Reversing the social costs of the pandemic: rebuilding community networks and social capital

Danny Westneat, columnist for the Seattle Times, "Seattle's awful August shows the city continues to backslide on crime," complains that people seem to be taking, shootings, murders, and overdose deaths for granted, asking where is the outrage and involvement.  He mentions how Mayor Harrell held a "Day of Service" event where 4,000 people participated, but that one day isn't enough, which I think is a good point.  From the article:

I know I sound like old man shouting at clouds, but here goes anyway: When is Seattle going to rouse itself from its comfortable numbness and acknowledge it’s got a serious crime problem?

I recall communitywide outrage and mobilization about a decade ago when Seattle first started seeing an average of one shooting per day. Now there are two shootings daily — up 100% from before the pandemic. But there’s no similar rallying to action. The shootings — even the killings — are becoming background noise.

I fear the same is happening with drug overdoses and deaths. August has been the cruelest month on that front, too. The city’s 911 system has recorded 53 drug casualty calls just this month, more than double the average from the spring.

King County tracks all overdose calls. In August, so far, paramedics have attended to 141 opioid overdoses just in downtown Seattle. That’s five overdoses per day in that one neighborhood.

A year ago it was less than half that. Most of these are nonfatal, but the number of deaths due to fentanyl overdoses is about to exceed last year’s grim record — and again, it’s only August. 

There needs to be an event every month, as a way to rebuild the idea of community and people working together to address common problems.  From the article:

To move in a more positive direction, maybe one effort Seattle could try now is a citywide push to “reverse the pandemic.”

What happened during the pandemic? We separated. Schools and other institutions closed; programs went dark; mentoring stopped. It seems to me that this rending of social networks was quietly very damaging, but hasn’t gotten much of a repair effort.  ...

How about a citywide drive to “reverse the pandemic” with tutoring, volunteering, block watching, mentoring?

As discussed in the pieces on revitalization in St. Louis, there is a lot of opportunity in strengthening civic engagement networks more generally for community improvement.

-- "St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 1: Overview and Theoretical Foundations"
-- "St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 2: Implementation Approach and Levers"

Also the series on community-engaged commercial district revitalization:

-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 1 | The first six," 2020
-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 2 |  A neighborhood identity and marketing toolkit (kit of parts)," 2020
--  "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 3 | The overarching approach, destination development/branding and identity, layering and daypart planning," 2020
-- "Basic planning building blocks for "community" revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 4 | Place evaluation tools," 2020

And community-engaged neighborhood improvement:

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)," 2020
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2," 2020
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)," 2020
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)," 2020
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," 2021

And social urbanism and social infrastructure:

-- "Equity planning: an update," 2021