We’ve heard the complaint a million times: social media ironically makes us less social. Though it keeps us up-to-date with each other, online networks can also isolate us behind computer screens and disconnect us from real life. Maybe that’s why Google+ has received so much hype for its group video chat feature, which allows people to actually see and hear each other as they communicate online. Personally, though, I’m even more excited about another lesser-known Website that’s going even further to put the social back in social media.  The site GrubWithUs.com is helping people get past their computer screen barrier and connect at the best possible place: the dinner table.

A Chicago start-up, GrubWithUs uses social media to organize dinners at local restaurants for strangers who want to meet new people. I first heard about the Website when I read a great New York Times article by technology reporter Jenna Wortham, who described her own experience with the service in New York.  After visiting the website and looking at a list of dinners in her city, she opted for Thai food and bought a ticket, which usually cost about $25.  GrubWithUs works with restaurants to coordinate a family style menu for its group dinners, and after making a reservation, guests show up to eat and socialize.

Two college friends named Diashin Sugano and Eddy Lu came up with the idea for GrubWithUs when they moved to Chicago to open a pastry shop and struggled to make new friends.  “We didn’t really know anyone there, and we went to bars and lounges and did the normal thing to make friends, and it was really hard to meet people,” Sugano told the Los Angeles Times this spring when GrubWithUs expanded to Los Angeles. “And one of the social settings where we, and we think most people, feel comfortable in is over dinner — it’s one of the oldest traditions out there.” The idea caught on quickly, and today GrubWithUs organizes dinners in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Boston, Seattle, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Austin.

As far as social media sites go, I think GrubWithUs is on to something good. It’s using modern technology to build community beyond our computers, and people are getting excited about it. As Wortham reports in her article, more than 10,000 people have registered with the Website since it began organizing dinners last August.

At the same time, part of me cringes to think that we actually need an online social network to meet people in our communities. I’m reminded of dating Websites like Match.com or eHarmony.com that are quite effective and popular for many people out there. In her article, Wortham asks, “Do we really need the Web to make friends?” and I’d like to believe the answer is no; we can meet people randomly on the streets or though other acquaintances without the assistance of Facebook, Foursquare or even GrubWithUs.

Still, while I hope that community building never depends completely on social media, maybe it doesn’t hurt to harness the Internet for that purpose. As long as we only use social media to complement – not control – our social lives, Websites like GrubWithUs are just another fun way to meet people. At the very least the new meal-based social network has sparked my curiosity, perhaps even enough to try it out myself.

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We want to know:
1.    What do you think of GrubWithUs? Would you ever register for a dinner with strangers?
2.    Do you think we rely too much on social media to meet new people?

This post was inspired by the New York Times article, “Focusing on the social, minus the media,” as well as the Los Angeles Times article, “GrubWithUs looks to take social networking from the Web to the dinner table.”

We at State of the Re:Union are so excited to announce five new shows for the fall season, which are set to be released beginning on Friday, September 16, 2011.

Here is a sneak peek at the episodes that will be about some unique challenges of community and how it brings people together:

Bronx, New York – The Bronx has symbolized America’s failings for a long time. It remains the poorest urban congressional district in the nation, and ask a New Yorker about the boroughs and they’ll usually tell you the Bronx is the one to avoid. Despite the area’s troubles, some citizens hailing from this region have resisted an exodus with the intentions of putting down roots and making the borough a better place to live. This episode will look at the hold-outs and the dreamers who have committed their lives and families to building community in the Bronx.

Gulf Coast of Mississippi - The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina forced the residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast to band together to help the community get back on its feet. Just as the groove of life was returning to a normal level, the BP Deep Horizon disaster resulted in millions of barrels of oil being dumped into the water off their shores, once again having a debilitating impact on their everyday lives. These events have resulted in a lot of Gulf Coast residents becoming environmental aficionados, something they had never before imagined. SOTRU will bring you an hour of stories about how the fight for the natural world is uniting residents of the Gulf Coast, sometimes with unlikely partners–and how, in some instances, this environmental fight is exacting what this community has needed to survive.

