What Makes A Good Neighbor?
We need to connect with our neighbors. Not just for emergency purposes, but for our overall well-being.
Hello! Last week I explained that I’m refining my content and launching a new how-to series for paying subscribers. In this series, I’ll cover "how-to" be better in relationships and improve our interpersonal dynamics. First up, how to be a good neighbor. ✨
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While in grad school, I took a journalism class on how to cover the climate crisis. I was part of the health/science cohort and took various journalism classes in the category. Part of the class was picking a beat, researching it, and writing stories as assignments.
The beat I chose was mutual aid and the climate crisis. Some classmates got nerdy with it and picked things like soil health or the carbon footprint of the aviation industry. I picked mutual aid as my beat because of my experience living through a freak winter storm that hit Texas with below-freezing temperatures in February 2021. The storm caused blackouts across the state which left millions of residents without heat or water in their homes for days. The state did not give ample warning about electrical grid failure and did not offer any solutions to residents in the aftermath of record snow and temperatures.
My wife and I left our apartment and stayed at our friends’ better insulated apartment for warmth and water the first couple days. In the days that followed, we relied on our neighbors for water since our pipes froze and burst. My neighbors also helped get my car out of black ice parked on the street. Across Texas, mutual aid groups, community organizations, friends, and family helped each other survive this extreme weather event. Buzzfeed estimates 700 people died from the storm, while the state’s official count puts the death toll at 246.
During the blackout, I kept on thinking of Jenny Odell’s words in her book How to Do Nothing:
“Let's not forget that, in a time of increasing climate-related events, those who help you will likely not be your Twitter followers; they will be your neighbors.”
After surviving the winter storm, that quote felt like a mantra. I keep returning to it, over and over again.
Through my work in the class, I eventually published a story for The Guardian titled Why Knowing Your Neighbors Could Save You In the Next Climate Disaster. That story is still relevant as ever.