On Monday, Oct. 12, City leaders announced a new collaboration with Nextdoor, a private social network for neighborhoods, to improve citywide and neighbor-to-neighbor communications.
Mayor Ralph Becker, City Council Vice Chairman James Rogers and Police Chief Mike Brown discussed how utilizing this social media tool will enhance the City’s efforts to promote community engagement with residents and civic participation. The Salt Lake City Police Department has already successfully implemented a Nextdoor platform to increase public safety via a virtual neighborhood watch program.
“Salt Lake City has been working for years to integrate the latest digital tools to create new paths for residents to join in the decision-making process,” said Mayor Becker. “The neighborhood connections created by Nextdoor compliment other options, like Open City Hall, the City’s Livability Dashboard and the recently launched City Source mobile phone application, to keep residents informed and engaged with the work we do on their behalf.”
Currently, over 75 percent of Salt Lake City neighborhoods have launched Nextdoor website groups.
“I’m excited with the street-level contact this collaboration gives us,” said James Rogers, Council Vice Chairman and District 1 Representative. “This is one of many tools we can use to stay in touch with our neighborhoods all across the City.”
With Nextdoor, Salt Lake City residents can create private neighborhood websites to share information, including neighborhood public safety issues, community events and activities, local services and even lost pets. The City will be able to share news and information about services, programs, free events and emergency notifications to Nextdoor users within the City.
“We have always invested in innovative ways to increase safety for our residents,” said Chief Brown. “With Nextdoor, we can help empower neighbors to keep their communities safe and connected and give them the ability to collaborate on virtual neighborhood watch efforts.”
Nextdoor is free to users. Each Salt Lake City neighborhood has its own private Nextdoor neighborhood website, accessible only to residents in that neighborhood. Neighborhoods establish and self-manage their own Nextdoor website and the City will not be able to access residents’ websites, contact information or content.
All members must verify that they live within the neighborhood before joining Nextdoor. Information shared on Nextdoor is password protected and cannot be accessed by Google or other search engines.
Those interested in joining their neighborhood’s Nextdoor website can visit www.nextdoor.com and enter their address. If residents have questions about their Nextdoor website, please visit help.nextdoor.com.