Southern Wyoming – Wyoming is the least populated state in America. This is a sparsely occupied landscape where private property and self-sufficiency are prized, and the community that has been built tends to reflect the not-so-neighborly sentiment. The thought is slightly unsettling that distant neighbors might need to rely on another. For people to come together here, the reason must be good. This episode will take you to the towns of Laramie, Cheyenne and the surrounding landscape in Southern Wyoming. It will create a window, allowing a look into how the happenings in small towns of the rural United States’ countryside can set national changes into motion.

Cleveland, Ohio - From Rockefeller’s Standard Oil to GE’s first industrial park , the city of Cleveland was built from entrepreneurial spirit. This Ohio city was known for its success, until an infamous day in 1969 where the polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire, and has since become a bane in Cleveland’s existence. “The Mistake on the Lake” has become synonymous with the city and a moniker they have not been able to shake. Today, a new generation of entrepreneurs is embracing Cleveland. This episode will take the hour to explore how they are relying on their business sense in an effort to revitalize neighborhoods, cleanup the environment and improve education.

Sacramento, California - This is a company town, the caveat being that the company is government. Here, one in four households contains a government employee. There are many reasons that Sacramento citizens’ could have an ominous future outlook: the crippling state budget deficit, police loafs, fire engine brown-outs and park closures. However, these men and women believe that persistence is the key to getting through the murk and mire. Through the sheer determination, the residents and an enthusiastic mayor are keeping their major league basketball team for yet another year. Despite the Murphy’s Laws or Catch 22′s that the people of Sacramento have experienced, they refuse to become a gloomy statistical reference. The city’s number of chronically homeless people surviving on the streets actually went down this past year. This episode will uncover how the Sacramento residents are taking stock in their community. SOTRU will explore ways they are coping with this hard new economic reality, from volunteering to maintain city parks with Parks and Recreation budgets cuts, to creating clothing swaps and and home shares.

Go ahead, we know you’re a leader, so get the conversation started! State of the Re:Union would love to get your thoughts on the episodes when they are made available. Don’t stop there, we would also love your feedback on our newest documentaries, and on all things SOTRU and community related.

A Long Island Village Takes a Stand Against Hate Crimes

Last year I attended the National League of Cities conference here in Denver, where I watched an outstanding documentary called, “Welcome to Shelbyville.” It was about a small city in Tennessee that was coming to grips with a growing Somali population and how immigration was changing the community.

The film could easily have been made about Colorado towns such as Greeley or Fort Morgan, where many East Africans have arrived to take jobs in the local meat processing plants. In fact, throughout the South, the West and the Midwest, these new “gateway” communities are experiencing the challenges and opportunities associated with immigration that only large urban centers experienced in the past.

My organization, the National Civic League, was involved in a statewide project funded by the Colorado Trust to do community dialogues focused on immigrant integration in 2007 and 2008. Immigration was a hot topic in Colorado and nationally during that period, but it was an issue that cut in unexpected ways, dividing conservative against conservative and posing perplexing challenges to liberals as well.

The Bush Administration, for instance, tried and failed to pass a comprehensive immigration bill during its second term, but Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a non-comprehensive (and one-sided) immigration bill focused strictly on enforcement that alliented Latino voters.

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Since the onslaught of the Great Recession, other debates seem to have eclipsed immigration as hot button issues

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In 2007, Robert Putnam, a liberal political scientist at Harvard, published “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century,” which found that ethic diversity was associated with lower levels of social trust. Putnam wasn’t arguing against immigration, quite the contrary. He was exploring the complexity of the issue, and the challenges for democratic institutions in which levels of social trust are a key to success.

