On weekends, The Sprawl sends out an email newsletter called Saturday Morning Sprawl. Subscribe here so you don't miss a dispatch! Here is this week's edition.

In last weekend's newsletter, I wrote about yearning for local connection at a time when it often seems easier to be alone, and how it can be easy to love humanity in the abstract while despising the actual people around us.

In response, I got some insightful letters to the editor from readers. Today I want to share a few with you. (Replies have been edited for length.)

David suggested that a good starting point for building local connection is right next door:

"We don’t choose our neighbours, like we don’t choose our family. I highly recommend that everyone make the point of meeting their immediate neighbours and sharing contact info like email addresses and phone numbers. It’s the minimum, really, but it starts a conversation and sets up the start of a respectful relationship. It’s easy to hate someone you don’t know but much more difficult to hate when you have met them."

Ariana wrote about doing exactly this, deliberately pulling away from online connections and focusing instead on local ones:

"I shut down my use of social media platforms five years ago and rebuilt that connection with my neighbours in a way that I remembered from growing up. We spend so much time at home it felt necessary to know who my neighbours were and them me, so that we could all keep an eye out on each other. I'm happy to say that I know ~80% of the people on my street and surrounding ones and it brings me joy to say hi to someone everyday.

"It takes courage to talk to someone you don't know, and can resolve many anxieties that people feel more of these days. It also helps to have a leader in the community who goes around and plans events to get more people out of their house and connecting at local hubs."

This is where community associations (ideally!) can help. Colin wrote:

"I agree that community connection is something people deeply crave and yearn for. In my world of community development, I’m finding that community associations don’t hold the same value for younger people as they do for older generations. In my view, this represents a significant opportunity to modernize the offerings of community associations and tailor them to appeal to a younger audience. A definite opportunity to build local connection and warm relationships with people."

Finally, Len wrote in about moving to Calgary from Saskatchewan with her partner and realizing how expensive everything was here: housing, services, utilities, not to mention activities where one could potentially meet and connect with other Calgarians.

Len avoids bars/pubs for this reason and has looked for alternatives. "We have come across affordability AND friendliness over the last eight years," Len writes, suggesting various groups in town that offer free or low-cost events, such as the Calgary Public Library, cycling clubs and organizations like the Chinook Country Historical Society:

"Yes, there are a lot of geezers like us in the group. But we've learned a lot about Calgary and Alberta and met a huge number of people from a variety of backgrounds, interests, and 'class hierarchies' who are hail-fellow-well-met kind of people. It's good networking and the people have always been friendly and chatty."

The next Sprawlcast is in the works. In the meantime, check out this short piece that Edmonton journalist and producer Sam Brooks recently did for a CANADALAND contest: The LRT Sounds Like Home. It features the sounds of Sprawlcast, among transit sounds from other cities.

I love that Sam did this piece because the sounds, to me, are one of most enjoyable (and fun!) elements of Sprawlcast.

I deliberately avoid studio interviews, preferring to have the sounds of the city in the background. And so when I'm interviewing the mayor at city hall, for example, you can sometimes hear the LRT rumble by... just faintly, but it's there.

Speaking of city hall, next week I'm doing a project with City Hall School—a student "newsroom" prototype with a local Grade 5/6 class. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Finally, this week I tallied up the final numbers from our December "Save The Sprawl" campaign. And wow! The campaign raised more than $21,000.

In other words, over a span of three weeks, our readers and listeners entirely wiped out our 2024 deficit. Amazing.

But the best part is that our recurring monthly revenue—the financial engine of The Sprawl—has increased substantially. Between new members signing up and existing members increasing their donations, our recurring monthly revenue went up by more than $3,000. This is huge and makes 2025 a very promising year for us.

If you value The Sprawl's local work in Calgary, we'd love your support too. In 2025 we're launching a new series of in-person conversations for Sprawl members, with the first one happening later in January—and we'd love to have you on board for these and other events! You can sign up here. Once you're on our member list, you'll be invited to all future Sprawl member events.

Thank you so much for your support of our work!

Jeremy Klaszus is founder and editor of The Sprawl.