Nextdoor comes to mind, but not necessarily a local online town square which I agree with your comment that a source like that is invaluable to keep up with local issues.
I've seen too many stories of people discovering their neighbors are racist/classist assholes on Nextdoor to want to participate. Leave me a few illusions about the inherent goodness of people.
(SF Bay Area here) I personally enjoy watching almost every ND convo degrade into which person is the biggest victim (race, class, and so on). Bothered me at first, but now it is sheer entertainment
Must be a geographical issue. I’m very active on next door and I’ve never seen such behavior. Sure there are a few spats like recently about fireworks but I’ve never witnessed anything “racist” or “classist”. I understand this is anecdotal, my experience might not match others.
Probably. I live in Seattle and people seem to frequently complain about having to see homeless and other "undesirables" in their neighborhood. I love it when their posts also include stealthy photos of the offenders in question. /s I've seen neighbors who live in my same building posting this sort of crap. Obviously there are a lot of issues to address in the city, and people should certainly find ways to do that, but I find it really maddening when people pile on and and take out all of their frustrations on a single person.