On September 21, PBS stations will air a new documentary called “Not in Our Town: Light in the Darkness.” The documentary explores how a town in Long Island, New York, came to grips with a series of hate crimes that culminated in the murder of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero by a group of local teenagers. The documentary tracks efforts by local leaders to change the local atmosphere of fear and hate that led to the murder.

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Patchogue Village Mayor Paul Pontieri held a series of meetings with Latino residents to understand the nature of the problem. New leaders emerged, including the victim’s brother, Joselo Lucero, who became a champion for justice and unity, and a local librarian-assistant named Gilda Ramos who had tried to warn people about the attacks. Thousands gathered at the local train station near the site of the attack for a candle light vigil in the rain.

The Suffolk County Police Department assigned Spanish-speaking officers to the village. The Patchogue-Medford Library began to serve as a link for the local immigrant population, providing a safe venue where people could meeting and discuss the issues. The schools got involved as well.

The film will be the center piece of a “Not in Our Town National Week of Action” from September 18-24. Public media outlets and other groups will hold screenings, events and discussions on hate crime prevention and ways to make communities safer.

Since the onslaught of the Great Recession, other debates seem to have eclipsed immigration as hot button issues—namely jobs, deficit and debt, which isn’t surprising in a way. In a faltering economy there are fewer jobs and immigration tends to slacken, but the recent horror in Norway, where an anti-immigrant fanatic attacked kids at a Labor Party youth camp, was a reminder that communities and countries ignore the issue of immigrant integration at their own peril.

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Mike McGrath is senior editor and chief information officer for the National Civic League. A former newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he is editor of the quarterly National Civic Review, which will be beginning its centennial year of publishing this spring.

Mike’s posts will appear every Thursday on the State of the Re:Union website.

Part 4 of a 4 Part Series

In Part 1, Rise to Greatness, the aspects creating an extraordinary small town are discovered, from the townspeople to the allure and exclusivity enjoyed by affluent visitors. Part 2 explores the grim outlook of Ticonderoga Today, and additional challenges affronting the town. In Part 3, Birthplace of the Alliance reveals the resolute people behind the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance who are fervidly working to find a progressive solution to the town’s dilemma. The last installment of this series, What Sets Us Apart, dissects and explores the reasons and resources of why the town can be successful in its revitalization, providing hope and a blueprint for other small towns.

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THE TICONDEROGA STORY – PART 4

What Sets Us Apart

In Ticonderoga, we have a reasonable chance at making the cut and, many say, serving as a successful model for other parts of the North Country — principally because we understand these issues and, thereby, the goals that must be set.  We are not intimidated by our smallness in population.  A key to our success will be our ability to re-value and leverage our natural capital and our vacant real estate to create a vibrant tourist destination anchored by an entrepreneurial backbone and academic links aimed at attracting the higher paying jobs.

Also, our approach to revitalization appears to be different in a handful of profound ways:

(1) It includes a powerful citizen’s movement at its heart,
(2) supported, initially, by its principle corporate citizens,
(3) dependent, in the long run, on a kind of market discipline through the use of public/private partnerships, whereby private investors and operating partners are incented to drive the financial and operating components of the individual projects,
(4) where increased diversity and substantially expanded academic links to the community have become essential revitalization strategies and
(5)  where the “footprint” is broad enough and capable of being expanded further to assure real reform.

The dilemma of Ticonderoga shows us the flaws and holes existing in the fabric making up our society. With the continued economic state, this is becoming more and more of a common thread binding the human spirit together. Ticonderoga is the looking glass of our nation’s heart: its will to survive easily outweighs its empty coffers.

That’s how hope works. It was a fortress of hope for citizens during a grim time of war, and now with financial turmoil threatening its existence, the town of Ticonderoga calls upon the strength of character that helped secure our nation in its humble and tumultuous beginning. Embodying the fortitude portrayed in James Fennimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, Ticonderoga, too, will fight to survive. Believing in something gives rise to the spirit lying dormant in humankind. So, pondering the story of Ticonderoga, does it take “new blood” for a town to come back from the brink of extinction? Or have those at the Alliance formulated an anecdote for the resuscitation of our small towns across the nation: spirit, fortitude, and a willful defiance not to fade away from future history?

