While social networks have helped people to meet like-minded contacts online, they traditionally have had a more limited role in developing face to face contact in communities. But gradually, social networks are beginning to have a bigger role in the community and catalysing physical neighbourhood cooperation and social action.
Take the Marrickville 2020 Facebook group, which includes over 8,000 members, and its sister page Marrickville Pay It Forward (MPIF) with its 9,000 members and you have a whopping group of locals who you will quickly discover have a very large and genuine “care factor” for their neighbourhood and each other.
From fundraising for local charities, pow-wows about the changing face of our suburbs, helping someone in need or buying, selling and swapping, almost nothing is off limits for locals who accept that they share “everyone’s earth” and in particular a little patch on the planet.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Marrickville2020/about/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1478849749034895/about/