Build: A Living Asset Map

Asset-based community development starts from what a neighborhood has, not what it lacks: the gifts of individuals (head, hands, heart), the associations people already belong to, the institutions, the physical places, the local economy, the stories. This build gives that inventory a living home.

The map has layers: people's gifts (only ever self-declared or gathered in a real conversation with consent — 'Maria: sourdough, spreadsheet wizardry, listening'), associations (the block club, the domino regulars, the church choir — with a named connector for each), places (the community room nobody knows they can book, the church kitchen with the 40-quart pots), and stories (what this corner used to be; who to ask about it).

Its most important view isn't the map — it's the match: someone plans a repair café and the tool surfaces 'four neighbors declared fixing gifts, the church has tables, the tool library is six blocks away.' Assets that never get asked for are assets the neighborhood still doesn't have.

Constraint: this is the anti-directory. No scraping, no imports, no profiles anyone didn't write about themselves. An asset map is a gift exchange, and gifts are given, not taken. Track the asking: the map's success metric is connections made, not pins collected.

Details

• builds on: neighborhood-asset-map
• guardrails: self-declared gifts only — no scraping, no involuntary profiles, success metric is connections made, not pins collected, every association gets a named human connector
• cross shelf: community-organizing
• practice kind: prompt