27 ms·

Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

622 points by Geekette 2y ago

sebbu 2y ago
For me it's mostly a money issue. Then I'ld lose contact with my family and friends, so I'ld have nobody guaranteed to help if i have issues. Also, moving (far) requires a lot of money, then finding a new job, maybe even a better one than you had since the cost of living might be higher in the new place.
brailsafe 2y ago
Less of us should be discounting the value of investing in new, long-term friendships, in the second or third place we live, and stop discounting the impact of arbitrarily moving away for cheaper or more isolated pastures just because we work remotely. There's a threshold past which it's worth considering how much is worth it to remain, but for many it seems like a no-brainer financial consideration, and they don't really seem to have tried to integrate within their neighborhood, perhaps because they knew they'd eventually be forced out by the landed gentry. I'd personally never move back to my home city, I'm happy in the metropolis I moved to, but have put in a hell of a lot time and energy into forming a strong social circle and be present in my community, and I probably wouldn't throw that away just to own a house somewhere in the boonies, but I also wouldn't spend millions to get a 2 bedroom condo, so it's an awkward place to be in one's thirties.
- williamtrask 2y ago
  Yes but investing in new, long-term friendships is a bit of an oxymoron. In order to do that, you have to pick one set of friends and then stick with them (cuz opportunity cost — the day is only so long). And once you've done so, you then have to stop investing in new friends and stick with those old ones. Cities aren't very conducive to this in part because... people in cities tend to be more transient and their relationships more transactional. You have so much more choice, and the people you know have more choice, and people come and go. In order to invest in long-term friendships, you need to be in a location where both you and the people you're making friends with are actually going to stay, and where both sides of the relationship are invested in the long-term nature of it. This is much more likely to happen in a rural area than a city. I'd wager that constraining choice creates intimacy far moreso than alignment of interests. It's not about how much you like each other — it's about high-enough switching costs to hanging out with someone else that keep you together over a very long period of time. In a city, even if you find the most compatible friend ever... there's also going to be 50 people almost as compatible (and vice versa for the people you're hanging out with). In a rural area, you might not find someone you're perfectly compatible with... but they're far more likely to be the only person in the area with interests that are that aligned... and that creates intimacy... which will only make you more like them and them more like you.
  - brailsafe 2y ago
    > Yes but investing in new, long-term friendships is a bit of an oxymoron. In order to do that, you have to pick one set of friends and then stick with them (cuz opportunity cost — the day is only so long). And once you've done so, you then have to stop investing in new friends and stick with those old ones. I think this is a bit of a false dichotomy that assumes you get a static group of people dumped in your lap—in either case—that you get to choose or be alone because everyone else is guaranteed to choose not you for some reason, and also that long-term friends always require the same amount of investment. Likewise, you seem to be leaning heavily into not having to make a persuasive case for yourself, as if there's never a situation in which you'd be compelling. Although scarcity might favor ease of intimacy, I think it's more true that luck, opportunity, and chemistry, give any pair of people something to work with regardless of shared interest. You can't assume every person you meet is friend material, but if you and them are open to it, you can both explore further. If 1/5 people seem fun to have coffee or go to the gym with, including in a rural area that may not even have a gym, it'll take a while to build that up, but you'll want a breadth of possible situations to meet people in. Hometowns don't necessitate that, you get it for free in school or church or wherever, but starting anew you gotta get out there. You're not wrong though, I just think it takes longer. When I moved to where I did, a good half of the people I met were always looking for a plan B, flaking on trivial plans, not interested in one-on-one stuff without an activity going on. That was 8 years ago, and they're long gone. In their place are multiple groups of friends I've met in wildly different contexts, that don't flake enough for me to notice, and I consider pretty solid and close. I let the others go, and likewise with everyone in my hometown that I still talk to, I either can feel great about making a deliberate effort to spend unconstrained time with, or they're not in the picture, and maybe only 4 are left because everyone else is either a shallow acquaintance or were just there out of convenience in the first place. As you grow older, there is certainly an economy of time you need to manage, but as you grow closer, you get grandfathered into not coming to that one thing or whatever every single time. My friend group consequently grows slower than ever, but is bigger than ever, and I make a point of being the friend I'd like to have—as cheesy as it is; I expect the same of them, and if they can do that then there's something to work with.
deleted 2y ago
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lukan 2y ago
Yes of course. Intentional communities of like minded people are the alternative to atomarisation of strangers living next to strangers with fake smiles and talking behind the back as the standard social interaction. Easier said then done, though in most cases, but worth it wherever possible.
- 0_____0 2y ago
  Have you spent time around intentional communities? It's possible you're taking a looser meaning of the phrase than I am, but Intentional Communities have no shortage of toxicity and drama, especially since by their nature these communities filter for people for whom the 'default world' didn't work. That's not to say the concept is bad, but it's very very easy for even a good group to rapidly devolve, the clearer heads quietly move away. In the discussion of communities, I've come across the idea that it's better to organize around a purpose - say a farm cooperative or (historically) a religious cause. Sharing beliefs (being Like Minded) may not be enough for long term cohesion. Can you imagine living with your Blue sky cohort?
  - danenania 2y ago
    Rather than an “intentional community” which sounds kind of overbearing to me, I’d be happy to have some way to filter for houses/apartments that are simply in proximity to others who are at least open to making friends and want to be pleasant, neighborly, etc. I don’t need or particularly want there to be any obligations or explicit organization facilitating this. When people are friendly and open, it happens naturally. You see someone walking the dog and strike up a conversation. I guess if there was some way to anonymously self-identify as sharing this preference and it got enough traction, you could flag neighborhoods and even specific blocks with more of these people, and then the concentration would perhaps increase over time as people who value these things would pay a bit more to live in these areas.
    - 0_____0 2y ago
      If you live somewhere that's reasonably dense, this is possible. I live in a very walkable city that is also socially quite dense. Most of my social links are people who live a walk or a short bike ride away. During the warm months, if you are around town you will see people you know, and have the option of conversation. Put simply, you feel like you live in a community without having built a commune or something. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to tell what cities have this "social spatial density." There are denser urban areas that feel less communal, and far sparser ones that seem moreso, it's related to overall population density but not perfectly so.
phendrenad2 2y ago
Great idea - to make this happen we either need to solve the housing affordability crisis in high-density areas, or spread job opportunities around to lower-density areas. My friends are in a diverse set of fields, finding a place with jobs for all of them isn't feasible right now.
- wenc 2y ago
  Tokyo seems to have done this. It’s not cheap by any means, but rent seems relatively affordable relative to pay (and very cheap compared to expensive cities in North America). I wonder if part of the reason is that housing is not an investment vehicle in Japan (probably due to the Japanese preference for newer, more modern builds and the fact that housing is a depreciating asset in an earthquake prone region). In most parts of the world, housing is tied to land, and land is very expensive. What makes things worse in North America is cultural dislike of verticality —- people want to preserve a museum of their low-rise neighborhoods and don’t want any tall buildings to block the view. That’s fine, but the cost is unaffordable housing.
  - daedrdev 2y ago
    I think it's simply illegal to build housing like Tokyo does in every US city, and often every project over 3 stories needs community input and faces environmental lawsuits over things like shadows
    - epistasis 2y ago
      "Urban" planning in the US is actually the art of urban destruction. For nearly every maximum or minimum that the zoning and code sets, flipping the direction would be better. Have parking maximums instead of minimums. Have density minimums rather than maximums. Make those who want to have too much parking get exceptions and be vetoed by a handful of people showing up on a Tuesday afternoon meeting. Let those who want the "luxury" of low density living in urban cores be the ones begging the neighborhood busybodies and control freaks for the chance to under build in prime locations.
    - 2y ago
wenc 2y ago
I would love to, but I come from a place where intellectual pursuits are not valued, so I would lose out on that front if I moved back. I’m the type who needs to always be learning. So I would always need to be in a big city. Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, “the big contribution of cities is randomness.” And he continues: “You don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisely because you meet people who are different from you, who have different ideas. Sometime even it could be obnoxious people. I think obnoxious people — I mean, what I consider obnoxious — are necessary in order to stimulate.” In North America, there is a very strong cultural preference to isolate oneself (probably a residual effect of the frontier spirit). Hence a strong preference for suburban single family homes with backyards (“for the kids and the dog”) and which results in spread out developments where people rarely have to interact. That’s fine — but realize that’s a cultural preference. I grew up in a house with no backyard and had an idyllic childhood. I knew my neighbors and biked to the playground. I was as happy as a clam. To this day, I don’t feel any need to own a house with a backyard. That is also a cultural preference.
- jacobgkau 2y ago
  > In North America, there is a very strong cultural preference to isolate oneself There's also a "very strong cultural preference" to be "obnoxious," as you put it. Hence a strong preference to isolate oneself. I'd be fine living and raising a family in a high-rise downtown in a country where people behave themselves. Not here in the US. The comparison isn't apples-to-apples.
