In 2017, the Republic of the Hyperneighbors was launched, which organized a table next to the other, a lunch of 215 meters long and 648 chairs with dishes prepared at home. It was the first step in claiming that the street was one of the neighbors.
Since then, in this space that occupies about 50 streets, collaborative projects, exchange of objects and services and coexistence are promoted, organizing meeting initiatives (breakfasts, children's games, cultural activities…), teaching courses, arranging broken appliances or creating whatsapps groups to sell second-hand objects… In the era of the pandemic, for example, they created a shopping group for the most vulnerable neighbors.
Urban environment
As explained in the Guardian report, neighbors and neighbors say that despite living in a city they want to create a “village environment”, against anonymous and solitary forms of life, and that the goal is not only to achieve a pleasant environment, but also a strong economic and social factor for the future. They focus on four pillars: environment, health, public space and mobility.
Their initiatives are ambitious. A health centre is going to be set up in the neighborhood, electric bicycles are going to be bought for the neighbors and the possibility of charging the tax is being studied for shops that do not like it, because they want shops that serve their people, not because they open up thinking about tourists. With a view to the ordering and recovery of public space, recently the cleaning, pedestrianization, planting of vegetation and transformation of the abandoned area surrounded by the road into a inhabited square have been carried out.
It is not a question of the Republic of Hyperneighbours being repeated elsewhere, but of each place taking on the model and adapting to its reality. But its philosophy is clear: a neighborhood that will have everything at hand, convinced that it is a strong community that gets a dense network of neighbors.