He is the grandfather of the neighbourhood movement in Seattle.
He helped draft this on our site:
http://pages.e-democracy.org/Block_activities
While Jim is an "in-person" guy, Seattle is home to dozens of neighbors
online connections (many fostered by local government) and the other month
we did a workshop there:
http://seattleneighbors.eventbrite.com
The slides detail how we are recruiting 10,000 Neighbors Forum participants
in St. Paul. Something I recommend for all communities that want to become
stronger through local connections among diverse residents.
In the case of Seattle, I would argue that the wheels Jim set in motion
make local neighbor connecting online quite natural. The big question is
can online be designed to assist in reverse to generate more connecting
offline in areas that are currently less connected. (I don't know what the
local baseline is, but my sense is that it varies in Christchurch.)
Steve