The value of good neighbourhoods
The nebenan.de social network brings neighbours together. Its founder Ina Remmers talks about what good neighbourhoods mean for society.
Carsten Hauptmeier ,
16.10.2023 
What motivated you to set up nebenan.de?
I grew up in a rural area and lived in a very tight-knit community in our village. But that wasn’t really the case in Berlin. I thought to myself, I can’t be the only one who wants a good neighbourhood like that, even in a big city. After initial tests on the website we noticed that a lot of people feel a need for contact, conversations and encounters in real life.
What does nebenan.de offer your users?
It’s about the ways that neighbours have traditionally helped one another and it’s also about communities. The two always go hand in hand. After all, if you lend someone your drill, you get to talk to them when you meet at the front door.
Our website is a digital assistant because many people have just forgotten how to pop round and ask a neighbour. We want our service to remove those barriers. The critical element is that people encounter each other in real life, not online. We’ve now got almost 3 million users, the majority of whom live in cities.
nebenan.de has three golden rules: be nice, be honest, be helpful! Does that work on your website?
It does make a difference if you know that you’re talking to people who you will meet in your neighbourhood the next day. People interact in a more tolerant and respectful way because of this.
Have you noted any changes recently?
Discussions about topics ranging from the war in Ukraine to energy prices have stepped up in intensity. But it’s important for society as a whole to be able to encounter people either online or in real life who don’t always think the same as us. We need to keep talking and sharing ideas in order to maintain social cohesion. Functioning neighbourhoods are very important for that.