  - pnw 2y ago
    High density living in a downtown area is inversely correlated with having a family across a wide selection of different countries though. The highest density countries like Korea and Japan have some of the lowest fertility rates. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34914431/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34914431/
    - CuriousCosmic 2y ago
      > The highest density countries like Korea and Japan have some of the lowest fertility rates. I'm going to doubt that's because of density. That's entirely because of toxic aspects of the cultures (especially work and education culture) that make it near impossible to have and raise a child for the first few years of their life.
lelandbatey 2y ago
I did, yes it is nice, I don't know if it's even possible for most folks. The only way to get a house in my case was to buy it with family and split it (in our case it was one big old house that'd been converted to a duplex nearly a century ago, so while it's one building it's well set up for two families to live separately). The benefits they talk about are real, but I don't know how realistic this is as a recommendation. I suspect few folks will find themselves not only able to buy housing (or a portion of housing), but also able to do so with folks whom they trust enough to make such a big commitment. I'm curious what other folks think about such situations and recommendations though. Is it a realistic recommendation?
w10-1 2y ago
Or, in California, buy a single-family urban home and subdivide it under SB-9.
- m0llusk 2y ago
  Another popular option in California that does not get mentioned in the article are what is called Planned Unit Developments or PUDs. These are case by case approved plans to develop dense housing on a lot that might otherwise have a single building or unit. Three or more townhouses is a common alternative but sometimes there are cottage bungalows or a mix.
kidneystereotyp 2y ago
rich people problems
- bdangubic 2y ago
  you expected many poor people here on HN? :)
  - riku_iki 2y ago
    not rich enough to drop low interest mortgage rate.
- pixelatedindex 2y ago
  More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are - I went to college in the Bay Area and I can’t afford to live there. But honestly it’s not hard to keep in touch these days if you want to so I’m not the least bit bothered. As a renter, I’m constantly on the move because I can’t afford homeownership - the price to rent ratio is firmly between 19 and 20 at the moment, and that’s after moving from the Bay Area. Buying is a minimum of a 48% increase here in Seattle, that absurd.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are Like most folks, we live where we can. Being able to pick a spot on a map has never been a possibility. It's been tighter than that tho. In 2021 we beat loooong odds to find any housing and insane odds to score a decent place that fit all of us. People with money in the bank were going homeless.
    - kidneystereotyp 2y ago
      [dead]
      - pixelatedindex 2y ago
vouaobrasil 2y ago
If I moved near where most of my friends live, it would cost probably an extra 300K in a housing costs and working much longer hours at a job I'd surely hate. I'd rather use the money to visit them once in a while and make even more friends where I live.
paxys 2y ago
Weird that the article frames friends as being constant in life and your career/house/neighborhood/kids' schools/community as totally flexible when practically speaking it's the other way around. It is normal to move away from people you formed bonds with in high school and college. If you are lonely the solution isn't to uproot your life and go after them, but to form new bonds with people who are around you right now. The end result is the same – you get to live near friends.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  https://thehill.com/homenews/4858218-moving-rate-lowest-history/ https://thehill.com/homenews/4858218-moving-rate-lowest-hist... https://www.axios.com/2024/09/01/americans-moving-less-post-pandemic https://www.axios.com/2024/09/01/americans-moving-less-post-... https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-close-to-home-despite-freedom-to-move/ https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-...
- ericmcer 2y ago
  The article frames this issue with an older person looking back on their life and being glad they maintained lifelong friendships. From a practicality standpoint making a new friend can be easier but it won't have the same spiritual and emotional connection as a lifelong one. If you are 80 a friendship of 60+ years will be something that invokes real satisfaction and lends depth to your life. Being friends with someone from down the street for 6 months doesn't really mean anything.
  - nemo 2y ago
    I'm 50-something, lots of the friends I've made in the last one to four years birdwatching are close now. I have old friends from 30 years ago but they're mostly a drain. I've formed new relationships with folks in my Tai Chi class as well. We're very close now, closer than I am with any of my old friends. It might be that for some old friends add extra richness and depth to relationships, but that has not been my experience at all and I'm glad I've found local friends with common interests - I certainly prefer them to people I happened to go to school with. I know some folks from my job from long ago, and seeing old friends is nice, but still I mostly want to talk to the few that I still have some shared interest in common now.
declan_roberts 2y ago
This is great advice if you replace "friends" with "family"
- bdangubic 2y ago
  hmmm I don’t think I want to be THAT close to my family… don’t want any pop-ins :)
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    I enjoy pop-ins. Someday nobody will pop-in because they'll all be dead.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      not sure why this is being downvoted… the fact that I’ll be eternally sad when older members of my family are no longer roaming the Earth has no bearing on whether or not I enjoy the pop-ins. I think perfect distance from your family is one which you can do a day trip (come for lunch, leave in the afternoon) but far enough you’d call to make sure we are not hiking/biking/snorkeling/…
- doubled112 2y ago
  Not always With family, the further I get, the happier I am. They are what they are, and I can’t say I’m that interested in it. I’ve replaced that with friends I can actually count on.
  - Loughla 2y ago
    Found family is just as valid as family. For those of us from toxic homes, found family is more important. The LGBTQ community was decades ahead of us on this.
renewiltord 2y ago
My friends and I live near each other. It's a quick 10 min walk to their place and we have keys to each others' places. We've slowly lobbied more people to move nearer and life is getting better with each additional participant. I'm a firm believer in optimizing for our relationships. That said, we did that because it seemed to us to be the obvious right thing, and it seemed that our parents benefited from doing this. If the only input I had was some super rich guy saying "Don't do what I did, man. Wealth isn't worth it. I wish I had friends" I would conclude that it's bogus.
- matwood 2y ago
  > We've slowly lobbied more people to move nearer and life is getting better with each additional participant. When I was younger many of my friends and their friends all moved into my apt. complex. It was great. Now that we're older, I'm in the process of fixing up a place abroad I hope that many of us can stay at once people start retiring and/or scaling back on work. My wife and I are going to move soon enough, but we've already let our friends know we have space for others. I don't mind building the beachhead :)
- zenoprax 2y ago
  Epicurus was a strong proponent of living with friends though I much prefer my own living space. A 10-minute walk would be a perfect compromise.
- kyawzazaw 2y ago
  Give this to people you know - https://livenearfriends.com/ https://livenearfriends.com/
julianeon 2y ago
More of us should be prioritizing making friends, probably: if you pull it off, you've achieved a similar effect at much lower cost. If you're the type of person who's organized and capable enough to organize a communal living space with your friends, you're logically also able to find friendships in your area, much more so than the average person is.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Yes, it is already difficult enough achieve compromises on where to live with an economically mobile spouse, much less parents/in laws, I can’t imagine achieving much success with adding friends to the mix. Prioritize your kids, your spouse, yourself, and let the other chips fall where they may.
deleted 2y ago
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magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
It might boost propinquity. Does anyone here have shared or neighboring vacation homes or SHTF homesteads with friends?
extr 2y ago
I go back and forth on this. I still keep in touch with a bunch of high school and college friends. For better or worse those guys know "the real me" and the history and relationships are impossible to replace. They all still live close together but I live far away - I only see them once or twice a year, if that (less right now because we're all in the "very young kids" stage). I miss them. On the other hand, when I spend more than a few days straight with them, I realize that despite how deep our history goes, we've all changed. We don't share as many of the same hobbies/interests. My wife doesn't share a strong connection with them in the same way I do and doesn't have anything at all in common with their wives. I get it. Moving closer to them for the sake of my relationships would be a huge sacrifice for her. What's to be done?
- williamtrask 2y ago
  > What's to be done? Our society would need to re-think its norms around moving away in order to move upward, which runs into some pretty big philosophical ideas around geography, culture, and values. For technologists, this cultural movement is still in a bit of a philosophical stage, but it's starting to make its way into some early experiments. https://www.plurality.net/ https://www.plurality.net/ is probably the best written work on it so far.
  - charlie0 2y ago
    Interesting, but this just a framework. Where are the actual implementations? Ie, the communities? I've been looking for networked states that aren't all in on living forever or obsessed with crypto and anarchism.
  - extr 2y ago
    Not really the case in my situation. We moved to be closer to family (both sets of parents had coincidentally had relocated to the same area of the country late in life, but before we met). The choice between friends vs family complicates my situation. Love my family, but it's not the same as having peers in a similar stage of life.
  - jimbokun 2y ago
lordnacho 2y ago
My childhood friend did this with his buddies. In our 20s they bought a big house in the suburbs and each had a room. They lived in that for a few years, and then when people started sprouting kids, some of them moved into the same building that was run as a coop. Eventually a lot of them were living in this coop. So now when I go back to see him there's all these people there that I've known since forever, living in the same building. It's oddly comforting. They've struck the just-right balance between being too close and too far apart. They see each other regularly but there isn't a gathering every day.
- veunes 2y ago
