Towne Square
The heart of your neighborhood. General discussion, updates, questions, and all the day-to-day stuff that doesn't fit in a more specific channel.
It takes a Towne.
Your neighborhood. Finally yours.
The invite-only neighborhood social network. Real people, invited by real neighbors. No ads, no data sales. And a place for your voice.
And inevitably, a coyote. And an e-bike.
Why Towne?
Run by neighbors. Open to every viewpoint. Free and ad-free. Here's what each one means.
Neighbors run this place
Posts rise and fall on how the people here vote. The community decides what it sees, together, not a faceless moderation team.
A place for your voice
Political posts stay. We don't take sides or take them down. A quick flag moves a political post to Towne Hall, our opt-in civic corner. It's a category, not a downvote, and it never counts against anyone.
Free, and private
No ads in your feed, no data sales, no algorithm farming your attention. Towne is free for neighbors and built to serve the neighborhood, not advertisers.
Our mission
“We should be one. Different views, different backgrounds, but one community all the same.”
Marc Hoag, Towne founder
From my 2023 essay that became the founding thesis of TowneWhat Towne is for
The everyday reasons neighbors show up.
Know what's happening nearby
Safety alerts, road closures, a lost dog, the coyote by the park. What you actually need to know, from neighbors who are actually here.
Find local help you trust
The right plumber, a good babysitter, an honest mechanic. Ask the people who will see you at the store, and hear back from someone who actually lives here.
Build community
Block parties, the council meeting, a pickup game, a meal train for a new baby. The events and everyday talk that make a place feel like home.
Why Towne exists
A neighborhood platform should strengthen community, not silence it.
Towne started with a simple conviction, earned the hard way. Careful, polite posts kept getting quietly deleted on the platform that was supposed to bring neighbors together.
Read the full storyEight channels. One neighborhood.
Each channel has its own personality, layout, and purpose. Not a generic feed with hashtags. Purpose-built spaces for how neighbors actually communicate. Towne Square is open today, and the rest arrive as neighborhoods grow into them.
Safety & Alerts
Coming soonBreak-ins, road closures, wildlife sightings, emergencies. Auto-push notifications keep everyone safe.
Marketplace
Coming soonBuy, sell, or give away. Photo-first listings with price badges. No payment processing, just neighbors trading.
Recommendations
The plumber, restaurant or vet your neighbors actually use. Recommendations only: no ratings, no complaints, and nothing here can be bought.
Events
Coming soonLocal happenings, meetups, garage sales. Date/time, maps, RSVP buttons, and attendee counts.
Towne Hall
Politics and civic debate, by choice. Opt-in only. Politically-flagged posts auto-move to Towne Hall so your main feed stays clean.
Lost & Found
Coming soonMissing pets, found keys, lost items. Photo-first with status tracking: Missing, Found, Reunited.
Jobs & Gigs
Coming soonLocal work, side gigs, and hiring. Neighbors helping neighbors find their next opportunity.
The little things
Built the way a neighborhood actually works.
Search that actually works
Looking for a plumber a neighbor recommended, or that post about the road closure? Find it in a keystroke. Neighbors and posts, instantly, even if you fat-finger the spelling. The thing every other neighborhood app gets maddeningly wrong.
Real neighbors, real profiles
A photo, where they're from, a line or two about themselves. The neighbor who left the porch light on for the package, the one with the good ladder. People you'd actually recognize at the mailbox, not anonymous usernames.
Bring your block, become Mayor
Towne is only as good as who's on it, so invite the neighbors you actually know. Bring five who join and you earn the Mayor badge, the neighbor who helped build the block. (And the first 50 to post in each neighborhood are Founding Neighbors, forever.)
New
Not reviews.
Recommendations.
When someone on your street finds a good electrician, that is the most useful thing anyone says all week. On every other network it scrolls away by Thursday. Here it becomes a page that stays, with your neighbors’ names on it.
There are no stars, no ratings, and no way to leave a complaint. Just neighbors saying who they would call again. A business cannot pay to appear here, and cannot pay to have anything taken down.
Your name, your call.
Nobody puts your name on
anything without asking.
When a neighbor mentions you in a post, it doesn’t just appear. You get asked first. Approve it and the mention stands. Reject it and your name comes off the post entirely.
And if someone keeps trying, one tap stops them tagging you again. On every other network your name is something other people spend. Here it’s yours.
More than a feed
A real neighborhood. Not just a feed.
Neighbor Connections
Build your own inner circle. Connect with neighbors down the street. Share privately with just them. DM one-to-one.
Private Shared Albums
Block parties, neighborhood potlucks, the great September storm. Share photos only with the neighbors who were there. Never public, never sold. Build the shared memory that turns a zip code into community.
Members-Only Events
Host a book club, a group hike, a kid's birthday. The guest list is actual neighbors, not strangers claiming to live 'around the area.'
Coming soon
Everything you've shared. Yours to take back.
Every photo you post or send gathers in a private album only you can see. Change your mind about something you shared a year ago, and a single tap pulls it back, from every feed and message it ever touched. That's the kind of control no feed was built to give you.
Events. In the wild.
Trail cleanups. Block parties. Neighborhood potlucks.
RSVPs from neighbors. Maps with pinned locations. Attendee counts you can actually trust. The stuff that turns a zip code into a community.
It’s political.
Politics belongs in Towne Hall,
not your neighborhood feed.
Other apps force you to scroll past heated political threads to find out about a missing cat. Towne has a better way.
1
Neighbors flag political content
Anyone can flag a post as political. Flags are separate from upvotes and downvotes. They don’t punish the author, they just categorize the content.
2
Flagged posts get a Political tag
A marked post is labeled, not hidden and not dimmed. Marking is a category, not a downvote, and it never counts against the author.
3
Highly political posts auto-move
When a post crosses the threshold, it moves to the Towne Hall channel, an opt-in space for civic debate. Never subscribed by default.
Towne Hall. In session.
Housing density. School bonds. The stuff that actually affects your neighborhood.
Towne Hall is where civic conversation lives. Opt-in, never subscribed by default. Political posts from your main feed automatically land here once the community flags them, keeping your scroll clean without silencing anyone.
The result: a neighborhood feed that feels like a neighborhood.
Safety alerts stay prominent. Lost pets get found. Garage sales get attended. Political debates still happen, just in the room designed for them, by neighbors who opted in.
Enjoy your next-door community.
Getting started is simple
1
Get vouched in
Towne is invite-only. A neighbor gives you an invite code, or you request one for your ZIP. Every member can vouch in a few neighbors, so it usually starts with someone you already know.
2
Come in and settle
Enter your code and confirm your email with a magic link, no password. Tell us your name and ZIP to land in your neighborhood, then add a photo and a line about yourself so neighbors recognize you.
3
Connect
You're in. Read what your neighbors are saying, post something yourself, vote, and message anyone directly. Your ZIP, and nobody outside it.
Frequently asked questions
It takes a Towne.
Towne is invite-only and free to join. No ads, no data sales, ever. If a neighbor vouched you in, be one of the first 50 to post in your ZIP and earn Founding Neighbor: a permanent badge for the people who started your Towne.