What is your neighborhood story?

Understanding a neighborhood is about more than simply eating in a restaurant or shopping in a boutique. It is about exploring its streets, experiencing the people, and feeling the internal rhythm that sets the pace for everything. - “Sounds of the City, New York City”

Each episode of the Naked City TV series started with this: “There are millions of stories in the naked city. This is but just one of them.”

The stories of the Naked City (TV and movie) were film noir, dark, downbeat, hard-bodied tales of the city. Not all stories of the city are dark, some are full of light. Dark or light, it makes no difference; the stories of the city – of her neighborhoods – in a real way strip the city of the noise and preconceived expectations, allowing to hear the naked rhythm of the city. Not only here, but one with the rhythm.

There is no person, no place, no movement in the city that has not a story. Stories are found everywhere, in the light of day, in the dark of night, in the nooks and crannies. They are found within the daily flow, the people, buildings, infrastructure, history, landscape, and environment. Stories are found in neighborhoods, nice and not so nice.

The stories of the city are real. There is nothing static about them. They evolve, they meld. They are rooted in emotions, in fortunes and misfortunes, in deeds and slights, rooted in the very fabric of the city. Stories are powerful tools. Tools that spur how we think about the city. Tools that change our understanding of the city. Tools that cause us to reconsider the meaning of community. Tools that strip naked the city's rhythm.

The stories of the city must be listened to, the rhythm must be heard, otherwise our cities are in dystopic danger. We must listen and fully validate each story as being an equal part of the larger story, stories melded. We must allow each story to find it voice and be heard in the way that it needs to be heard. We must glean the stories, hear the stories between the cracks and in the crevices, as well as those shouted from the rooftops. We must listen for stories within the stories, for it is these melded stories that give tiny sound bits – hints – of the city's greater rhythm.

Why neighborhood stories?

• Neighborhood stories are personal and emotional; they create
• a sense of belonging, a sense of place, even a sense of pride.
• Neighborhood stories, when shared and heard, build a sense of place.
• Neighborhood stories are contextual; they make sense of what the neighborhood is, its behaviors, and how it fits into the larger context.
• Neighborhood stories provide a wide array of potential and possibility.
• Neighborhood storytelling is a conversation with embedded possibilities.
• Neighborhood stories are the roots of a sustainable neighborhood future vision.

Storytelling is at the root of every community, every family, every culture. - Hayley Atwell, Actress

Frank A. Mills, Round rock, Texas, March 2, 2017