  It sounds very interesting. From the perspective of someone who finds it hard to make friends, it seems to me that such a concept is completely impossible. How diverse human connections and experiences are!
- bballer 2y ago
  Can I ask what country that is in?
iambateman 2y ago
There is a movement called Cohousing that I don’t think gets enough attention. I prefer to call it Tiny Neighborhoods, which is basically what the article describes. If interested, I did a 3,000 word deep dive into the specifics of how tiny neighborhoods have worked over the past 50 years… https://iambateman.com/tiny https://iambateman.com/tiny
- bandwidth-bob 2y ago
  Great read! Cohousing sounds like exactly what i've wanted in a neighborhood. I wish it were the norm.
almostvindiesel 2y ago
100% this. Started out with two families buying houses near each other in a family centric LA neighborhood (Eagle Rock). Then it expanded to 3 --> 4 --> 5 all within walking distance. We all have similar aged children. It's magic. We watch each others kids, do frequent backyard/park/sleepover playdates, and help w dropoff/pickup. It makes parenting SO MUCH EASIER. I often joke that I'm not a real parent bc we have so much help. Living closer meant compromising on other decisions (ideal house/commute/etc), but proximity to friends has more than outweighed the cons. One family was living near the beach and loved it, but decided it was more impt to live near us then right on the coast. We opt in and out as much as we'd like. It's beautiful having options, mostly for our kids, who are really thriving by having easy access to playmates. So much better than having to "blind date" other couples and their kids from daycare/activities/etc. The hardest part is starting. It doesn't have to be a huge commune initiative. Pick one friend who has a similar lifestyle and settle down in a neighborhood withing walking distance and take it from there. Think most important time to do it is when you become a new parent, when your kids and you will want companionship but won't have the time (nor energy) to build new relationships.
- enahs-sf 2y ago
  How are the schools though? Will the kids in your commune go through LAUSD together?
  - almostvindiesel 2y ago
    Good, choose this neighborhood for the public schools and "suburbia light" vibe, eg proximity to target but also walkable to nice coffee shops / restaurants / local things.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  I would bet having that many friends, friends who are married, and who want kids, and have sufficient funds/income to afford a home in SoCal puts you in a rarefied portion of society.
  - 2y ago
model-15-DAV 2y ago
This is certainly a reaction to economic strangulation of a huge percentage of people in the economy. Of course, if people want to be near each other they should, but this phenomenon is a direct result of the crumbling conditions for the working class. The resurrection of third-spaces is a much better alternative than the erosion of first-spaces. Our civil society organizations have eroded to the point that the private market has completely ended the concept of the third space. Places where community can be formed are gone; commoditized and politicized and so are not places where community can develop. Instead of the use of third-spaces we are forced to depend on our friends economically like this. This seems like a good thing, "people are coming together, yay!" but being forced to live like this is not going to have good outcomes. These people have real issues described in the article, they need better child-care, they need closer personal roots, they need economic security. But we forcing people to make these contracts of great economic dependency, we should be more prepared to allow people to live more independently. I see this move as kin to the economic migration from the Global South today to countries like Sweden, Germany, etc. which has been causing great strife internally to those countries.
neverartful 2y ago
This post is coming to me at an odd time regarding friends. On the one hand, I've rekindled some friendships with friends from high school and I'm so happy to be reconnected with them. I wish I could see them more often and spend time with them. On the other hand, I also just recently blocked the calls and emails from a long time friend. It wasn't a decision that I made lightly. Without getting into too much detail, our fairly frequent phone calls had become toxic with us arguing about politics and him lecturing me about various things (and perhaps me lecturing him too about various things). I was recently thinking how much I would like to be closer (geographically) with my high school friends (despite the changes that we've had over the years). But in the case of my friend whose phone number I recently blocked, I'm so happy that I don't live so close that he could drop by.
swozey 2y ago
Paywalled but from the comments here it sounds like this is moving near your HS friends? Absolutely not. Nothing in common with them. If this is more about living in a more dense area where you have friends closeby, absolutely. I live in a very dense area and I have friends all over the neighborhood. Some across the street, some down the road. We can meet up and see a show or do friendsgiving or whatever or just grab a beer. It's not cheap and I don't live in a big place but I am astronomically happier here than I was when I owned a house in the suburbs 2016-2019 and had to drive 25 minutes minimum to meet up with people.
- parpfish 2y ago
  I see a lot of internet commenters (here and Reddit) that act like they’ve outgrown all their friends from childhood/highschool and it always rubs me the wrong way. I’m sure there are folks with actual trauma they are running from, but it generally comes across as incredibly arrogant.
dlisboa 2y ago
Coming from a Latin American the idea of re-starting your life across the country for college and then again for work (multiple times sometimes) while away from family and friends is very foreign. A lot of the conversation around modern American youth feeling isolated, lacking socialization and not building strong relationships seems that stem from this drive. Another thing that’s really weird and related is another recurring theme in the American ethos: the cultural shame that comes with living “at home” or staying in the same small town for your whole life. Somehow they made it so living close to your family and friends for your 20s-30s and maybe forever means you’re a “loser”.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  I think it facilitates the relatively high social mobility you see in the US. Being able to start over a few times means you can easily reinvent yourself whereas someone that lives in the same situation they were born into might not.
- bossyTeacher 2y ago
  On the other hand, if you look at Latam, you see that compared to anglo countries there is not much entrepreneurial spirit or drive to do things differently or be differently. And I feel this reflects at an economic level (innovation and startups) and social level (women equality, lgbt, secularity, etc)
- chasd00 2y ago
  Not sure if it’s just in America but people love to tear others down to lift themselves up by comparison. Once it clicks and you understand what is going on it’s easy to just ignore them.
  - DavidPiper 2y ago
    OT, but it's interesting to hear this about America. Just yesterday I was in a conversation about how that (i.e. Tall Poppy Syndrome, what you're describing) is Australia's defining characteristic, and things are much better in America. But maybe not.
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
Wish I could, but the high cost of living in my home town of Santa Cruz drove me and all my friends away. Then when I went back, home was no longer home.
pshc 2y ago
https://archive.is/4hczD https://archive.is/4hczD
subarctic 2y ago
Absolutely you should live somewhere where you have friends nearby. Or better yet live somewhere you can make friends who are nearby. Big cities are the best when you're young and single because there's just so many more opportunities to meet new people that you can make friends with or date. I think the article talks about being with your childhood friends, and maybe that's good for some people but people who make good friends when their 10 won't necessarily be a good fit for each other when they're 25 and that's ok.
anong1 2y ago
[flagged]
kyawzazaw 2y ago
https://livenearfriends.com/ https://livenearfriends.com/ Relevant website
germandiago 2y ago
21st century, where we discuss moving with friends and loneliness and do not mention family relatives...
nntwozz 2y ago
“Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.” — Baz Luhrmann from Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI I haven't found the above advice to be true, I'm 40 now. I moved off grid after living in a city for 20 years. I don't have a lot of friends but I'm happy, my nearest neighbor is 5km away. I enjoy the dark nights, the silence and the solitude. I think friends are a really arbitrary thing to plan your life around. Friends can also be a burden, more isn't just better; shoutout to social media. "If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company." — Jean-Paul Sartre Words to live by.
- acidburnNSA 2y ago
  Do you live completely alone, or do you have family or roommates?
  - nntwozz 2y ago
    I live with my dog, my family is 1 hour away.
yowayb 2y ago
I've been to a handful of trailer parks with wonderful communities, and a lot of the people are not poor, just saving money, and stumbling upon community! I'm also a nomad and have found that, with a little extra effort on my part (it helps that I'm extroverted and skilled with productivity apps), I can easily see many friends all over the world. Also there was a study that found the reason some old folks lived super long in Italian towns is because of community.
more_corn 2y ago
Maybe make friends where you are? There’s a formula. Find people who share interests, spend time with them. meet their friends, expand your interests, be open. Be friendly, help, ask for help.
fuzztester 2y ago
Christopher Alexander: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
droobles 2y ago
My friends and I joke about moving back to our home town to be together, possibly on the same block, mostly because of how cheap it would be. Truth is I have a lot of childhood and frankly recent trauma there and would never want to move back. Thankfully over time we’ve all seemed to be coincidentally landing in the same metro area over the years so we see each other a lot and it’s been a great way to bounce back from COVID.
fsckboy 2y ago
our society(s) have conducted two (three?) experiments at once, and it's not easy to separate the confounding factors. We spend less time with our relatives. We have drastically smaller families/fewer relatives. We move great distances and go out of touch with not only our families, but also our former friends. We also more drastically sort ourselves than before by some notions of class like "what you majored in" at "what tier of institution" and "stayed in academia" or "went into industry" etc. moving to live near friends is probably helpful but not a panacea; nor are we going to do it so...
jemmyw 2y ago
No, because they bugger off somewhere else shortly after for new opportunities or changed life circumstances[1][2] Probably better to make friends where you live. [1] Said by someone with some bitterness about this. [2] Who is also guilty of doing the same.
ryukoposting 2y ago
