They subvert our tendencies toward apathy.

The small, ordinary work of micro-neighbourliness keeps us from the apathetic inaction that can occur when our ideas, for the common good of the neighbourhood, get too big, too complex, and too hard to get off the ground. If we aren’t careful, large, elaborate ideas—paired with a lack of margin in the daily rhythms of our lives—can overwhelm us into passivity. By shrinking our vision and committing to simple, attainable, ongoing actions, we end up challenging our strong defaults toward indifference while encountering the profound impact that neighbourliness—even in its smallest form—can have on our places.

They have a cumulative influence on the places we inhabit.

Small acts of neighbourliness—in a particular place and over a long span of time—are far more impactful than we tend to recognize. Acknowledging this is one of the ways that we resist the tendency to overestimate our immediate influence on our local contexts. When we take the long view of being present in a place, we start to see micro-acts of neighbourliness for what they are: gestures that, in the immediate, can offer goodwill, welcome, and connection and that, over time, can have a meaningful, more expansive impact on our places.

My friend, Tim Soerens, refers to this as the “compound interest of local presence”—the idea that the sum of these micro-acts, over time, is far greater than each of them as singular, isolated contributions. This is a helpful way of reconsidering our immediate, local impact while acknowledging what becomes possible when we take the long, patient road of being an active participant in our localities.

They inspire others to consider what their small acts of neighbourliness might be.

While we often find ourselves drawn to the large stories of neighbourhood impact, micro-neighbourliness invites us to ponder, learn from, and celebrate the small stories of everyday people who—in local, contextual ways—are engaging, supporting, and working on behalf of their places. These small, localized stories of presence, collaboration, and community formation are powerful because they are both accessible and catalytic; that is, they are small enough that we can see ourselves in them, and they are inspiring enough that they move us to consider how we might engage our own localities in thoughtful, attainable ways.