate and analyze them in isolation before acting on that assumption.

2) For each problem in the scope of your project, identify "better" and if possible quantify it. It's too easy to delude yourself that your efforts are "working" if you haven't decided explicitly in advance what that word means.

3) For each problem, identify a cause. For a city, this will probably be a feat of economics and/or public choice theory. Both are unfortunately riddled with ideology, and you have one of those, and it will be hard to keep them separate, but if you want to help you have to find a way.

4) Many of the problems are likely to share a common cause, a single point upon which to apply pressure to bring about large scale results. Analyze and study your way here, don't let your ideological sensibilities identify it for you. Get those as far out of your way as you are able. Hint: if you think you've found someone to harm or penalize as a solution (rich people, immigrants, drug addicts...) you probably slipped up in that effort.

5) Assess realistically whether there is anything you can do to address the cause.

If you’re by chance in Rockford, move to an old house in Midtown, Broadway or the northwest side and fix it up. The city is intent on gentrifying downtown and near east side, but the big reductions in violent and sexual crime are happening from individuals and small non-profits pouring love and attention into other areas.

This is actually similar to the police department’s strategy with the resident officer program—-they’re choosing similar areas and quality of homes.

Get involved in the cities government by volunteering, or serving on a city commission. Just start showing up to city council meetings and start learning what is going on and who the players are. You’ll figure out a way to help there.

The best thing you can do is mentor youth and encourage them to seek education and employment in a rising or at least mid-level city.

The long term trend is urbanization and clusterization of industries and homes. This means a lot of old cities and rural areas which were built around one factory will not grow back up. This is just reality.

The youth have a lot of their life still left. The sooner they invest their lives in rising cities, the better.

Honestly consider the possibility of negative impact by increasing local wealth inequality. I’m assuming that you may live in a bigger house. You may shop at more expensive stores. You may have house cleaners.

Wealth inequality generally supports a servant economy more than a self-sufficient economy. Yes, you inject cash, but you are also diverting labor towards local services instead of global industry.

I know that it sounds silly for tech yuppies to talk about global industry in these desperate places, but that’s their only way out. They have to produce; they can’t just do services for any remaining wealthy residents, and rely on the government when the last ones leave. And you have to trust them to find a way.

This question reminded me of my favorite quote, I hope someone gets something out of this.

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.

I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.

When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

The easiest — absolutely easiest — thing you can do to improve your city is to pick up litter. Even if it's not yours. Especially if it's not yours.

I'm not talking about walking around the neighborhood with a trash bag. But just pick up one piece a day and put it where it belongs.

If everyone did that, many cities would be very different places.

Put on a sexy spandex suit and go kick some ass at night XD

I'd recommend reading some of Jane Jacob's work, specifically The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It illustrates the ideas of street life and what makes great places.

As for a direct idea, I'd try to get to know your neighbours, walk in your neighbourhood as often as possible, and support your local businesses.

In line with the broken-window-theory you could call the respective department to collect randomly deposited trash and bulk garbage or report broken infrastructure.

Also calling the police to report antisocial behavior like cars intentionally causing noise by means of illegal manipulations, excessive partying, etc.

Get involved in local politics. Observe council meetings and school board meetings and committee meetings. Whatever is public. This stuff can be boring; you'll observe pointless personality clashes and interminable dumb arguments, but at the same time, this is where important decisions that affect your community get made. Once you understand the issues, you can work to influence policy in the direction that you think is best for your city. You can do this by offering comments during public comment sessions, organizing a group of like-minded people, or even running for office yourself.

It's a big time committment, but this is how change happens. We like to malign our political system, but it's set up for you to participate, and that's something we should cherish.

Cory Booker as a city councilman did this in miniature. His book describes it. At one point he made his office the parking lot outside a troubled projects building - lots of crime and trafficking were reported there and he wanted to help. So while his office was there (under tents) crime was greatly diminished from the area. It’s at least an example like you’re looking to do.

If you had some money, I’d maybe look into building a multigenerational center.

The residents of Detroit have also done some things you could mimic. In the fallout of the 2007-8 Great Recession, the entire city saw huge desertion. The people who stayed saw the city becoming a ghost city all around them. There are probably things and ideas there to help you in your quest.