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The alliance has produced video interviews with residents and alliance members alike so that you can hear about their experience and fascinating stories first hand. This is Debra Malaney, Supervisor of the town of Ticonderoga. Below is part one of a three part interview. Visit the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance website to watch the other part, the other interviews, and to see the incredible photographs and other inspiring features.

Interviews conducted and produced by Josh Clement. Contact Josh here.

State of the Re:Union would like to thank Alex Levitch for contacting us, and the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance for sharing their history and stories with our audience. This extraordinary group of citizens rallied together to revitalize and reinvent their town, illustrating just how powerful a determined community can be.

Tell us your thoughts on Ticonderoga and the TRA’s efforts in the comment box below.

Part 3 of a 4 Part Series by the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance

In Part 1 – Rise to Greatness, the factors, spirit and people that made this small town such a celebrated location by so many were explored. Part 2, looked at the rather bleak picture of Ticonderoga Today and the many challenges the town faces. Birth of the Alliance, is Part 3 and presents not only a nice sentiment of hope, but the actual work, the innovative solutions that are being instituted by passionate residents with a vision that have come together as part of the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance.

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In mid-2010, the sheer unacceptability and burden of the town’s social costs enabled the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance to come into being on the back of an unprecedented grass roots citizens’ Alliance from all walks and interests. The new Alliance quickly secured, in turn, a sweeping Town mandate to facilitate a complete economic makeover and playbook for a new broader regional prosperity.

The principle operating tenants of the new Alliance would prove largely contrarian. They called for (i) an integrated economic makeover in place of a series of “one-up”, disconnected projects, (ii) exceeding municipal boundaries into regional networks of varying distances and complexities, (iii) emphasizing universal deployment of project-specific funding/operating partners, whereby (iv) the Alliance would focus on offering partner and funding outreach, integrated communications, transactional and project management as well as overall coordination of the economic development objectives for Ticonderoga. This, in turn, would necessitate (v) deployment of a full-time, accomplished, professional management team and (vi) an emphasis on private investment (over public financing).

Timing Is Right

There is tremendous potential in creating this first-ever citizen Alliance. This movement is not happening in a vacuum. A powerful new trend of middle class flight from the cities and suburbs back to small towns throughout the country, aided by new technologies and rapid development of regional education “nets”, is settling in for good. Small towns everywhere are taking up the revitalization mantle. Stories of successful programs are recorded monthly. There is little need any more for inventiveness- only proven programs need apply.

Singular Vision

The Alliance intends to leverage its Power of Place and private investments to lead its revitalization efforts. Initial projects will reaffirm Ticonderoga’s role as an important gateway to American history as well as its strength as a year-round outdoor paradise of parks, waterfalls, river walk, and lake access– all through a singular vision of a New Prosperity. These projects will attract fresh capital, ideas, people to a vibrant year-round tourist destination, stimulate small business/value-add jobs, and be anchored by expanded residential housing, resort facilities, and key academic and regional links.

A New Compact

The Town is pledging predictability, transparency and sustainability; the town citizenry pledges broad consensus and urgency; and Ticonderoga’s principal corporate citizens pledge founders capital and constructive input.

Armed with significant reaffirmations of its partnerships with its principle corporate citizens, the Alliance is not looking for handouts. It intends to provide meaningful returns on corporate investments – apart and aside from the substantial public relations value to any one of these companies to be gained for helping to revitalize and rebuild an entire town like Ticonderoga!