I think it's worth emphasizing that "living near friends" doesn't require "living in a big city." By moving from Chicago to Milwaukee, I grew my friend group, found more social opportunities, and those social opportunities are less of an economic burden. Still a city, but considerably smaller. Big cities can offer great things, but only if you can afford to live in certain neighborhoods. Smaller cities offer many of the same opportunities but with lower financial barrier to entry, and less physical distance between you and the most lively areas. Alternavely, you have to be willing to spend a lot of time in those neighborhoods, then go back to your home for the night. But, of course, the atrocious public transit system in most American cities means this is a pipe dream for me.
flocciput 2y ago
Of course the LiveNearFriends website is only for people in the fucking Bay Area and lists houses that are millions of dollars. I would love to live near friends. I've been trying to find a place cheap enough and close enough to an area with plentiful jobs. But my friends are not all software engineers, and most are far from making that kind of money (or being able to work from home anywhere in the country). It's so fucking hard. And such a slap in the face to see a site that should make it easier, actually only intended to help people for whom that goal is already in reach.
tina_pen 2y ago
Oh! It's so nice to read something you've thought about your whole life. I have an uncle, now in his late 60s. He and his friends have been living in the same society since kindergarten. They meet almost every day, go on trips, and party at the drop of a hat, always there when they need each other. I've been jealous of that for such a long time. My friends and I, in the pursuit of money, fame, and who knows what, are now spread across continents. We probably speak once or twice a day. Recent friendships haven't stood the test of time.
shirajg 2y ago
Yes. Friends make life way better!
Ozzie_osman 2y ago
My wife and I moved with our kids back to the country we grew up in in large part because of this. For us it wasn't just being closer to extended family, though that was a part of it. We just realized Western culture (we lived in Silicon Valley, which was probably the extreme of that) was very individualistic (or nuclear-family-focused), and people's lives aren't as intertwined as in other parts of the world. As an introvert, that was actually fine for some time, but once we had kids, we felt like it just wasn't a healthy way for our family to live and we were missing something pretty meaningful.
hackable_sand 2y ago
Fiefdoms. Got it.
bitzun 2y ago
I live very close to a couple dozen of my favourite people. I’d like to move out of the shithole state I live in, and began seriously planning it until I realised that it would never be worth trading the proximity.
deleted 2y ago
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stuckkeys 2y ago
Absolutely. It really has a positive effect on your mood. When you have someone close to you, you always hang out and it makes it worth everything. Share struggles, share ideas, feedback. It is really a great feeling.
nine_k 2y ago
My friends are all over the map. And I don't just mean Austin, Chicago, or San Diego, which are all pretty far away from NYC where I live. I mean places like London, Munich, Zurich, Tampere (Finland), or Tel Aviv. While I enjoyed it when my plane was landing in many of these places, I also enjoyed it when it was taking me back home. (Maybe except London, but, to my mind, London is harsher than NYC if you want to actually afford living there.) So the closest I can live to my friends is online. Show up for a chat, talk, cheer up, support each other, and the bonds of friendship will remain, despite geography. Live next block and forget to say hello week after week, because the days are busy, and the bond will fray.
- veunes 2y ago
  At moments like these, you must realize how lucky we are to live in the internet age, where you can stay closely connected with friends all over the world
veunes 2y ago
It was very hard for me to make friends. Even now, I only have two. When I didn’t have a family of my own, I was heavily dependent on my friends. Such "friendships" often didn’t end well for me. That’s why, at some point, I started striving to ensure that my mental health didn’t depend on my "social connections" (I’m not sure, maybe I misunderstood something in the article).
- crtified 2y ago
  I can relate. There's something about the human group dynamic that, by default, isn't kind to certain types of personality. Internet-only friendships and acquaintances and groups can be deceiving too. They can be great and full of wonderful people, but the reality is usually that even if you spend 20 years in a particular internet community, you could leave tomorrow and few (if any) people would be talking about you for longer than a week.
  - veunes 2y ago
    That’s partly why I’ve been working on becoming less dependent on any external source for my sense of self-worth. It’s not easy, though...
    - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
      It's very hard to imagine. I feel like I don't exist when I'm alone
    - crtified 2y ago
      I'm glad you said "less" dependent. Never forget that what you're striving for a balance point appropriate to yourself. Your goal isn't to attain one end of a scale.
atlgator 2y ago
I wish I had.
bnlxbnlx 2y ago
I'm living with my partner and her brother and family and another family who are friends of ours in a house (which has three apartments). We moved there to live together (and continued to work remotely or found work elsewhere). Six adults, six children. It's an absolute treat. I can't imagine going back to a nuclear family setup. Living in a larger web with more support from all sides (both for adults and children) is just amazing. And of course it's often not possible or easy to do this.
- JackMorgan 2y ago
  Do you ever get on each other's nerves? Are the apartments separated enough that there's noise issues?
  - bnlxbnlx 2y ago
    Totally. A conflict engagement rather than conflict avoidance culture is definitely helpful, so that resentment doesn't build up, and information can flow more easily. And yes, apartments are kind of separate enough to not hear each other too much. But then also everyone has young kids anyway, so we are all used to a certain baseline noise level anyway
whitehexagon 2y ago
Having contracted around Europe for 20 years, my friends are scattered. There are many of those places I'd be happy to settle down in, but my upcoming move is based primarily on the changing climate. The area I am living in now is already changing, and the climate change models dont bode well for this area. Anyway, the contractor lifestyle has taught me there are new friends waiting to be found wherever I live, even if my next new friend is the 200 year old oak tree next to a stream deep in the forest.
- ricardobayes 2y ago
  Difficult to foresee which way will it tip, on short-term it will be hotter for sure but if (big IF) medium-term the AMOC slows down or stops, it will be much colder.
LightBug1 2y ago
This feels weird af to me ... there's a place for highschool friends and I cherish and miss some of them. But there's also a place for striving forward into a world and meeting and learning with new people. Personally, family and the closest of close (family) friends are the constant. Beyond that, it feels like retreat into mundanity ... like Facebook.
deleted 2y ago
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greenie_beans 2y ago
we moved across the country where we don't know anybody. i do not recommend this. having friends nearby is such an important aspect of mental health and overall joy in life.
harimau777 2y ago
I'm currently in the process of moving away from friends. It's definitely not something I want to do, but I don't have much of a choice due to the lack of tech jobs in the area, the increasingly oppressive culture & laws of a deep red state, and the lack of amenities. I suspect that the focus should be on making it easier for people to choose to live near friends. Not sure how that would work though.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
silexia 2y ago
We can't move anywhere because we can't afford to. When 500,000 H1-B visas are brought into the USA to do entry level accounting and programming jobs, we have far less negotiating leverage to work remotely or make higher pay. Supply and demand. Your employer wants to increase the labor supply to reduce your price (your salary) and options like working where you wish.
hyperific 2y ago
Should writers stop using the question format in titles when the answer to the question is immediately apparent?
yapyap 2y ago
just based off the title: yeah sure, or make new friends?
JustExAWS 2y ago
It doesn’t matter when I lived near friends and family. At our ages 40-60, we all have our own immediate families, obligations (kids, grandkids and/or aging parents), we still have to make an effort to get together and we probably wouldn’t get together any more than we do now. I am 50 married with adult (step)kids and my wife and I are empty nesters. We recently moved from where I lived after graduating from college in 1996 and my wife has lived all of her adult life. My core group of 5 friends I’ve put together from jobs I’ve had when living there are all married some with adult kids and others with kids still at home. It took a lot of planning and juggling calendars just for us to get together even once per quarter when I lived there. They all still live there and we have a group chat. But it is still less than once per quarter that we can all get together. It’s a short cheap flight for me to fly in to hang out with them. There are two other couples that my wife and I are friends with and we all live in different cities now. Similar scenario, they both have family obligations - parents, adult kids, grandkids, etc which make it hard for all six of us to get together. But we usually have planned a trip together at least once a year and we end up in each others city for something at least once a year - Atlanta, Orlando and Los Angeles. My third group of “friends” are my seven cousins I grew up with (I’m an only child). They are all female and also have aging parents (who are less healthy than mine), children, grand children, etc. They all live in my former hometown and I’m also in a group chat with them. They say they often only see each other when I come to town and get us all together. It’s the same with my college crew - we all went to college in our hone town and they either still live there or have family there. We can barely get together for alumni college events
elAhmo 2y ago
This is such a great text! In my home city, many houses around are my family and childhood friends, and I wish I could replicate that with my other friends too. If I ever become a billionaire and can buy a small village and make everyone move there, it would be a dream coming true!
squirrel6 2y ago
No
adamtaylor_13 2y ago
Doesn’t this weird question presuppose that you live somewhere with literally no friends? In what situation would you live somewhere long-term with no friends whatsoever?
yellowapple 2y ago
I have a few friends (and family members thereof) within relatively close proximity (either walkable or a <5 minute drive), and it's indeed been pretty handy. A couple of us have even talked about someday together investing in someplace we can all live (be it a multiplex, some chunk of land with a few double-wides, or - only half-seriously - one of the mansions that periodically hit Zillow in our city), much like what's described in the article. The big issue is that friendships ain't permanent, and navigating the financial and legal implications of jointly owning real estate entails a need for quite a bit of permanence. I and the friends in question believe we trust each other enough to make it work (should we ever all be sufficiently financially secure to pull the trigger on that plan), but it's hard to be sure.