If I had infinite money though, I’d even consider doing seemingly hard to politically envision things like employing the locals en masse. Preferably it’d be in things like long term investment. Maybe you could bootstrap some local industry with long term sustainability. Simply giving people work that pays better than crime will get crime off the streets in large part.

One way of this would be to make a societal dormitory of sorts. Basically a large building where people can get just enough of a space to themselves to have a place to be. Have a cafeteria so you can benefit from economies of scale. Have things like a laundromat and garden for giving people things to do, further economies of scale, and healthy options. Give them maybe 20-100/week to figure themselves out. Have in house therapists, etc.

Pay your taxes. Vote for the interests of the working poor. Volunteer with organizations that improve the material conditions of unhoused people in your area.

Join your local facebook group and get involved. My facebook group South Silly has done a lot to stitch together South Philly over the last ~5 years. Businesses have launched, friendships and marriages have formed, etc. We also have a webseries highlighting local personalities, businesses, artists, and musicians http://southsillycam.com

Lead by example. Clean up litter and weeds in your neighborhood. Bake treats for your neighbors, bring them by and introduce yourself. Offer to help them fix anything you notice is broken. Get involved in community watch / community policing efforts offered by your local police department. Create a safe environment in your own home and facilitate the same in your immediate community.

First of all Thank you for thinking about y/our community,

Here are few thoughts,

Mornings/evenings. Have yoga camps it need not be physical yoga, there are quite an extensive range of breathing exercises which can be done just be sitting

Local ppl upgrading is important, (young ppl learn and leave) it's important to educate the existing community, Conduct bootcamps, there is incredible content online, get together, have learnathons around them and help each other finish you don't need any expert to get things kickstarted

Evenings, identify local talent and organise cultural programs

Someone suggested buddha, go one step further have nothing, have an empty space where only rule is no one talks(teach meditation if possible but make it a knowledge not religion based as it leads to groupism)

The no talking space and cultural performance space can share the same compound, you can come up with a cool name for that, something where a milleneal can say I performed at that.

There is happiness in giving, organize volunteer activities like cleaning, planting trees etc etc

I haven't officially "launched" it yet as I still have a lot more to do, but I've been working on a community website to track air quality & industry in my community, as I live in Gary, IN, nestled in the the middle of some mega polluters.

My neighbours and I got sick 2 years ago from some foul smell in the air and we ended up buying a PurpleAir monitor, and then I just tried to track everything pollution-related I could.

Of course, I'm the one who runs the monitor, website, etc, vested time, effort, money highlighting the issue of pollution, and on 8th September this year, my daughter was born with congenital heart disease, whose condition is made worse by pollution. Go figure.

https://millerbeach.community https://github.com/kingsloi/community-airmonitor

You can invest in testing apparatus and identify areas in need of environmental remediation, and then advocate/fundraise for the remediation.

Lead exposure in children is highly correlated with crime rates, and is also negatively correlated with academic achievement.

Helping to improve chances for success is definitely a micro thing you can do that has a macro effect.

My thoughts on the subject matter as metaphor:

crawl => walk => jog => run => sprint Gotta learn to crawl before you walk [and so on..]

[crawl]- Pick a new city. Me: Houston. local/inner circle/same street/apartment complex

[walk] - meet new people at work, hang out. It's tough but still possible in really big cities such as HTX.

[jog] - Naturally you will spend more time with those that you are more attractive to. Key word. Natural. If you fake it to make it, you'll probably just end up in the wrong crowd and not realize it. Story of my life. Possibly.

[.. and so on... you'll eventually find something that ticks you off enough to do something about it. At that point, you should just go for it. Considering you've made it this far with several great quality replies on HN.]

^ Having a structure like this beforehand can inevitably point you in the right direction for what you are trying to accomplish.

I hope this message provides some value. Regardless, best of luck!

Vote. If people are in office for years and years with no change, vote them out. They are not helping anyone but themselves. Vote for new people with new ideas. Canvas for those people. Get involved in politics yourself. Encourage others to vote.

Sure, economics (and everything related) are probably a major factor in most of these cities, but in my opinion, politics is a huge factor as well and most likely influences politics.

Many politicians say they are going to fix problems but just throw money at things, hope for the best, and wonder why things aren't better (or play the blame game).

