Nextdoor is a revenueless, VC-backed company based in San Francisco with a website for talking with your neighbors, giving away items, finding good service companies, and sharing info about local crimes. Unfortunately, too often this degenerates to complaining about your neighbors, racial profiling, and general paranoia about outsiders.
In the Oakland hills in particular, this can take on a nasty, racially-charged tone with people calling the police on their neighbors for "suspicious activities" like walking down the street while being black. Nextdoor, neighborhood groups, and local email lists can be positive tools for change in a community, but they can also amplify unconscious racial bias and fuel displacement and gentrification.
Links and References
- Racial Profiling Via Nextdoor.com East Bay Express October 7, 2015