622 points by Geekette 2y ago

For me it's mostly a money issue. Then I'ld lose contact with my family and friends, so I'ld have nobody guaranteed to help if i have issues. Also, moving (far) requires a lot of money, then finding a new job, maybe even a better one than you had since the cost of living might be higher in the new place.

brailsafe 2y ago

Less of us should be discounting the value of investing in new, long-term friendships, in the second or third place we live, and stop discounting the impact of arbitrarily moving away for cheaper or more isolated pastures just because we work remotely. There's a threshold past which it's worth considering how much is worth it to remain, but for many it seems like a no-brainer financial consideration, and they don't really seem to have tried to integrate within their neighborhood, perhaps because they knew they'd eventually be forced out by the landed gentry. I'd personally never move back to my home city, I'm happy in the metropolis I moved to, but have put in a hell of a lot time and energy into forming a strong social circle and be present in my community, and I probably wouldn't throw that away just to own a house somewhere in the boonies, but I also wouldn't spend millions to get a 2 bedroom condo, so it's an awkward place to be in one's thirties.

williamtrask 2y ago
Yes but investing in new, long-term friendships is a bit of an oxymoron. In order to do that, you have to pick one set of friends and then stick with them (cuz opportunity cost — the day is only so long). And once you've done so, you then have to stop investing in new friends and stick with those old ones. Cities aren't very conducive to this in part because... people in cities tend to be more transient and their relationships more transactional. You have so much more choice, and the people you know have more choice, and people come and go. In order to invest in long-term friendships, you need to be in a location where both you and the people you're making friends with are actually going to stay, and where both sides of the relationship are invested in the long-term nature of it. This is much more likely to happen in a rural area than a city. I'd wager that constraining choice creates intimacy far moreso than alignment of interests. It's not about how much you like each other — it's about high-enough switching costs to hanging out with someone else that keep you together over a very long period of time. In a city, even if you find the most compatible friend ever... there's also going to be 50 people almost as compatible (and vice versa for the people you're hanging out with). In a rural area, you might not find someone you're perfectly compatible with... but they're far more likely to be the only person in the area with interests that are that aligned... and that creates intimacy... which will only make you more like them and them more like you.
- brailsafe 2y ago
  > Yes but investing in new, long-term friendships is a bit of an oxymoron. In order to do that, you have to pick one set of friends and then stick with them (cuz opportunity cost — the day is only so long). And once you've done so, you then have to stop investing in new friends and stick with those old ones. I think this is a bit of a false dichotomy that assumes you get a static group of people dumped in your lap—in either case—that you get to choose or be alone because everyone else is guaranteed to choose not you for some reason, and also that long-term friends always require the same amount of investment. Likewise, you seem to be leaning heavily into not having to make a persuasive case for yourself, as if there's never a situation in which you'd be compelling. Although scarcity might favor ease of intimacy, I think it's more true that luck, opportunity, and chemistry, give any pair of people something to work with regardless of shared interest. You can't assume every person you meet is friend material, but if you and them are open to it, you can both explore further. If 1/5 people seem fun to have coffee or go to the gym with, including in a rural area that may not even have a gym, it'll take a while to build that up, but you'll want a breadth of possible situations to meet people in. Hometowns don't necessitate that, you get it for free in school or church or wherever, but starting anew you gotta get out there. You're not wrong though, I just think it takes longer. When I moved to where I did, a good half of the people I met were always looking for a plan B, flaking on trivial plans, not interested in one-on-one stuff without an activity going on. That was 8 years ago, and they're long gone. In their place are multiple groups of friends I've met in wildly different contexts, that don't flake enough for me to notice, and I consider pretty solid and close. I let the others go, and likewise with everyone in my hometown that I still talk to, I either can feel great about making a deliberate effort to spend unconstrained time with, or they're not in the picture, and maybe only 4 are left because everyone else is either a shallow acquaintance or were just there out of convenience in the first place. As you grow older, there is certainly an economy of time you need to manage, but as you grow closer, you get grandfathered into not coming to that one thing or whatever every single time. My friend group consequently grows slower than ever, but is bigger than ever, and I make a point of being the friend I'd like to have—as cheesy as it is; I expect the same of them, and if they can do that then there's something to work with.

deleted 2y ago

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lukan 2y ago

Yes of course. Intentional communities of like minded people are the alternative to atomarisation of strangers living next to strangers with fake smiles and talking behind the back as the standard social interaction. Easier said then done, though in most cases, but worth it wherever possible.

0_____0 2y ago
Have you spent time around intentional communities? It's possible you're taking a looser meaning of the phrase than I am, but Intentional Communities have no shortage of toxicity and drama, especially since by their nature these communities filter for people for whom the 'default world' didn't work. That's not to say the concept is bad, but it's very very easy for even a good group to rapidly devolve, the clearer heads quietly move away. In the discussion of communities, I've come across the idea that it's better to organize around a purpose - say a farm cooperative or (historically) a religious cause. Sharing beliefs (being Like Minded) may not be enough for long term cohesion. Can you imagine living with your Blue sky cohort?
- danenania 2y ago
  Rather than an “intentional community” which sounds kind of overbearing to me, I’d be happy to have some way to filter for houses/apartments that are simply in proximity to others who are at least open to making friends and want to be pleasant, neighborly, etc. I don’t need or particularly want there to be any obligations or explicit organization facilitating this. When people are friendly and open, it happens naturally. You see someone walking the dog and strike up a conversation. I guess if there was some way to anonymously self-identify as sharing this preference and it got enough traction, you could flag neighborhoods and even specific blocks with more of these people, and then the concentration would perhaps increase over time as people who value these things would pay a bit more to live in these areas.
  - 0_____0 2y ago
    If you live somewhere that's reasonably dense, this is possible. I live in a very walkable city that is also socially quite dense. Most of my social links are people who live a walk or a short bike ride away. During the warm months, if you are around town you will see people you know, and have the option of conversation. Put simply, you feel like you live in a community without having built a commune or something. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to tell what cities have this "social spatial density." There are denser urban areas that feel less communal, and far sparser ones that seem moreso, it's related to overall population density but not perfectly so.

phendrenad2 2y ago

Great idea - to make this happen we either need to solve the housing affordability crisis in high-density areas, or spread job opportunities around to lower-density areas. My friends are in a diverse set of fields, finding a place with jobs for all of them isn't feasible right now.

wenc 2y ago
Tokyo seems to have done this. It’s not cheap by any means, but rent seems relatively affordable relative to pay (and very cheap compared to expensive cities in North America). I wonder if part of the reason is that housing is not an investment vehicle in Japan (probably due to the Japanese preference for newer, more modern builds and the fact that housing is a depreciating asset in an earthquake prone region). In most parts of the world, housing is tied to land, and land is very expensive. What makes things worse in North America is cultural dislike of verticality —- people want to preserve a museum of their low-rise neighborhoods and don’t want any tall buildings to block the view. That’s fine, but the cost is unaffordable housing.
- daedrdev 2y ago
  I think it's simply illegal to build housing like Tokyo does in every US city, and often every project over 3 stories needs community input and faces environmental lawsuits over things like shadows
  - epistasis 2y ago
    "Urban" planning in the US is actually the art of urban destruction. For nearly every maximum or minimum that the zoning and code sets, flipping the direction would be better. Have parking maximums instead of minimums. Have density minimums rather than maximums. Make those who want to have too much parking get exceptions and be vetoed by a handful of people showing up on a Tuesday afternoon meeting. Let those who want the "luxury" of low density living in urban cores be the ones begging the neighborhood busybodies and control freaks for the chance to under build in prime locations.
  - 2y ago

wenc 2y ago

I would love to, but I come from a place where intellectual pursuits are not valued, so I would lose out on that front if I moved back. I’m the type who needs to always be learning. So I would always need to be in a big city. Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, “the big contribution of cities is randomness.” And he continues: “You don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisely because you meet people who are different from you, who have different ideas. Sometime even it could be obnoxious people. I think obnoxious people — I mean, what I consider obnoxious — are necessary in order to stimulate.” In North America, there is a very strong cultural preference to isolate oneself (probably a residual effect of the frontier spirit). Hence a strong preference for suburban single family homes with backyards (“for the kids and the dog”) and which results in spread out developments where people rarely have to interact. That’s fine — but realize that’s a cultural preference. I grew up in a house with no backyard and had an idyllic childhood. I knew my neighbors and biked to the playground. I was as happy as a clam. To this day, I don’t feel any need to own a house with a backyard. That is also a cultural preference.

jacobgkau 2y ago
> In North America, there is a very strong cultural preference to isolate oneself There's also a "very strong cultural preference" to be "obnoxious," as you put it. Hence a strong preference to isolate oneself. I'd be fine living and raising a family in a high-rise downtown in a country where people behave themselves. Not here in the US. The comparison isn't apples-to-apples.
- pnw 2y ago
  High density living in a downtown area is inversely correlated with having a family across a wide selection of different countries though. The highest density countries like Korea and Japan have some of the lowest fertility rates. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34914431/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34914431/
  - CuriousCosmic 2y ago
    > The highest density countries like Korea and Japan have some of the lowest fertility rates. I'm going to doubt that's because of density. That's entirely because of toxic aspects of the cultures (especially work and education culture) that make it near impossible to have and raise a child for the first few years of their life.

