Independent Online Edition > Homes

“In this virtual village, people know their neighbours well, do favours for each other, run errands, share resources, arrange social events, buy and sell things, get together to sort out communal problems, swap information on services in the locality, and sometimes just let off steam. And this is all done via the website.”

There’s an interesting report in The Independent on the efforts of the residents of the Jam Factory development, just to the south of Tower Bridge in London, to produce a sense of community by running their own intranet to share ideas, news and gather opinions about the environment that they live in.

Over the years I’ve run and written a few sites which have has some of the elements of myjamfactory.com such as discussion forums, private for sale ads and galleries. I’m a little surprised that some elements of this site aren’t integrated into the main site (such as the blogs) and I do wonder if Joomla would have been a better solution.

What does interest me is the ability of this type of site to knit together communities :

“Sarah Fry, 40, a costume designer, has lived at the Jam Factory for three years and admits: “The first thing I do in the morning is check what the gossip is on the network. I use the intranet as a thermometer for what’s going on. I take the temperature of the Jam Factory every morning.”

“Sometimes it’s really lively - people might all be sending congratulations to a couple getting married. When the temperature is low, it might be that there’s a complaint about someone leaving a door open. Or you might see that so-and-so has got a bed to sell. There might be a party invite, or an invitation to a good sale. Or someone might be saying: ‘My taps have gone, can someone help me find a plumber?’”

I can’t help feeling that something along these lines would be good where I live. The community is becoming fractured not because of the people who live here but simply because they don’t have the time to invest in residents committees and meetings.

Perhaps something virtual would replace that. Perhaps I need to pick up my mouse and start work …