Online networks link neighbors, can help fight crime in St. Louis area

Her family moved to the Homefield subdivision about eight years ago from a military base, and she says it was hard to get used to a neighborhood that didn’t have the unifying force of a shared military structure.

After the burglaries, police gave her a packet of information about an upcoming National Night Out anti-crime event. Inside she found a solution to the disconnected nature of the suburban area. The packet mentioned the social networking site Nextdoor, a way to link up neighbors online.

She set up a site for her neighborhood in July, and Nextdoor is paying to send out 50 postcards a month to residents to tell them about the site. Scores of families have joined.

Nextdoor and a similar, competing site called i-Neighbors allow residents to set up social networks linked not by friendships or interests but geography. In a society in which fewer people really know their neighbors, the sites help people connect and can be a valuable tool to combat crime. In some places, police are actively working to get neighborhoods online to help share information and stifle criminal activity.

In Casey’s neighborhood, residents now have a way to communicate with one another if they see something suspicious or out of place. If they spot vandalism at the park, they don’t keep it to themselves. They post it to the site, and Casey springs to action to alert police and ask the maintenance crew to remove graffiti.

“It’s really working out, as far as communication,” Casey said.

On both Nextdoor and i-Neighbors, residents create a site for their neighborhood, then recruit others to join — with their real names and addresses. Both are free, though i-Neighbors recently launched a new service, for a monthly fee, which community leaders can use to broadcast text alerts to cellphones and send prerecorded voice messages in emergencies.

Members can post a photo of themselves and offer as much, or as little, information about themselves and their families as they want. Some people put up photographs of their front doors rather than photos of themselves.

Boths sites are becoming more popular in the St. Louis region, with about 100 neighborhoods using one site or the other by a recent count.

Keith N. Hampton, a sociologist who created i-Neighbors, said 75 neighborhoods within 25 miles of St. Louis have been active on the site in the past year. The sites are used by more than 120,000 people in 9,000 neighborhoods nationwide, according to the company.

Nextdoor, which launched nationwide in October 2011, says more than 70 neighborhoods have signed up to use its neighborhood websites in the St. Louis region. More than 8,500 neighborhoods are participating across the United States.

While some might think the computer is the lazy way to mingle with neighbors, Sarah Leary of Nextdoor says that people who connect online are far more likely to get together and meet their neighbors offline. The sites facilitate a desire to connect, she said.

“People have this interest in rebuilding a connection with their community,” she said. “That sounds like a nostalgic idea, but it really resonates.”

In some places, they are getting a nudge from police interested in the crime-fighting possibilities of the sites. In November, the Dallas Police Department announced it was partnering with Nextdoor to post crime alerts and information about crime trends that could be targeted citywide or to specific neighborhoods. About 100 Dallas police officers were trained to use the website. The company’s goal is to get 90 percent of Dallas neighborhoods to have a Nextdoor page within a year.

‘AN EARLY ALERT’

Mike Petetit, a resident of Lafayette Square and chairman of safety and security for Lafayette Square, said he hopes St. Louis will one day have Nextdoor citywide. He set up the site for Lafayette Square a few months ago and, with little effort, already has scores of the 777 households taking part. Petetit is also owner of the Park Avenue Mansion Bed & Breakfast and president of Neighborhood Ownership Model Inc.

Petetit’s neighborhood also has three other user groups to share information. He’d like to eventually drive everyone to Nextdoor. He said the site works better than email lists, which can become swamped with spam. It also allows members to “mute” others they might find annoying, and create smaller subgroups around specific issues or concerns.

“In our neighborhood, we’re already connected,” Petetit said, “but this allows information to flow quicker.”

Nextdoor also helps connect the neighborhood to police, who can get alerts when a resident wants to report something suspicious.

One resident used the site to remind his Lafayette Square neighbors to lock their car doors after a car break-in on Oct. 29. He told neighbors he saw three kids run off, with one stopping to ask for the time as a diversion. Such observations by members of the site can help police spot patterns or tie together incidents.

“It’s fantastic,” said St. Louis Police Officer Brian Min, the neighborhood liaison officer in Lafayette Square. “It’s an early alert, something to keep an eye on.”

And the site creates a personal connection. Residents might be more likely to send out alerts to an officer they know than to call 911 over something that might simply seem suspicious, Min said.

Plus, he said, “when you get people to communicate, it opens them up to develop a sense of community.”

Indeed, while some use the sites to target crime, the sites are also used for other mundane things, like finding a baby sitter or plumber. Postings about missing pets are common in the St. Louis area.

Back in O’Fallon, Casey’s adult daughter started chatting with another mom with children of the same age on the Nextdoor site. Soon they realized they lived within sight of each other but had never spoken.

“Now,” Casey said, “they’re arranging play dates.”