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City officials know that residents have ideas about fixing their communities, and they’re calling for people to send notes their way via the website nyc.changeby.us, a sort of social network for concerned citizens and neighborhood do-gooders.

The site requires registration, but the company that runs it will read ideas and point users to similar efforts and resources already underway, like replacing weeds and garbage with a community garden.

"Building consensus and finding partners and supporters for the idea," says Milton Puryear of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative about the idea.

Puryear had his own vision in 1998 to build 14 miles of walkways and green space along the Brooklyn Waterfront. It's now on its way to becoming reality, but he says the website would have made his effort much easier to find supporters in the community.

"It would have happened almost instantaneously, as opposed to hundreds if not thousands of conversations," says Puryear.

Another beautification project that could have been helped is Manhattan’s Highline. Turning the elevated industrial tracks into a park took a decade, but organizers say it could have happened quicker with the new website's support.

Initially, it will focus on ways to make the city more environmentally sustainable.

"Community garden, permeable surface, ways to plant trees and neighborhood discussion about ways to handle a local problem — we can make dramatically more effective interventions than we're doing today," says Stephen Goldsmith, deputy mayor.

Some of the projects posted will even share $20,000 in grant money.