The goal of this group is to connect people who want to take down backyard fences to create large, shared spaces where children can play and learn together spontaneously and neighbors can get to know each other easily.

Some may just want to share portions of their backyards and nothing else. Others may want to share a few more things, such as tools and outdoor toys, and perhaps share occasional meals outdoors. And some may want to develop into retrofitting cohousing communities with some shared indoor facilities like N Street Cohousing in Davis, where fences have gradually been removed from the backyards of 19 houses. Those that focus on permaculture might even become ecovillages.

If you own a home with a backyard and would like to have neighbors who want to take down backyard fences (or you already have fences down and want to expand your backyard neighborhood), please contact us to post the location of your block at our website (sfbackyard.wordpress.com). Renters may also post block locations if the owners of the property they rent have said they are open to taking down fences.

And if you would like to buy or rent property on a block where other people want to take down backyard fences, please contact us to get on an announcement list. Please be specific about which area(s) you are interested in, such as a city, region, or state. Whenever someone tells us about property for sale or rent in a block described on our website, we will make an announcement to a list of people who have asked to receive notices about the area that the block is in. (As of January 2012, we have a list of more than 100 people who are interested in retrofit cohousing in San Francisco, plus a few interested in other areas.)

The founders of this group live in San Francisco, so we are particularly interested in taking down fences in this city, but we also want to help create backyard neighborhoods in other areas. In mid-2012, we might be able to develop a self-service website where people anywhere in the world can send announcements of property for sale or rent on their block directly to people who have expressed interest in buying or renting property in that area and taking down backyard fences. In the meantime, we will try to provide this service manually.

We will never sell or rent any email address, and we won’t give your email address to anyone except a person or group you ask us to contact for you.