[OldNorth] Enterprise subs & civic interest

[John Lofland]

Old North Association Members,

Recently, I happened onto some data regarding home delivery of the 
Davis Enterprise in our neighborhood that I think may have 
implications for recruiting people to be members of the Old North 
Association.

In the form of a note, I have written up these data and suggested 
what they might mean

I provide the note here in two forms for the convenience of people 
with differing computers: pasted below and attached as Adobe pdf.

____________________________________________________

Civic Interest in the Old North:

Davis Enterprise Home Delivery As an Indicator

a note by John Lofland, jlofland at dcn.org


Recently, I picked up what seemed to be a trash sheet of paper on a 
planting strip near my home on E Street.

Looking it at, I discovered that it was a Davis Enterprise print-out 
telling the carrier who on D and E streets received that newspaper by 
home delivery.

I was surprised to see that the lists of residences receiving the 
Enterprise was quite short.

Counting the number of residences in the 500 and 600 face-blocks of D 
and E, I found that 21 of the 70--which is 30%--receive the 
Enterprise.

There was some but not much variation  by face-block:

3 of 10 in the 500s of D --  30%
6 of 24 in the 600s of D --  25%
5 of 17 in the 500s of E  --  29%
7 of 19 in the 600s of E  --  37%

Perhaps I have an incorrect frame of reference, but these percentages 
strike me as low.

Further, these numbers make me wonder about their implications for 
building a strong and widely-supported and participated in 
neighborhood association.

If subscribing or not subscribing to the Davis Enterprise is seen as 
an at least crude measure of the level of interest in civic matters, 
it would imply that achieving a neighborhood association membership 
greater than about a third of the residents could be a difficult task.

Or, is an Enterprise subscription unrelated to a person's interest in 
the neighborhood?


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