lelandbatey 2y ago

I did, yes it is nice, I don't know if it's even possible for most folks. The only way to get a house in my case was to buy it with family and split it (in our case it was one big old house that'd been converted to a duplex nearly a century ago, so while it's one building it's well set up for two families to live separately). The benefits they talk about are real, but I don't know how realistic this is as a recommendation. I suspect few folks will find themselves not only able to buy housing (or a portion of housing), but also able to do so with folks whom they trust enough to make such a big commitment. I'm curious what other folks think about such situations and recommendations though. Is it a realistic recommendation?

w10-1 2y ago

Or, in California, buy a single-family urban home and subdivide it under SB-9.

m0llusk 2y ago
Another popular option in California that does not get mentioned in the article are what is called Planned Unit Developments or PUDs. These are case by case approved plans to develop dense housing on a lot that might otherwise have a single building or unit. Three or more townhouses is a common alternative but sometimes there are cottage bungalows or a mix.

kidneystereotyp 2y ago

rich people problems

bdangubic 2y ago
you expected many poor people here on HN? :)
- riku_iki 2y ago
  not rich enough to drop low interest mortgage rate.
pixelatedindex 2y ago
More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are - I went to college in the Bay Area and I can’t afford to live there. But honestly it’s not hard to keep in touch these days if you want to so I’m not the least bit bothered. As a renter, I’m constantly on the move because I can’t afford homeownership - the price to rent ratio is firmly between 19 and 20 at the moment, and that’s after moving from the Bay Area. Buying is a minimum of a 48% increase here in Seattle, that absurd.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are Like most folks, we live where we can. Being able to pick a spot on a map has never been a possibility. It's been tighter than that tho. In 2021 we beat loooong odds to find any housing and insane odds to score a decent place that fit all of us. People with money in the bank were going homeless.
  - kidneystereotyp 2y ago
    [dead]
    - pixelatedindex 2y ago

vouaobrasil 2y ago

If I moved near where most of my friends live, it would cost probably an extra 300K in a housing costs and working much longer hours at a job I'd surely hate. I'd rather use the money to visit them once in a while and make even more friends where I live.

paxys 2y ago

Weird that the article frames friends as being constant in life and your career/house/neighborhood/kids' schools/community as totally flexible when practically speaking it's the other way around. It is normal to move away from people you formed bonds with in high school and college. If you are lonely the solution isn't to uproot your life and go after them, but to form new bonds with people who are around you right now. The end result is the same – you get to live near friends.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://thehill.com/homenews/4858218-moving-rate-lowest-history/ https://thehill.com/homenews/4858218-moving-rate-lowest-hist... https://www.axios.com/2024/09/01/americans-moving-less-post-pandemic https://www.axios.com/2024/09/01/americans-moving-less-post-... https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-close-to-home-despite-freedom-to-move/ https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-...
ericmcer 2y ago
The article frames this issue with an older person looking back on their life and being glad they maintained lifelong friendships. From a practicality standpoint making a new friend can be easier but it won't have the same spiritual and emotional connection as a lifelong one. If you are 80 a friendship of 60+ years will be something that invokes real satisfaction and lends depth to your life. Being friends with someone from down the street for 6 months doesn't really mean anything.
- nemo 2y ago
  I'm 50-something, lots of the friends I've made in the last one to four years birdwatching are close now. I have old friends from 30 years ago but they're mostly a drain. I've formed new relationships with folks in my Tai Chi class as well. We're very close now, closer than I am with any of my old friends. It might be that for some old friends add extra richness and depth to relationships, but that has not been my experience at all and I'm glad I've found local friends with common interests - I certainly prefer them to people I happened to go to school with. I know some folks from my job from long ago, and seeing old friends is nice, but still I mostly want to talk to the few that I still have some shared interest in common now.

declan_roberts 2y ago

This is great advice if you replace "friends" with "family"

bdangubic 2y ago
hmmm I don’t think I want to be THAT close to my family… don’t want any pop-ins :)
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  I enjoy pop-ins. Someday nobody will pop-in because they'll all be dead.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    not sure why this is being downvoted… the fact that I’ll be eternally sad when older members of my family are no longer roaming the Earth has no bearing on whether or not I enjoy the pop-ins. I think perfect distance from your family is one which you can do a day trip (come for lunch, leave in the afternoon) but far enough you’d call to make sure we are not hiking/biking/snorkeling/…
doubled112 2y ago
Not always With family, the further I get, the happier I am. They are what they are, and I can’t say I’m that interested in it. I’ve replaced that with friends I can actually count on.
- Loughla 2y ago
  Found family is just as valid as family. For those of us from toxic homes, found family is more important. The LGBTQ community was decades ahead of us on this.

renewiltord 2y ago

My friends and I live near each other. It's a quick 10 min walk to their place and we have keys to each others' places. We've slowly lobbied more people to move nearer and life is getting better with each additional participant. I'm a firm believer in optimizing for our relationships. That said, we did that because it seemed to us to be the obvious right thing, and it seemed that our parents benefited from doing this. If the only input I had was some super rich guy saying "Don't do what I did, man. Wealth isn't worth it. I wish I had friends" I would conclude that it's bogus.

matwood 2y ago
> We've slowly lobbied more people to move nearer and life is getting better with each additional participant. When I was younger many of my friends and their friends all moved into my apt. complex. It was great. Now that we're older, I'm in the process of fixing up a place abroad I hope that many of us can stay at once people start retiring and/or scaling back on work. My wife and I are going to move soon enough, but we've already let our friends know we have space for others. I don't mind building the beachhead :)
zenoprax 2y ago
Epicurus was a strong proponent of living with friends though I much prefer my own living space. A 10-minute walk would be a perfect compromise.
kyawzazaw 2y ago
Give this to people you know - https://livenearfriends.com/ https://livenearfriends.com/

julianeon 2y ago

More of us should be prioritizing making friends, probably: if you pull it off, you've achieved a similar effect at much lower cost. If you're the type of person who's organized and capable enough to organize a communal living space with your friends, you're logically also able to find friendships in your area, much more so than the average person is.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
Yes, it is already difficult enough achieve compromises on where to live with an economically mobile spouse, much less parents/in laws, I can’t imagine achieving much success with adding friends to the mix. Prioritize your kids, your spouse, yourself, and let the other chips fall where they may.

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magic_smoke_ee 2y ago

It might boost propinquity. Does anyone here have shared or neighboring vacation homes or SHTF homesteads with friends?

extr 2y ago

I go back and forth on this. I still keep in touch with a bunch of high school and college friends. For better or worse those guys know "the real me" and the history and relationships are impossible to replace. They all still live close together but I live far away - I only see them once or twice a year, if that (less right now because we're all in the "very young kids" stage). I miss them. On the other hand, when I spend more than a few days straight with them, I realize that despite how deep our history goes, we've all changed. We don't share as many of the same hobbies/interests. My wife doesn't share a strong connection with them in the same way I do and doesn't have anything at all in common with their wives. I get it. Moving closer to them for the sake of my relationships would be a huge sacrifice for her. What's to be done?

williamtrask 2y ago
> What's to be done? Our society would need to re-think its norms around moving away in order to move upward, which runs into some pretty big philosophical ideas around geography, culture, and values. For technologists, this cultural movement is still in a bit of a philosophical stage, but it's starting to make its way into some early experiments. https://www.plurality.net/ https://www.plurality.net/ is probably the best written work on it so far.
- charlie0 2y ago
  Interesting, but this just a framework. Where are the actual implementations? Ie, the communities? I've been looking for networked states that aren't all in on living forever or obsessed with crypto and anarchism.
- extr 2y ago
  Not really the case in my situation. We moved to be closer to family (both sets of parents had coincidentally had relocated to the same area of the country late in life, but before we met). The choice between friends vs family complicates my situation. Love my family, but it's not the same as having peers in a similar stage of life.
- jimbokun 2y ago

lordnacho 2y ago

My childhood friend did this with his buddies. In our 20s they bought a big house in the suburbs and each had a room. They lived in that for a few years, and then when people started sprouting kids, some of them moved into the same building that was run as a coop. Eventually a lot of them were living in this coop. So now when I go back to see him there's all these people there that I've known since forever, living in the same building. It's oddly comforting. They've struck the just-right balance between being too close and too far apart. They see each other regularly but there isn't a gathering every day.

veunes 2y ago
It sounds very interesting. From the perspective of someone who finds it hard to make friends, it seems to me that such a concept is completely impossible. How diverse human connections and experiences are!
bballer 2y ago
Can I ask what country that is in?

