I stumbled across a site based on a simple concept of lending things to neighbours: NeighborGoods. It can be hard to meet your neighbours if you don’t run into them often, and this site takes that old idea of ‘borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbour’ to the next level.
I heard about NeighborGoods on CBC radio show Spark. I couldn’t help it, but my ears perked up when they mentioned a new buzz-word I hadn’t heard of before: collaborative consumption. According to the website:
Collaborative Consumption describes the rapid explosion in traditional sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping redefined through technology and peer communities.
Collaborative consumption is a neat way to describe a trend that has been around for a few years in the form of Zipcar, eBay, Craigslist and the book swap section of GoodReads.
The idea behind NeighborGoods is similar: you post things you are willing to lend out, and your neighbors can browse the list for things they might need. Everything from power tools, camping equipment, bikes and books are up there. You can restrict searches to different neighbourhoods so you can easily find someone close by, and there are some safe-guards such the “Panic button” which disables someone’s account when you think they disappeared with your stuff. The profile area is simple, but it helps build good behaviour by letting you know how much you’ve saved your neighbourhood:
My only complaint about the site is that it’s a little hard to search for neighbourhoods outside of the US because the main search on the homepage is only by zip code, and you have to go to the Groups page to search by name. However, I think they’re working on that. Of course, they would have to start spelling “neighbour” the long way too! 
The NeighborGoods site strikes a cord with me because it’s kinder to the environment, saves money, connects people, and can give you that ‘good-karma’ feeling. Can’t wait until I can find people in my neighbourhood to share with!
