Ahead of the holidays, Dearborn residents will have access to a new community feature on Facebook.
Facebook is expanding its test of Neighborhoods, a dedicated space within the Facebook app designed to help users connect with their neighbors, participate in the local community and discover new places nearby.
Dearborn is one of more than 130 U.S. cities where the tool, similar to the Nextdoor app, is being expanded to after previously being test piloted in over 20 U.S. cities in May of 2021.
Community Facebook groups are already fairly common in Dearborn, meaning Neighborhoods could quickly become popular.
“People In Dearborn are already using Facebook as a tool to strengthen their ties to their local community, joining local groups, asking for recommendations and tips, or supporting businesses nearby,” said Reid Patton, product manager for neighborhoods at Meta, Facebook’s new corporate name. “But, right now there isn’t one centralized place for this, and so it was clear there was an opportunity to better serve people’s needs. This has been especially crucial throughout the past 18 months. We have seen firsthand how important local connections are, as people were unable to physically be with faraway friends and family and looked to their local communities for support. So, we designed Facebook Neighborhoods to build and strengthen local communities.”
To join, Facebook users will create a Neighborhoods account listing, along with the interests and hobbies they’d like to interact with others about. Neighborhoods then allows the group of users in a given area to plan events, meetups, request and recommend local businesses and discuss local issues. Users cannot connect with their Facebook friends on Neighborhoods unless they’re connected through the new app and live in the same area. One key Neighborhoods feature as the holidays approach is a Giving Marketplace which allows users to offer items they’re no longer using to their neighbors, similar to sites like OfferUp and Freecycle.
“With Neighborhoods, we’re really interested in strengthening people’s connection to their local communities,” Patton said. “We’ve seen some incredible ways people have supported their neighbors through local groups and connected through common interests, and we’ve also seen people eager to get local recommendations. We wanted to create a single destination for the local community experience that currently exists across Facebook.”
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