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> In terms of serendipity, I'd put a college town far ahead of a large city My family moved from a suburb to downtown Boston just before our child entered kind
by fatnoah 3y ago
> In terms of serendipity, I'd put a college town far ahead of a large city
My family moved from a suburb to downtown Boston just before our child entered kindergarten. We ran into people we knew literally every day. It became a running joke because we made it almost 80 straight days in the summer of randomly running into someone. The best moment came while attending a work event with a visiting coworker. I mentioned this phenomenon and we actualky ran into two people I knew on the trip between office and restaurant.
We've since moved back to the suburbs. I see my actual neighbors less frequently than I ran into someone I knew in the city.
It seems like a paradox, but major factors that (IMHO) contributed to this were:
a) Everyone lived in a small physical area
b) Most travel in the area is on foot
c) The high concentration of "staple" stores like hardware and grocery, combined with the relatively small size made it easier to run into people
It sounds weird, but running into friends and acquaintances is one of the things I miss the most about living in the city.
- borg16 3y ago> It sounds weird, but running into friends and acquaintances is one of the things I miss the most about living in the city. you do not sound weird. what you are suggesting is the best part of being part of a "community"
- fatnoah 3y ago> It sounds weird, but running into friends and acquaintances is one of the things I miss the most about living in the city Hah, I guess I worded that awkwardly. The weird part isn't the joy of running into people, it's that it was a very common occurrence in the city, which (I think) is unexpected for many people.
- harperlee 3y agoAgree! I’ve run into friends during car commute (which is more complicated due to car sizes, separate lanes, slow relative speeds, etc. greatly reducing the number of cars you are near enough to, on a given day). What do you do then? Honk and wave? Call their phone? Quite a different thing than running into someone on the bus, subway or walking, where you can talk for 10 minutes easily.