Westside / Downtown

Local activist Kevin Norton says the City of Santa Cruz might be onto something much bigger than initiating a neighborhood microgrant program. He says the program – approved May 12 – could help rebuild neighborhood connection, an urgent and underreported issue in our community. Norton points to the high levels of dissatisfaction among American parents, and argues that rising loneliness, car-centered development, economic stress and declining social trust have quietly eroded the “village” Americans once relied on. He believes immigrant communities may hold important clues for how to rebuild and argues that rebuilding neighborhood connection is urgent.