Alex's+Observations

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I've been living in Don Mills for the past four years, and because of this project I rediscovered a whole area along The Donway. When Carol came to tour the neighbourhood, we weren't sure if we would get many interviews done because of the time constraints. She needed to see a good portion of the neighbourhood to get an idea of what we were dealing with and I had access to participants that I could reach at other times pretty easily. The only downside is that it was fairly quiet while we were there. Not that many people were out and we didn't get to see that much of the community interacting but maybe that's what it's like sometimes while people like to keep a idealistic view of community where their own communities are concerned. The most interesting part of the this experience was when we went somewhere even I had not visited in a quite some time.

If you look on the map on the main page you'll see that if you live along The Donway you have pretty easy access to the Shops at Don Mills, the main centre of the community. Depending on what side you live on, it's unlikely you'll really need to visit the residential portion of any other side of the neighbourhood unless you know someone who lives there or you like walking. Usually I'd stay on my half of The Donway where the residential areas are concerned so when I took Carol to the other side, I noticed the church and the Better Living Centre and figured we might find some people we could talk to. I don't think I ever knew the Better Living Centre was there before but when I was a kid I used to go to that church every once and a while. When we went in there was a food drive going on in the back recreational room and we got to talk to a few, one of which provided us with a lot of valuable information. There has actually been a lot going on in an entire area that I never noticed before.

Overall it was an interesting experience trying to look at this area with new eyes, or at least trying to see it from the point of view of a visitor so I could give a tour. Especially where activities were concerned, I realized there was a lot going on for seniors (and other smaller groups) that I hadn't previously even thought about. It was pointed out to us that organizations were an excellent source of information because people are coming together. In an interactive solution, sites like flickr and facebook create maybe a more impersonal form of network in some ways but it made me think maybe we could create a more personal interactive solution that involves user's physical presence. There could be multiple components that might also involve common methods using the Internet as well.

on to Carol's Observations