Also, do some beautification and encourage others to do so. Maybe start a grassroots effort to clean up a park, a street, remove graffiti, whatever. Make the world physically a better place.

Vote for lower taxes, especially for small businesses. Let people open a corner store or restaurant but give them a chance to grow.

Just my $0.02

Find ways to have mutual learning [1] with your community. One pathway (I've been thinking about a lot) might be through starting a community garden.

[1] Nora Bateson touching on this: https://youtu.be/AEYkRFnRn5Q?t=1493

Local news. An informed public is necessary for real democracy and any real chance of solving real problems. Solving problems in a city is neigh impossible if the majority of citizens are unaware of what's going on in their own community. Take a look at what Alice Dreger (now one of my heroes) is doing with a tiny budget and a few dedicated locals in East Lansing: https://rdi.org/democracy-examined/2020/8/28/citizen-journal...

Finding ways to create jobs is probably a good way to help. Jobs give income, security, something to do. You can create your own culture based on your worldview and values. It’s hard to pull off though.

If you live in New York City - consider joining a community board. They are the first level of civic engagement and cover everything from transportation, open streets, liquor licensing, quality of life, environmental protection, and education. My boyfriend is on our local community board and has found it very valuable, especially during covid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_boards_of_New_York_C...

I was thinking of launching a kickstarter campaign to bootstrap a city-wide mesh network in my city. The idea would be to have a text-based communication network that works in emergencies, is censorship-resistant and encrypted. I could collect money for X nodes to cover the whole city by approaching cafes, bars, libraries or universities and asking them to contribute by setting up a node for them. If successful, maybe other cities would follow the example and the citizens of each would bootstrap their own networks.

Get involved in local politics. Go to community meetings. Learn who has power and start building your own. These kinds of things take years.

If you don't want to do that, at least start donating to local politicians who you agree with, volunteer for them, tell your friends to vote for them. Local races are often won by dozens to hundreds of votes. You can easily swing that. And don't focus on "highest value" work. Door-to-door canvassing is more important than any code you can write.

Volunteer! Encourage others to do the same!

One thing I'm doing that's actually having a significant impact is helping out build local mountain biking and hiking trails. This has downstream effects as it gives kids something to do that's healthy and positive.

I have other friends that volunteer in churches and various ministries playing music which also has downstream effects.

Remember the line for the homeless shelter is very long out front, but the door on the backside of the building where volunteers enter never has a line.

I live in a "Top 10 most dangerous cities in the U.S." What can I do to help?

Jane Jacobs is probably most famous for saying "eyes on the street" is the key to safety. To get eyes on the street: Walk more, tend to your front yard and be visibly out and about. Encourage other people to do the same.

I also recommend the book The Tipping Point.

You might be interested in joining r/CitizenPlanners on Reddit. I run it. I previously ran a Citizen Planners subforum on Cyburbia years ago.

Report to local government issues such as potholes, misleading traffic signs, bugs in traffic signs, illegally placed advertisements...

In my city (Kraków, Poland) it leads to fixes. It is important to remember that whoever maintains infrastructure is not omniscient and such reports are likely to be useful.

This one is likely to be useful in addition to other actions given your target.

Study.

What is most common, and least helpful, in societal issues, is to look to an authority for a quick fix, presuming that protest and action from above cures all ills. But how did they get that authority?

Well, at some point they most likely researched a topic to the point where they could craft a convincing argument.

But that isn't where the matter should rest. When you want better, you have to set a benchmark for better.

And so studies are the tool - deep, rich ones, crafted around the specific scenario. This lets you convince the public and authorities, one at a time, that a certain course of action has merit. Often, officials respond well to requests to study a topic: It builds a path to legitimize action. But you have to hold your own standards high too, and not fall into partisan ways of thinking.

Sometimes you can approach with a broad message, other times you should focus on developing a small circle of people. It is not a uniform thing.

This is nuanced, but..

Sometimes your own personal preferences are different from what you think would be best for the city or region. When that occurs, advocate for - tell friends, vote, donate, etc. - the policy that you think is best for the city, even if it's worse for you.

Residential zoning is a ready example because split positions come up all the time. I can't count the number of times I've heard "I agree that the city needs more housing and that the current zoning doesn't make sense, but I like it the way it is."

