A shared ladder can be evidence of a neighborhood choosing usefulness over repeated ownership.

Most households own tools they use twice a decade, and the duplication is expensive, wasteful and rarely questioned. Sharing one requires something harder than money: enough trust to ask, to lend, and to return things properly. A shared ladder is therefore a fact about the relationships in a street as much as about the ladder.

Offer one item you rarely use to the people nearest you, and ask for something in return when you need it. The asking is the difficult part, and it usually turns out to be far more welcome than expected.