The Evolution of Neighborliness: From Barn Raising to the Amazon Ring Camera

Not a Camera, but a Barn

A notification illuminates your phone's screen. It’s from a neighbor’s Ring camera, showing a grainy video of an unfamiliar car driving slowly down your street. A few taps, and you are on a neighborhood app, reading a thread of comments. "Anyone recognize them?" "Looks suspicious." "My camera caught them too."

This is the modern ritual of looking out for one another. It is the new neighborliness, an act of collective vigilance performed through a network of private eyes.

This web of digital surveillance provides a real, undeniable sense of security. But it also begs a fundamental question: have we traded the act of being a good neighbor for the act of being a good watchman? To understand what we have gained, we must first remember what we have lost.

The evolution of neighborliness in America is a story that begins not with a camera, but with a barn.