While nobody's going to fault you for putting yourself first, if you want to help improve the city, put it before yourself.

(Of course, often someone believes that a given policy is best for the city and it's also their personal preference. In those cases, my comment doesn't apply.)

Am I insane for thinking permaculture? Get out of the city lifestyle mindset and turn more people into rob greenfield style mindset. Everybody’s already thinking it, people are starting to do it, and it could just be the next big thing that does wonders for people happiness and healing the environment.

In a city where a major drawback is overcrowding, and as a person who might just be another average one in the crowd, statistically the city might be better off if you left town.

OTOH, if you have above average ambition or ability for improvement and are willing to take that kind of action, the city can become a better place to live just from sticking around and doing more of what you are strongest at in that direction.

Especially if you can motivationally leverage that ambition to grow within the crowd.

Otherwise you can't tackle the problems where one person is simply not enough.

Might be the only way improvements have ever been made in an environment which attracts a crowd to begin with.

The micro thing is to not lose the ambition and ability you have now, firm up the foundation as much as needed so you can build stronger actions than could be taken from that point otherwise.

Get others around you to believe and hope in your neighbourhood and then as a team, you can start to dictate what you want the neighbourhood to be like. Many people are willing to help in my experience but either don't because of lethargy or fear.

For example, some people in an estate in London got together and started planting flowerbeds to make the estate look really nice. Because everyone was involved, you can imagine what happened when some people from another estate came to damage it (hint, the locals stood up for themselves and their hard work).

Work out what makes your neighbourhood "most dangerous" and target some of that. Perhaps lobby for more streetlights, clean up some areas, pool some cash to help fix up someone's house.

Much important change happens one individual at a time. So I would say: 1) Honesty (with kindness). 2) Treating others the way oneself would want to be treated (the Golden Rule). 3) Be observant for anyone doing anything good & praiseworthy and encourage them ("good job at ___ing! Way to go! I like it!"). 4) find opportunities to serve, and also encourage others. One way is via https://www.justserve.org/ which lets individuals find organizations looking for local volunteers, or organizations post what they do so individuals can find them (free).

edit: 5?: While at it, be good to your family. An excellent long-term investment.

> "What is the micro thing I can do today, that can have a chance of a macro change tomorrow?"

You could to a small thing, making your home exterior look presentable. By cleaning/improving the outside of your home, you have a positive impact on the rest of the community. After that, you can try helping neighbours improve their homes and the area will slowly improve...

This is related to the [1] Broken Window Theory.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory#:~:text=....

The simplest thing is make friends with your neighbors. Once you have a bond with your neighborhood, you can become educated about local issues, and spread this knowledge among your community. Then the community can work collectively toward its interests.

Even if you live in a rich / sheltered community, you can still help your neighbors understand the needs of underprivileged communities and how they can help.

Finally, organize community engagement days. One day a week for you and your neighbors to clean up, attend a city council meeting, learn about current events, or vote in local elections. Or just have a mini block party for people to chat.

Get to know your neighbors, local businesses, make ties to people. Attend city council meetings or whatever similar opportunities you have to get involved in minutiae. Pick an issue you care about like education, parks, bike lanes, whatever, and approach advocacy and learning like a hobby. The more people get engaged with face-to-face networking or organizing, the more the city is empowered to change. A lot of the real or perceived random violence and intractable social problems are really predictable outcomes of racist and impoverishing policies and habits.

Pick up trash, plant a tree, install a bike rack, comment at city council meeting (extra easy these days because they take voicemail now), volunteer to feed the homeless, install/stock a free little library.

Every broken city is broken in its own way. Heck, every neighborhood is broken in its own way. Unless you're more specific about what is going on, the advice you'll get here will be not be effective.

If you have the means to do so and live in the right climate — winter is approaching — plant a garden. It doesn't have to be anything large, I personally keep about 20-30 potted plants outside my door during the spring and summer.

This will do two things: A) Get you out on the block as you tend to your plants, where you can now serve as eyes on the street. B) Serve as a visual testament to people passing through your neighborhood that this is a place where people care about.

My idea is to go deep into the bottom and essentially start a part time job of local community leader.

Once you walk enough roads and knock enough doors you get to know everyone in the area. You can at least find comrades who are either politicians already or would be politicians so that you can team up to bring improvement to the community.

