Who’s your neighbor?

by Ted M. Coopman

Jefferson Westside Neighbors, like all neighborhood associations, is a city-chartered neighborhood association responsible for a defined geographic area.

Stakeholders—homeowners, renters, property and business owners, and organization managers—make up the association.

A neighbor is defined simply as “a person living or located near another.” While we might sort ourselves based on politics, interests, philosophies, beliefs, ideologies, and other categories, and choose to associate with like-minded people, make friends and acquaintances, the scope of who is a neighbor is much broader.

You don’t even need to like your neighbor, but they are still your neighbor.

Neighborhoods are diverse in every sense. People live in neighborhoods for many reasons. For those in the JWN, top reasons are that it’s central, walkable, bikeable, and close to amenities; features historic homes; and has glorious trees.

Local businesses serve residents as well as those from outside the neighborhood. Nonprofits and churches are rooted in their history and purpose-built structures. Our neighbors represent the full spectrum of American society.

While you can choose to live here, you can’t choose who else makes that choice. That neighbor, whether a family, church, or business, likely is not going anywhere. As with all of us, we are embedded in this physical space and seek to make a home of it. Our fates are shared as neighbors. That commonality is what forms the basis of a neighborhood association.

Despite differences, we desire safety, peace, good services, and functional infrastructure. We want our place and the freedom to make it our own, but share our edges, sidewalks, streets, and public spaces. When facing challenges, we can approach neighbors as people of good will and intentions. We can find common ground on areas of neighborhood concerns, acknowledge that people’s concerns are valid and real to them and seek solutions we can accept.

Healthy neighborhoods have neighbors who can set aside differences to come together to create a community where we want to live. You don’t need the same beliefs or politics to appreciate safe streets, a new crosswalk, or a clean park.

No one likes intrusions on their space, so we must be aware of how our actions might impinge on others. Mutual respect and common cause are the foundations of both democracy and neighborhoods.

And while you do not have to like or agree with your neighbors, finding a way to live with them—because we live “with them”—is what makes a community.

Neighborhood associations are open to any neighbor—without qualification, without a litmus test for politics, ideology, or philosophy—who accepts their neighbors and seeks to create a community where we all want to live.

Western Exposure is a semi-regular column that looks at issues and challenges from a West Eugene perspective – a perspective that is often ignored or trivialized by city leadership and influential groups and individuals largely based in south and east Eugene. 

Western Exposure rejects the fauxgressive party line, performative politics, and “unicorn ranching” policy in favor of pragmatism focused on the daily experiences of residents and small businesses in Eugene—and West Eugene in particular.

Ted M. Coopman has been involved in neighborhood issues since 2016 as an elected board member, and now chair, of Jefferson Westside Neighbors and has 30+ years experience as an activist and community organizer. He earned a Ph.D. in Communication (University of Washington) and served on the faculty at San Jose State University from 2007 to 2020.

Ted’s research on social movements, activist use of technology, media law and policy, and online pedagogy has been published and presented internationally and he taught classes ranging from research methodology to global media systems. He and his spouse live in Jefferson Westside with an energetic coltriever and some very demanding and prolific fruit trees.

A slightly different version of this article was published in the August 2026 edition of the award-winning Jefferson Westside Neighbors print newsletter. Reprinted here by permission.