iambateman 2y ago

There is a movement called Cohousing that I don’t think gets enough attention. I prefer to call it Tiny Neighborhoods, which is basically what the article describes. If interested, I did a 3,000 word deep dive into the specifics of how tiny neighborhoods have worked over the past 50 years… https://iambateman.com/tiny https://iambateman.com/tiny

bandwidth-bob 2y ago
Great read! Cohousing sounds like exactly what i've wanted in a neighborhood. I wish it were the norm.

almostvindiesel 2y ago

100% this. Started out with two families buying houses near each other in a family centric LA neighborhood (Eagle Rock). Then it expanded to 3 --> 4 --> 5 all within walking distance. We all have similar aged children. It's magic. We watch each others kids, do frequent backyard/park/sleepover playdates, and help w dropoff/pickup. It makes parenting SO MUCH EASIER. I often joke that I'm not a real parent bc we have so much help. Living closer meant compromising on other decisions (ideal house/commute/etc), but proximity to friends has more than outweighed the cons. One family was living near the beach and loved it, but decided it was more impt to live near us then right on the coast. We opt in and out as much as we'd like. It's beautiful having options, mostly for our kids, who are really thriving by having easy access to playmates. So much better than having to "blind date" other couples and their kids from daycare/activities/etc. The hardest part is starting. It doesn't have to be a huge commune initiative. Pick one friend who has a similar lifestyle and settle down in a neighborhood withing walking distance and take it from there. Think most important time to do it is when you become a new parent, when your kids and you will want companionship but won't have the time (nor energy) to build new relationships.

enahs-sf 2y ago
How are the schools though? Will the kids in your commune go through LAUSD together?
- almostvindiesel 2y ago
  Good, choose this neighborhood for the public schools and "suburbia light" vibe, eg proximity to target but also walkable to nice coffee shops / restaurants / local things.
lotsofpulp 2y ago
I would bet having that many friends, friends who are married, and who want kids, and have sufficient funds/income to afford a home in SoCal puts you in a rarefied portion of society.
- 2y ago

model-15-DAV 2y ago

This is certainly a reaction to economic strangulation of a huge percentage of people in the economy. Of course, if people want to be near each other they should, but this phenomenon is a direct result of the crumbling conditions for the working class. The resurrection of third-spaces is a much better alternative than the erosion of first-spaces. Our civil society organizations have eroded to the point that the private market has completely ended the concept of the third space. Places where community can be formed are gone; commoditized and politicized and so are not places where community can develop. Instead of the use of third-spaces we are forced to depend on our friends economically like this. This seems like a good thing, "people are coming together, yay!" but being forced to live like this is not going to have good outcomes. These people have real issues described in the article, they need better child-care, they need closer personal roots, they need economic security. But we forcing people to make these contracts of great economic dependency, we should be more prepared to allow people to live more independently. I see this move as kin to the economic migration from the Global South today to countries like Sweden, Germany, etc. which has been causing great strife internally to those countries.

neverartful 2y ago

This post is coming to me at an odd time regarding friends. On the one hand, I've rekindled some friendships with friends from high school and I'm so happy to be reconnected with them. I wish I could see them more often and spend time with them. On the other hand, I also just recently blocked the calls and emails from a long time friend. It wasn't a decision that I made lightly. Without getting into too much detail, our fairly frequent phone calls had become toxic with us arguing about politics and him lecturing me about various things (and perhaps me lecturing him too about various things). I was recently thinking how much I would like to be closer (geographically) with my high school friends (despite the changes that we've had over the years). But in the case of my friend whose phone number I recently blocked, I'm so happy that I don't live so close that he could drop by.

swozey 2y ago

Paywalled but from the comments here it sounds like this is moving near your HS friends? Absolutely not. Nothing in common with them. If this is more about living in a more dense area where you have friends closeby, absolutely. I live in a very dense area and I have friends all over the neighborhood. Some across the street, some down the road. We can meet up and see a show or do friendsgiving or whatever or just grab a beer. It's not cheap and I don't live in a big place but I am astronomically happier here than I was when I owned a house in the suburbs 2016-2019 and had to drive 25 minutes minimum to meet up with people.

parpfish 2y ago
I see a lot of internet commenters (here and Reddit) that act like they’ve outgrown all their friends from childhood/highschool and it always rubs me the wrong way. I’m sure there are folks with actual trauma they are running from, but it generally comes across as incredibly arrogant.

dlisboa 2y ago

Coming from a Latin American the idea of re-starting your life across the country for college and then again for work (multiple times sometimes) while away from family and friends is very foreign. A lot of the conversation around modern American youth feeling isolated, lacking socialization and not building strong relationships seems that stem from this drive. Another thing that’s really weird and related is another recurring theme in the American ethos: the cultural shame that comes with living “at home” or staying in the same small town for your whole life. Somehow they made it so living close to your family and friends for your 20s-30s and maybe forever means you’re a “loser”.

dyauspitr 2y ago
I think it facilitates the relatively high social mobility you see in the US. Being able to start over a few times means you can easily reinvent yourself whereas someone that lives in the same situation they were born into might not.
bossyTeacher 2y ago
On the other hand, if you look at Latam, you see that compared to anglo countries there is not much entrepreneurial spirit or drive to do things differently or be differently. And I feel this reflects at an economic level (innovation and startups) and social level (women equality, lgbt, secularity, etc)
chasd00 2y ago
Not sure if it’s just in America but people love to tear others down to lift themselves up by comparison. Once it clicks and you understand what is going on it’s easy to just ignore them.
- DavidPiper 2y ago
  OT, but it's interesting to hear this about America. Just yesterday I was in a conversation about how that (i.e. Tall Poppy Syndrome, what you're describing) is Australia's defining characteristic, and things are much better in America. But maybe not.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

Wish I could, but the high cost of living in my home town of Santa Cruz drove me and all my friends away. Then when I went back, home was no longer home.

pshc 2y ago

https://archive.is/4hczD https://archive.is/4hczD

subarctic 2y ago

Absolutely you should live somewhere where you have friends nearby. Or better yet live somewhere you can make friends who are nearby. Big cities are the best when you're young and single because there's just so many more opportunities to meet new people that you can make friends with or date. I think the article talks about being with your childhood friends, and maybe that's good for some people but people who make good friends when their 10 won't necessarily be a good fit for each other when they're 25 and that's ok.

anong1 2y ago

[flagged]

kyawzazaw 2y ago

https://livenearfriends.com/ https://livenearfriends.com/ Relevant website

germandiago 2y ago

21st century, where we discuss moving with friends and loneliness and do not mention family relatives...

nntwozz 2y ago

“Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.” — Baz Luhrmann from Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI I haven't found the above advice to be true, I'm 40 now. I moved off grid after living in a city for 20 years. I don't have a lot of friends but I'm happy, my nearest neighbor is 5km away. I enjoy the dark nights, the silence and the solitude. I think friends are a really arbitrary thing to plan your life around. Friends can also be a burden, more isn't just better; shoutout to social media. "If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company." — Jean-Paul Sartre Words to live by.

acidburnNSA 2y ago
Do you live completely alone, or do you have family or roommates?
- nntwozz 2y ago
  I live with my dog, my family is 1 hour away.

yowayb 2y ago

I've been to a handful of trailer parks with wonderful communities, and a lot of the people are not poor, just saving money, and stumbling upon community! I'm also a nomad and have found that, with a little extra effort on my part (it helps that I'm extroverted and skilled with productivity apps), I can easily see many friends all over the world. Also there was a study that found the reason some old folks lived super long in Italian towns is because of community.

more_corn 2y ago

Maybe make friends where you are? There’s a formula. Find people who share interests, spend time with them. meet their friends, expand your interests, be open. Be friendly, help, ask for help.

fuzztester 2y ago

Christopher Alexander: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language

droobles 2y ago

My friends and I joke about moving back to our home town to be together, possibly on the same block, mostly because of how cheap it would be. Truth is I have a lot of childhood and frankly recent trauma there and would never want to move back. Thankfully over time we’ve all seemed to be coincidentally landing in the same metro area over the years so we see each other a lot and it’s been a great way to bounce back from COVID.

fsckboy 2y ago

our society(s) have conducted two (three?) experiments at once, and it's not easy to separate the confounding factors. We spend less time with our relatives. We have drastically smaller families/fewer relatives. We move great distances and go out of touch with not only our families, but also our former friends. We also more drastically sort ourselves than before by some notions of class like "what you majored in" at "what tier of institution" and "stayed in academia" or "went into industry" etc. moving to live near friends is probably helpful but not a panacea; nor are we going to do it so...

jemmyw 2y ago

No, because they bugger off somewhere else shortly after for new opportunities or changed life circumstances[1][2] Probably better to make friends where you live. [1] Said by someone with some bitterness about this. [2] Who is also guilty of doing the same.

ryukoposting 2y ago

I think it's worth emphasizing that "living near friends" doesn't require "living in a big city." By moving from Chicago to Milwaukee, I grew my friend group, found more social opportunities, and those social opportunities are less of an economic burden. Still a city, but considerably smaller. Big cities can offer great things, but only if you can afford to live in certain neighborhoods. Smaller cities offer many of the same opportunities but with lower financial barrier to entry, and less physical distance between you and the most lively areas. Alternavely, you have to be willing to spend a lot of time in those neighborhoods, then go back to your home for the night. But, of course, the atrocious public transit system in most American cities means this is a pipe dream for me.

flocciput 2y ago

Of course the LiveNearFriends website is only for people in the fucking Bay Area and lists houses that are millions of dollars. I would love to live near friends. I've been trying to find a place cheap enough and close enough to an area with plentiful jobs. But my friends are not all software engineers, and most are far from making that kind of money (or being able to work from home anywhere in the country). It's so fucking hard. And such a slap in the face to see a site that should make it easier, actually only intended to help people for whom that goal is already in reach.

tina_pen 2y ago

Oh! It's so nice to read something you've thought about your whole life. I have an uncle, now in his late 60s. He and his friends have been living in the same society since kindergarten. They meet almost every day, go on trips, and party at the drop of a hat, always there when they need each other. I've been jealous of that for such a long time. My friends and I, in the pursuit of money, fame, and who knows what, are now spread across continents. We probably speak once or twice a day. Recent friendships haven't stood the test of time.

shirajg 2y ago

Yes. Friends make life way better!