Sometimes this may danger you life if gangs control the local area so prepare to go dirty or just leave for some place at least decent enough.

Consider joining a Code for America Brigade (brigade.codeforamerica.org)!

I am a member of Open San Diego (opensandiego.org), where we work on projects in partnership with local gov and non-profits to improve election transparency, maximize policy and funding for school meals, and advocate civic history. There are lots of opportunities to get involved at a small scale, and motivated experienced tech focused people are in high demand!

A small thing: Take responsibility for your neighborhood. I like to run in the park next door to my home (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Eola_Park). When someone discards a spent cigarette onto the ground around me, I pick it up, give it back to them, and point them to the nearest wastebasket.

Litter pickup. No one else is going out and picking up litter with a grabber and a bag unless they're in trouble or it's their job, which is rare apparently. Just go out and start cleaning. Besides becoming a volunteer fire fighter, or some other full time volunteer position, I think litter collection and disposal is something that will help the neighborhood.

I think one of the highest ROI things you could do would be to create a free program for disadvantaged kids - just a place where they can come and exist, for free, without anyone hassling them. If they can also get enrichment activities, play sports, and get some positive mentorship, that's a bonus. But just giving them a crime-free third place would be a great start.

If the buildings on your street are still privately owned, you could convince the owners to stop renting to section 8 tenants. This is not an easy pitch since the FMR for a street that is primarily section 8 will be less than the ACH deposit you get from the HUD. If you can pull it off, in 2-4 years the values of the buildings will shoot up 50% along with the rents.

Great question. I'm biased that poverty is the root of lots of evil and danger.

Creating opportunities via employment, skills and social peace are my recommended ways of approaching the problem.

I am not sure about the scale you wish for. In my tiny world view, I would be very happy to take classes, skill workshops and collaborate with institutions to help develop employability.

Actively participate in government budgeting meetings, and attempt to prevent staffing creep. Bloat/bureaucracy will kill any community ownership that inhabitants might have.

Ensure that employees that are not performing are being fired. Speak in meeting about the need to adhere to performance reviews with metrics. If you do not keep our city departments heads in check they will break your city, because their job depends on it. Remove any pension plan for government employees, all they do is encourage stagnation, change them to 401k or TSP style programs.

Any nonprofit is mostly a band aid, while small wins can be rewarding they are more or less pointless in the long run.

The only way to improve the Top 10 cities is personal ownership change among the minority of the population that mostly just doesn't give a shit about anyone else. Litter is probably the easiest indicator of the give a shit factor. Everything else you do that does not directly impact community ownership is just lipstick on a pig.

The easiest way to fix community ownership is move people out of big cities and into cities with more direct social pressure to have ownership/not be a dirt bag.

The harder way is to reduce bureaucracy and blockers for small business and citizens. Not income taxes, but all the hidden taxes that hit small businesses, tap fees, permit fees, occupation tax, inspection fees, sewer tap fees, storm water fees, employee fees, inventory taxes, the list goes on and on and on and on. The impact of these taxes are amplified by the timelines, which are regularly measured in years, which almost no startup or small business entrepreneur can tolerate capital wise. These barrier fees and artificially long timelines are most prevalent in big cities, and make it nearly impossible for anyone other than large national brands to navigate/afford. Those national brands just remove revenue from the community, which encourages these small governments to keep passing more and more upfront fees/taxes and the cycle repeats until there are nearly no local small business owners left. (Tenant/renter small businesses are generally the only ones that remain after about 20-30 years of this cycle. ie convenience stores and restaurants)

Working for John/Sally your neighbor will fundamentally change your world view of your community. If citizens do not personally see their community being successful they will simple check out of social/civic give a shit process.

Working for HR also changes your world view and the result is not positive.

The people that will drive change in a community are the small business owners and workers not the bureaucrats/politicians that have never done anything in there life except talk about how growing the budget will solve "insert random issue" problem.

I tried to improve cities, and implemented open-source alternative to Uber (PoC, simplified, but works). I spoke to multiple people, community leaders, and even cities/state government (I am in US). The train is still there. I gave up TBH, and more focused on making a big buck for myself instead of improving the world.

Be present in public areas. Plant flowers.

Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer! This is one of the best ways you can incrementally give back to your community. It's a small step, but you will find a network of like-minded individuals and will then be in a better position to take bigger steps. It is hard to change things alone.

If I were you, I would look for local resources, availability of talent and visit mayors office to come-up with a business which can provide employment. However, you will have to look for resources from which you can build a value-add product which can be sold outside from city.

Volunteer with Kaboom! building playgrounds, or some other charity that is doing real work toward city improvement. It's an easy way to get started, you'll be doing real work that has benefits you can see, and it doesn't cost much except in time and elbow grease.

I like what he is saying here [1]. Warning this channel is political. However, his views on community building is worth taking look at.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF2U6oplx8Y

What about working with local youth to help them develop their skills? There's this cool initiative in the UK - maybe similar things exist in the US?

https://speakoutchallenge.com/

Well there is a startup which is exactly for this problem. Checkout https://www.bangthetable.com/engagementhq-community-software

That depends on where you can be most useful.

IMO: You could start a non-profit to train homeless/underprivileged people with vocational skills to get jobs, which would probably in the long run save some people from going down the wrong path...

Personally I feel like if I want to try to make even a small impact on the world around me I'd have to make a profound impact on my own life. And I've never been prepared to do this. I could be wrong though.

Join citizen advisory boards and councils. I’ve been doing some research on these for a potential project and the average age of people on them has to be 65. Need to see more representation from younger demographics.

Become mindful of local-independent shopping options. Putting dollars into the places in your community where it will stay in your community is one of the better options that is well-controllable by individuals.

Raise a family, own your home, pay your taxes, and work hard to get to know all your neighbors. Be politically active; get on a committee or two and get to know the local boards and elected officials.

Years ago I read of several Boomers who settled in north Boston in a rather bombed out neighborhood, invested themselves into this area and became politically active. The city was more responsive to them because of the fact that they were known and active and vocal.

Of course also support business investments and reasonable taxes & zoning regulations in your city, because without money, nothing else will succeed.

Also support your local public schools, take an active interest, get on the school committee, volunteer if possible at the school, and just be involved. Schools are vital to attracting solid families to an area to anchor it and reduce crime and negligence.

Good luck and keep in mind that it's a decades-long pursuit, not something that is solved in a month, or even a year. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Organize extracurricular activities for kids in the worst neighborhoods. Giving kids positive role models and teaching them useful skills (e.g. programming) could greatly improve things long term

My completely uneducated guesses would be

- campaign for whatever local government you deem aligns with your value if they aren't controlling your area

- create value and employment

Easier said than done, I'm doing none of these

Calculate out the highest ROI activity on time to improve a city and share it everywhere you can including with me. Don’t listen to the other answers because they don’t know the math

You could grow a food forest and teach people how to grow their own food. I'm attempting this on a small downtown property. I'm in the very early stages.

support local farmers and food supplies! The ones that practice organic farming (but don't need to be certified by USDA)

Guerrilla Gardening are awesome!!! If you growing stuff, why not grow food!! Check out this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzZzZ_qpZ4w

Get to know your local and state politicians, sheriff. That is way more important than the election that just happened.

Get to know your neighbours make friends with them, help them out. Build a better community that way.

Don't look at technological or political changes, change yourself.

Any time there is an election, volunteer. Get people to vote, canvass, post up flyers. Local elections can have the difference of a couple dozen votes.

Pick up one or two pieces of trash off the street every day as you walk around. Imagine if everyone did this how much nicer the place would look?

Create communities or have a club house of sorts for people to congregate to feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for the place.

This is going to get bury, but thank you so much for everyone's answer. I also loved the discussions that sprouted up.

Two choices really:

Either you put in your own effort as an organizer/leader/etc...

Or you put in effort to make money and donate it to the causes.

David, what are your skills and your resources? What's best for you to do depends on what you can bring.

Cycle

The only "micro" thing you can do is stop thinking that some small personal investment will magically have an outsized impact. Nothing short of a massive & collective investment of resources and time will even make a dent in American cities that have been systematically segregated and bled dry by racist capitalists for 100 years. Cities are run by monopolist developers, landlords, investors, & wage theives and we must sytematically reappropriate them through class struggle. If you really want to help the people––& not simply feel better about being a gentrifier––join or support a local tennant's union or other housing justice org, or join an org or mutual aid project whose goal is to build people power to challenge the ruling class. https://www.pslweb.org/ would be a great place to start !

- Support local journalism

- Vote in every election

- Donate generously to local nonprofits

- Liberate your mind from techie libertarianism. Problems surrounding education, job training, climate, housing, homelessness and public transportation all need massive public investments at all levels of government.

Don't litter

Do you live in Baltimore?

Cycle, don’t drive.

Educate inmates.

Modesto, CA?

offer free education to inmates.

Hire.

Cyle

I like how some comments are painting a rise in wealth in these areas as somehow bad, but are hiding it behind the term “gentrification” and doing cartwheels to make sure the areas stay in poverty but somehow better than before.

I’ll leave the comment at that, it’s amusing enough.

I know that this is not the answer you're expecting and you've explicitly stated that you don't want to do, but the best thing to do is to move. By staying there, you're contributing to whatever is bad there.

If the problems could be fixed by individuals, someone else with much better reach and opportunity would most likely already have done so. I'm sure the problems are much bigger than what individuals or even big groups can do to fix, mostly because of the size of the city.

By moving away, to a better one, you're draining away resources that it feeds on. At some point, the city has to fix its problems... and with most people gone, it's very much likely that the problem becomes much more manageable for individuals and small groups.

Violent crime rates are almost 100% predicted by demographic factors that you can’t control (except at the margins, e.g. by evicting problematic demographics or by voting for immigration laws that favor beneficial demographics).

> I live in a "Top 10 most dangerous cities in the U.S."

Become batman. That might help.

> However, this causes a brain drain and leave the city in a worse place.

The narcissistic ego. It's not "brain drain", it's jobs. You can have wonderful cities full of factory/maintenance/etc workers. I'm going to bet that a city's quality is tied to the citizens' financial security and physical security.

As for what you can do? Nothing. Cities improve with capital investment/systematic top-down focus, not via individuals who watch too many marvel movies. You are not going to bring crime down, you are not going to bring jobs in, you are not going to rebuild the city.

> I don't want to do that, I want to uplift if I can.

Oh my god. People need jobs/financial security. Not some virtue signaling techie from HN trying to "uplift" them.

Just live your life, who do you think you are? If naive attention-seeking idealist saved cities, all the cities in the country would be thriving. But they are not. Figure it out.

Elect socially liberal, fiscally conservative leadership.

As one person without large resources the highest impact thing you could do today for the type of area you are describing is to procure a firearm and start killing drug dealers.

I'm not suggesting you do this but this is without a doubt the answer to your question.

Cities are the way they are because people are desperate for work and the income to survive and they are the only visible supply.

Advocate for basic income. Specifically basic income without any local cost of living adjustment. Address the source of the problem.

A basic income without CoL adjustment fundamentally breaks the system forcing people to cram themselves into cities and compete over resources. It will result in people who decide to rely on it leaving cities and moving to lower cost of living areas (revitalizing those areas too) if cities don't serve their needs.

You can condemn violent groups like Antifa that vandalize and destroy private property in the public right of way that makes the entire city look like a mess.

Invest in opportunity zones, and support legislation, that expands them and their incentives. Push to democratize access to these kinds of funds so that more institutional capital can be built from smaller investors.

in so far as improving your city, one idea would be to start with the children. Improving their mental health and growth is vital to sustaining a healthy community. Cities all around the United states continually fluoridate their drinking water under the guise of dental health, this has been scientifically proven to be inaccurate and outdated ideologies.

Today, there is science to demonstrate that the use of Fluoride in drinking water is harmful to early development as well as during regular use.

https://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2011/02/fluoride-your-water-h...

https://www.fairwarning.org/2020/06/courtroom-battle-fluorid...

“Case No. 17–cv–02162–EMC” Food & Water Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, 291 F. Supp. 3d 1033, (N.D. Cal. 2017)

This is something you can do in your community.

> I live in a "Top 10 most dangerous cities in the U.S." What can I do to help?

Nothing.

> I don't want to do that, I want to uplift if I can.

You can't uplift a skyscraper.

> What is the micro thing I can do today, that can have a chance of a macro change tomorrow?

Change happens when pragmatic, intelligent people want change to happen.

Disaster happens when idealistic, dumb people want change to happen.