Accomplishments

• We have aligned under one, new, powerful, symbiotic framework all the interests and requisite resources to support most any project from a $50 million four star resort/streetscape bond issuance to $500,000 Main Street private investor distressed real estate Roll-up fund.
• We’ve launched the first stage of the roll-up fund and are securing control of our first Main Street building with private investors for less than five cents on the replacement dollar, intended to anchor all the downtown revitalization.
• We’re in the early process of setting up a trial arts & Artisans program with the planned construction of an 18^th century replica sawmill and academic partners helping to anchor an Institute of Adirondack Woodworking and a separate institute of Adirondack Arts, which will look to attract juried artists and artisans with bargain real estate and open arms to come live, create and sell their wares in Ticonderoga.
• We’re also in the early process of identifying and reaching out to potential employers that would benefit from deploying out of Ticonderoga as a “regional Hub”.
• We’re also in the early process of exploring prospective partnerships with business and retail incubation & entrepreneurial mentoring services.
• Also on the immediate horizon are first-time planning within the Alliance between Town and Fort and Town and Community College to set up appropriate learning centers and integrated business opportunities relating to locational strengths.

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The alliance has produced video interviews with residents and alliance members alike so that you can hear about their experience and fascinating stories first hand. This is Bill Polihronakis, who grew up in Ticonderoga and was eventually brought back to live and take over the family logging business. Below is part one of a three part interview. Visit the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance website to watch the other part, the other interviews, and to see the incredible photographs and other inspiring features.

Interviews conducted and produced by Josh Clement. Contact Josh here.

Be sure to visit Monday, July 25th, for part 4, “What Sets Us Apart,” and don’t forget to visit their official website for other features, information and updates.

Part 1 of a 4 Part Series

Ticonderoga is a small town of 5,300 in upstate New York. It’s story isn’t a one-of-a-kind, that is, a town’s largest employer packs up shop and leaves a town, thus crumbling the local economy, stifling growth and setting the area into a cycle of hard times for years to come. But the resiliency and innovation of its residents is a story that never gets old.

A number of concerned residents decided to stay and fight for their town, to resist a mass exodus that could have rendered the town indefinitely stagnant . . . at best. They formed the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance. The alliance has applied innovation, passion and old-fashioned hard work to make Ticonderoga a prosperous place once again. This story was brought to our attention by the alliance’s Chairman, Alex Levitch. Alex’s passion was infectious and the town’s story magnetizing. We knew that we wanted to share it with you.

“Rise to Greatness” is part one of a four part series. Be sure to visit every week in June for the continuing story.

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The Ticonderoga Story – Part 1

Rise to Greatness

Ticonderoga, a postcard picturesque town of 5,300 souls in upstate New York, serves as the gateway to six million acres of the Adirondack State Park. Here, in the fabled North Country of James Fennimore Cooper and The Last of the Mohicans, is the birthplace of America’s best preserved pre-revolutionary fort. Here, between Lake George and Lake Champlain, is where North America’s political boundaries were defined.

The beauty and prosperity of Ticonderoga was not a secret; from the mid-nineteenth century and through the early twentieth century, America’s rich and famous were drawn to the region’s cooler summer climates and natural splendor. During these “golden years,” the town became a haven for artists and writers seeking exclusivity and serenity. The tourist boom encouraged and strengthened Ticonderoga’s fledgling industrial economy, which soon included a graphite mine and mill and a paper pulp mill, which employed more than half the town.

Over time, Ticonderoga became a household name for every student who used a “Number 2 Ticonderoga pencil” and studied the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars. In addition to its rich natural capital base, Ticonderoga began to boom in a scope disproportionate to its small size: its invested capital base soon included an airport, hospital, community college and historic Main Street.

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The alliance has produced video interviews with residents and alliance members alike so that you can hear about their experience and fascinating stories first hand. It made sense to start with Alex. Below is part one of a four part interview. Visit the Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance website to watch the other three parts, the other interviews, amazing photographs and other features.

Interviews conducted and produced by Josh Clement. Contact Josh here.

Be sure to visit Monday, June 20th, for part 2, “Ticonderoga Today,” and don’t forget to visit their official website for other features, information and updates.