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Chicago. And you can just start doing this. The disc golf league didn’t exist until some friends and I built it. The pizza oven came into existence when my neig

Chicago. And you can just start doing this. The disc golf league didn’t exist until some friends and I built it. The pizza oven came into existence when my neighbor said “hey, want to build a pizza oven?” And I said yes.

andyjohnson0 3y ago
You're very fortunate. I live in the the UK and my impression is that it is rare to fine that kind of community in an urban area.
- tptacek 3y ago
  No, it's not. It's easier to find that kind of community in an urban area, not harder. People want to form communities. The more people, the more potential energy for community formation.
ethanbond 3y ago
Of course you can just start doing this, but there are a lot of real, difficult problems in the world that'd be solved if people "just start solving them." It's good to feed into people's agency but it's bad to rely upon it. People in the past weren't more socially connected because they had more ironclad determination to be more socially connected. The reality is that there are lot of external factors that mediate the formation and maintenance of communities like the one you have built: physical proximity, the built environment and what activities it supports, availability of less "fruitful"/social pastimes, etc. People are struggling with this now because these external factors have changed dramatically over the last few decades. A few exceptions here and there (and there are plenty!) does not actually stand up against a well-documented epidemic of loneliness. There is simply no evidence for the implicit claim that this trend is due to people being born with less determination to be socially connected. There is plenty of evidence that we have built our cities (and especially suburbs) to be socially atomizing, our culture has shifted toward extreme individualism (which, unsurprisingly, atomizes), our media is now hyper-personalized which atomizes our perception of the entire world, we have significantly degraded important social institutions (nothing has filled the vacuum of religion), we increasingly prevent our children from going outside and building their own social networks, we change jobs with increasing frequency, we physically move locations with increasing frequency, so on and so forth.
- kasey_junk 3y ago
  I’m curious on the studies that show loneliness has increased. How was that tracked? I’m certainly not arguing that people were more determined to be social in the past and that lonely people should just bootstrap up a community, but people met their neighbors in the past the same way you meet them now, when someone moves in you introduce yourself and invite them over for an activity. If someone wants to go to church there is certainly nothing stopping them, I’m not religious but my brother is a pastor in a very well attended church. Sports seem to be more popular than ever! And Americans are moving less than ever not more. https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/moving-stats/#:~:text=Current%20mobility%20rates%20are%20half,despite%20the%20national%20population%20growth https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/moving-stats/#:~:text=Current%....
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Interesting re the moving rate -- it does seem I'm wrong on that; my demographic is by far the highest moving rate so probably personal experience colored that. Regarding loneliness, here's a great study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36618547/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36618547/
- goodpoint 3y ago
  > There is plenty of evidence that we have built our cities (and especially suburbs) to be socially atomizing, our culture has shifted toward extreme individualism (which, unsurprisingly, atomizes), our media is now hyper-personalized ...and all these things happened because of profit motives.
- JamesBarney 3y ago
  Yeah I'm in my 30s and I've noticed the generation above me is less awkward and the generation below more awkward. My personal pet theory is the explosion of homework and the reduction of opportunities for kids to play together is making people awkward which makes it harder to make new connections.

andyjohnson0 3y ago

You're very fortunate. I live in the the UK and my impression is that it is rare to fine that kind of community in an urban area.

tptacek 3y ago
No, it's not. It's easier to find that kind of community in an urban area, not harder. People want to form communities. The more people, the more potential energy for community formation.

ethanbond 3y ago

Of course you can just start doing this, but there are a lot of real, difficult problems in the world that'd be solved if people "just start solving them." It's good to feed into people's agency but it's bad to rely upon it. People in the past weren't more socially connected because they had more ironclad determination to be more socially connected. The reality is that there are lot of external factors that mediate the formation and maintenance of communities like the one you have built: physical proximity, the built environment and what activities it supports, availability of less "fruitful"/social pastimes, etc. People are struggling with this now because these external factors have changed dramatically over the last few decades. A few exceptions here and there (and there are plenty!) does not actually stand up against a well-documented epidemic of loneliness. There is simply no evidence for the implicit claim that this trend is due to people being born with less determination to be socially connected. There is plenty of evidence that we have built our cities (and especially suburbs) to be socially atomizing, our culture has shifted toward extreme individualism (which, unsurprisingly, atomizes), our media is now hyper-personalized which atomizes our perception of the entire world, we have significantly degraded important social institutions (nothing has filled the vacuum of religion), we increasingly prevent our children from going outside and building their own social networks, we change jobs with increasing frequency, we physically move locations with increasing frequency, so on and so forth.

kasey_junk 3y ago
I’m curious on the studies that show loneliness has increased. How was that tracked? I’m certainly not arguing that people were more determined to be social in the past and that lonely people should just bootstrap up a community, but people met their neighbors in the past the same way you meet them now, when someone moves in you introduce yourself and invite them over for an activity. If someone wants to go to church there is certainly nothing stopping them, I’m not religious but my brother is a pastor in a very well attended church. Sports seem to be more popular than ever! And Americans are moving less than ever not more. https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/moving-stats/#:~:text=Current%20mobility%20rates%20are%20half,despite%20the%20national%20population%20growth https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/moving-stats/#:~:text=Current%....
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Interesting re the moving rate -- it does seem I'm wrong on that; my demographic is by far the highest moving rate so probably personal experience colored that. Regarding loneliness, here's a great study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36618547/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36618547/
goodpoint 3y ago
> There is plenty of evidence that we have built our cities (and especially suburbs) to be socially atomizing, our culture has shifted toward extreme individualism (which, unsurprisingly, atomizes), our media is now hyper-personalized ...and all these things happened because of profit motives.
JamesBarney 3y ago
Yeah I'm in my 30s and I've noticed the generation above me is less awkward and the generation below more awkward. My personal pet theory is the explosion of homework and the reduction of opportunities for kids to play together is making people awkward which makes it harder to make new connections.