How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
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Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#2Note that it's not just individual choices that have led to this. Minimum parking requirements, anti-density zoning laws, and other car-first regulations have forcibly shaped our communities to be hostile to walking, biking, and transit. A huge loss in spontaneous community interaction is the inevitable result.
Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#3Counterpoint: If you've ever really been burned by having a crappy neighbor -- or a string of them -- you may be inclined to get as far away as possible.
I'm sensitive to noise, and I ended up not with average neighbors but with extremely noisy ones, on multiple occasions. (On one occasion, inescapable even when I was across the street and down two houses.)
I'd like a greater sense of community, but I never want to go through that, again.
I don't know whether manners have changed, or more people are sensitive to noise (some aspect of the autistic spectrum or the like?). Regardless, for me, higher density living will only become attractive with improvements in soundproofing of such units and/or better control of noisy behavior.
(Come to think of it, people didn't used to have such absurd stereos and televisions producing such absurd levels of bass, either -- on average. Not that that is the only problem with noise, these days.)
P.S. I'll add that the sound of kids playing and the like doesn't bother me, in reasonable measure. The situations I encountered went FAR beyond that.
Sociologists/anthropologists and urban planners need to broaden their perspective with regard to this, in my opinion, when considering contemporary U.S. environments and their like.
Further, I can add that I have made upwards of 10 good friends in the last decade. Not neighbors -- although I am friendly with several of them -- but people who, while differing in details and some beliefs and opinions, are kind and respectful.
So... is it that we don't have "casual interactions" near our homes? Or, is something else going on? Probably some of each.
Again, if you want to promote higher density living, amongst other things ameliorate the noise issues. Better sound-proofing. Effective ordinances.
Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#4Note that it's not just individual choices that have led to this. Minimum parking requirements, anti-density zoning laws, and other car-first regulations have forcibly shaped our communities to be hostile to walking, biking, and transit. A huge loss in spontaneous community interaction is the inevitable result.
Well that's 100% out of phase with my experience. I just ended 21 years in the "Front Range" area; Boulder, Fort Collins CO. Bike trails and bikers abound, anti-car municipal governments impeding road development, everyone living on anti-sprawl 0.2 acre plats. However, actual contact with neighbors was very sparse; a service for every need, everything on auto-pilot.
The last three months I've been living semi-rural in the midwest; all the households are on two acres (minimum, due to to well and septic density.) I've had more direct contact with my neighbors in these 12 weeks than the previous 21 years put together. Maintaining larger properties that are much more distant from the urban core invites collaboration. Household attendance at the HOA meeting last month was almost 50%; waaay more than I saw back in the Front Range burbs.
Your view of the world doesn't match my experience at all. Exactly the opposite.
Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#5Note that it's not just individual choices that have led to this. Minimum parking requirements, anti-density zoning laws, and other car-first regulations have forcibly shaped our communities to be hostile to walking, biking, and transit. A huge loss in spontaneous community interaction is the inevitable result.
> Minimum parking requirements
On the flipside, if you have friends who aren't right next door (or perhaps who once were and you don't want to write them off because they moved), it helps to have the ability to drive to their place. I'm not arguing for "car first", but I don't think "pedestrian first" makes sense either. Most of my friends are scattered around a 20-minute radius.
(And quite frankly, you can choose your friends but you can't really choose your neighbors.)
> anti-density zoning laws
I'd have less problem with dense housing (especially since I don't actually care about the stereotypical "yard and a white picket fence") if said housing started including -90dB or better soundproofing.
Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#6Note that it's not just individual choices that have led to this. