Community Blogs: The Larger Puzzle

Recently I’ve been having a growing sense of…malaise? about the scope of this blog and what it doesn’t do. I don’t cover all parts of Columbia/HoCo equally. I’m definitely Columbia-centric and more often than not my own village, Oakland Mills, receives the most attention. There are plenty of local stories that don’t get written about. Some, because I don’t know about them, and some because I don’t have enough background knowledge to understand why they are important.

I started writing Village Green/Town² when there were quite a few local blogs and I was carving out my own particular niche. Now the era of greatest popularity for community blogging appears to be over and my own particular niche is one of the few left standing. 

It’s not enough. 

If I had my way Columbia/HoCo would have as many community blogs as there are communities. I want to read about what’s happening in Kings Contrivance, learn more about the ins and outs of Elkridge, understand how all the different areas of Ellicott City are connected, and get a peek into what it’s like to live in Western HoCo. Yes, I would read all of them, if they existed.

Maybe I’m just a little bit nuts, but - - there are worse special interests to have. 

I root all the time for good local journalism. I’m happy to see the Baltimore Bnner stepping up in that regard. But I’d also love to see a rich array of community blogging and I might as well make a wish on a dandelion clock. It’s not happening,

It’s far easier to go on one’s own community Facebook group and hold forth than to establish a blog, commit to it, and work to establish an audience. Who has time for that? Almost nobody. I get that. But I think we’d have more opportunities to learn about and understand one another if we weren’t separated into so many different social media silos. 

We don’t know one another. We don’t often have opportunities to learn to empathize for one another. And then some big local issue rises up and we are at each other, faction against faction. What our big challenges are in Oakland Mills aren’t necessarily the same as those in Maple Lawn. Or Savage. Or Woodbine. 

But how would I - - or anyone - - know that?  

I’d love to learn all about them in the same way we learn to love the characters and communities in beloved book series that develop our understanding, volume after volume. They may be quirky, or not entirely likable. They may be heroes who don’t even know the immense value of their contributions. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to learn all that about Columbia/HoCo?

More than terse newspaper articles. More than Facebook rants. More than the unsubstantiated Next Door accusations and suspicions. Daily goings-on, and sincere human interest.

This blog was always meant to be a piece of a larger puzzle. By and large, that puzzle is gone. The big picture has gone missing. I don’t know what the answer is but I’m convinced that we could, somehow, know one another better.

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