If all politics is local, then there is nothing more political than the local neighborhood mailing list, the group of 15 to 150 individuals who live in close proximity and who all hear the same loud construction noise or have the same drainage problem and can mobilize with dense and coordinated action that gets attention and results.

The universal access level that gets things done often depends on older, lower tech, pre-web coordination tools - the individual who has that email list and who can send out a clear message for action to get attention to a problem or to get things done that require people to be present.

When you have enough density of people online, networks start to get used for political participation and political action.

Ann Arbor has been online in one form or another since Bob Parnes's CONFER and Marcus Watts's Picospan of the 1970s, so we have some experience with this in ways that few other communities have.

Being aware of how to communicate online, and not just in quotes for the news media or behind closed doors, is a key part of collecting the karma that you need to be effective.

Neighborhood cafes, restaurants, and laundries build gathering spaces when there is free Internet access to anyone who brings a computer and buys their daily cup of coffee or does their weekly wash. This is an essential part of the way a city works, because rather than being planned centrally by some committee, these places just happen. Because public access to the Internet happens, people can congregate to work together in their neighborhood on matters of neighborhood interest.

Every so often, issues leave the neighborhood level and appear in front of the wider public. If you are lucky and good, you can mobilize your neighborhood to get the attention that it is due and give a voice to its common interests.

In thinking about how to handle this, you must take care to note that it takes a deft touch to manage the email list that simultaneously notifies the neighborhood of a lost kitten, tells the details of a gas main break in progress, coordinates the annual block party and lets people know what city or township decision is on the agenda that will affect them. Politics can be messy at the neighborhood level and there is no guarantee that the person next door shares your opinion.

The right balance between passionate advocate, diligent organizer, and soothing voice of sanity is a challenge to maintain.

In every community and economy there are holes, opportunities that go unrealized because people just don't know that what they are looking for is already there for the asking. By building systems that allow people who live near each other ways to share with their neighbors, we seek to build out some of the neighborly connection necessary for communities to flourish. Knowing who enough of your neighbors are so that you can easily contact them even when it's the darkest February and you never see them on the street is one sign of a healthy community.

Edward Vielmetti writes for AnnArbor.com. An earlier draft of this essay was previously published online for One Net Day in 2008.