BetterCity: Building Stronger Communities Together

Inspiration

During the pandemic and beyond, communities around the world struggled with isolation and lack of local support systems. We envisioned BetterCity as a platform to bridge that gap — a way to connect neighbors, coordinate local help, build trust, and make every city feel like a close-knit community again.

What it does

BetterCity is a community-driven platform where users can:

Create help requests or offer assistance.
Join or create local groups around neighborhoods or shared interests.
Organize group events and coordinate tasks.
Chat securely with neighbors.
Build trust with a simple reputation system.
Automatically detect location or manually select city/village.
Receive real-time notifications for messages and activities.

How we built it

We built BetterCity with:

React & Tailwind CSS for a modern, responsive frontend.
Next.js API routes to handle backend logic securely and protect API keys.
Supabase for user authentication, database, and real-time data updates.
Leaflet for location services, allowing map-based browsing and precise location detection.
Deployed backend API routes as serverless functions on Netlify for scalability and security.

Challenges we ran into

Balancing location-based privacy with accurate matching of nearby help requests.
Designing a group system that allowed both public discovery and private moderation by admins.
Coordinating real-time features like notifications and messaging in an efficient, scalable way.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a seamless flow from sign-up → location detection → personalized local feed.
Developed a robust group system with admin approval flows, group events, and shared task management.
Created a clean, intuitive UI that tested well across devices and user types.
Integrated real-time messaging and notifications using Supabase with minimal latency.

What we learned

Building trust features (like reputation systems and admin-controlled groups) early is crucial for fostering positive community interactions.
Users value simplicity and clarity in help-related apps — reducing clutter and focusing on genuine human connections makes a big difference.

✨ BetterCity empowers neighbors to help each other, organize locally, and build stronger, more supportive communities — anywhere in the world.