Ozzie_osman 2y ago

My wife and I moved with our kids back to the country we grew up in in large part because of this. For us it wasn't just being closer to extended family, though that was a part of it. We just realized Western culture (we lived in Silicon Valley, which was probably the extreme of that) was very individualistic (or nuclear-family-focused), and people's lives aren't as intertwined as in other parts of the world. As an introvert, that was actually fine for some time, but once we had kids, we felt like it just wasn't a healthy way for our family to live and we were missing something pretty meaningful.

hackable_sand 2y ago

Fiefdoms. Got it.

bitzun 2y ago

I live very close to a couple dozen of my favourite people. I’d like to move out of the shithole state I live in, and began seriously planning it until I realised that it would never be worth trading the proximity.

deleted 2y ago

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stuckkeys 2y ago

Absolutely. It really has a positive effect on your mood. When you have someone close to you, you always hang out and it makes it worth everything. Share struggles, share ideas, feedback. It is really a great feeling.

nine_k 2y ago

My friends are all over the map. And I don't just mean Austin, Chicago, or San Diego, which are all pretty far away from NYC where I live. I mean places like London, Munich, Zurich, Tampere (Finland), or Tel Aviv. While I enjoyed it when my plane was landing in many of these places, I also enjoyed it when it was taking me back home. (Maybe except London, but, to my mind, London is harsher than NYC if you want to actually afford living there.) So the closest I can live to my friends is online. Show up for a chat, talk, cheer up, support each other, and the bonds of friendship will remain, despite geography. Live next block and forget to say hello week after week, because the days are busy, and the bond will fray.

veunes 2y ago
At moments like these, you must realize how lucky we are to live in the internet age, where you can stay closely connected with friends all over the world

veunes 2y ago

It was very hard for me to make friends. Even now, I only have two. When I didn’t have a family of my own, I was heavily dependent on my friends. Such "friendships" often didn’t end well for me. That’s why, at some point, I started striving to ensure that my mental health didn’t depend on my "social connections" (I’m not sure, maybe I misunderstood something in the article).

crtified 2y ago
I can relate. There's something about the human group dynamic that, by default, isn't kind to certain types of personality. Internet-only friendships and acquaintances and groups can be deceiving too. They can be great and full of wonderful people, but the reality is usually that even if you spend 20 years in a particular internet community, you could leave tomorrow and few (if any) people would be talking about you for longer than a week.
- veunes 2y ago
  That’s partly why I’ve been working on becoming less dependent on any external source for my sense of self-worth. It’s not easy, though...
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    It's very hard to imagine. I feel like I don't exist when I'm alone
  - crtified 2y ago
    I'm glad you said "less" dependent. Never forget that what you're striving for a balance point appropriate to yourself. Your goal isn't to attain one end of a scale.

atlgator 2y ago

I wish I had.

bnlxbnlx 2y ago

I'm living with my partner and her brother and family and another family who are friends of ours in a house (which has three apartments). We moved there to live together (and continued to work remotely or found work elsewhere). Six adults, six children. It's an absolute treat. I can't imagine going back to a nuclear family setup. Living in a larger web with more support from all sides (both for adults and children) is just amazing. And of course it's often not possible or easy to do this.

JackMorgan 2y ago
Do you ever get on each other's nerves? Are the apartments separated enough that there's noise issues?
- bnlxbnlx 2y ago
  Totally. A conflict engagement rather than conflict avoidance culture is definitely helpful, so that resentment doesn't build up, and information can flow more easily. And yes, apartments are kind of separate enough to not hear each other too much. But then also everyone has young kids anyway, so we are all used to a certain baseline noise level anyway

whitehexagon 2y ago

Having contracted around Europe for 20 years, my friends are scattered. There are many of those places I'd be happy to settle down in, but my upcoming move is based primarily on the changing climate. The area I am living in now is already changing, and the climate change models dont bode well for this area. Anyway, the contractor lifestyle has taught me there are new friends waiting to be found wherever I live, even if my next new friend is the 200 year old oak tree next to a stream deep in the forest.

ricardobayes 2y ago
Difficult to foresee which way will it tip, on short-term it will be hotter for sure but if (big IF) medium-term the AMOC slows down or stops, it will be much colder.

LightBug1 2y ago

This feels weird af to me ... there's a place for highschool friends and I cherish and miss some of them. But there's also a place for striving forward into a world and meeting and learning with new people. Personally, family and the closest of close (family) friends are the constant. Beyond that, it feels like retreat into mundanity ... like Facebook.

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greenie_beans 2y ago

we moved across the country where we don't know anybody. i do not recommend this. having friends nearby is such an important aspect of mental health and overall joy in life.

harimau777 2y ago

I'm currently in the process of moving away from friends. It's definitely not something I want to do, but I don't have much of a choice due to the lack of tech jobs in the area, the increasingly oppressive culture & laws of a deep red state, and the lack of amenities. I suspect that the focus should be on making it easier for people to choose to live near friends. Not sure how that would work though.

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silexia 2y ago

We can't move anywhere because we can't afford to. When 500,000 H1-B visas are brought into the USA to do entry level accounting and programming jobs, we have far less negotiating leverage to work remotely or make higher pay. Supply and demand. Your employer wants to increase the labor supply to reduce your price (your salary) and options like working where you wish.

hyperific 2y ago

Should writers stop using the question format in titles when the answer to the question is immediately apparent?

yapyap 2y ago

just based off the title: yeah sure, or make new friends?

JustExAWS 2y ago

It doesn’t matter when I lived near friends and family. At our ages 40-60, we all have our own immediate families, obligations (kids, grandkids and/or aging parents), we still have to make an effort to get together and we probably wouldn’t get together any more than we do now. I am 50 married with adult (step)kids and my wife and I are empty nesters. We recently moved from where I lived after graduating from college in 1996 and my wife has lived all of her adult life. My core group of 5 friends I’ve put together from jobs I’ve had when living there are all married some with adult kids and others with kids still at home. It took a lot of planning and juggling calendars just for us to get together even once per quarter when I lived there. They all still live there and we have a group chat. But it is still less than once per quarter that we can all get together. It’s a short cheap flight for me to fly in to hang out with them. There are two other couples that my wife and I are friends with and we all live in different cities now. Similar scenario, they both have family obligations - parents, adult kids, grandkids, etc which make it hard for all six of us to get together. But we usually have planned a trip together at least once a year and we end up in each others city for something at least once a year - Atlanta, Orlando and Los Angeles. My third group of “friends” are my seven cousins I grew up with (I’m an only child). They are all female and also have aging parents (who are less healthy than mine), children, grand children, etc. They all live in my former hometown and I’m also in a group chat with them. They say they often only see each other when I come to town and get us all together. It’s the same with my college crew - we all went to college in our hone town and they either still live there or have family there. We can barely get together for alumni college events

elAhmo 2y ago

This is such a great text! In my home city, many houses around are my family and childhood friends, and I wish I could replicate that with my other friends too. If I ever become a billionaire and can buy a small village and make everyone move there, it would be a dream coming true!

squirrel6 2y ago

adamtaylor_13 2y ago

Doesn’t this weird question presuppose that you live somewhere with literally no friends? In what situation would you live somewhere long-term with no friends whatsoever?

yellowapple 2y ago

I have a few friends (and family members thereof) within relatively close proximity (either walkable or a <5 minute drive), and it's indeed been pretty handy. A couple of us have even talked about someday together investing in someplace we can all live (be it a multiplex, some chunk of land with a few double-wides, or - only half-seriously - one of the mansions that periodically hit Zillow in our city), much like what's described in the article. The big issue is that friendships ain't permanent, and navigating the financial and legal implications of jointly owning real estate entails a need for quite a bit of permanence. I and the friends in question believe we trust each other enough to make it work (should we ever all be sufficiently financially secure to pull the trigger on that plan), but it's hard to be sure.