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Above, a screenshot of a Nextdoor.com neighborhood map. Homes on the map marked in light green are signed up with the social networking service. IMAGE COURTESY OF NEXTDOOR.COM

Published: Thursday, January 3, 2013, 3:10p.m. Updated: Thursday, January 3, 2013

Social-networking sites such as Facebook allow people to connect with their friends, even if they live thousands of miles apart. Old friendships can be rekindled and users can catch up with schoolmates and out-of-town relatives.

But what about the folks right down the street, whose name you may not know, but who live a lot closer? According to a June 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, 28 percent of Americans know none of their neighbors by name.

Thats where a website like Nextdoor.com comes in.

Penn Hills is so large that we need every tool we can find to reach people, said Frankstown Estates resident James Beck. On Facebook, people might be friends with someone they already know, but what about the person two houses down?

Beck, who moved to Penn Hills about 13 years ago, started a Nextdoor page for his neighborhood: the site allows users to draw a rough map of their neighborhoods, and people who live within the maps boundaries can not just interact but find out about one another.

The site requests users names and addresses, then looks to see if a Nextdoor site is already established in that area. If not, a new user can create one. Any neighbor with an Internet connection can join up and post information about whats happening in their neighborhood, from community events to help-wanted requests to criminal activity.

After an incident in which a car was broken into (in Frankstown Estates), users were on there describing the small group of kids who did it, Beck said, adding that hes also met several of his neighbors because of his interaction on the website.

As a member of the nonprofit Penn Hills Community Development Corporation, Beck is looking to spread the word to local residents about the free service and has been touting its benefits at CDC functions.

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Social-networking site aims to help unite neighborhoods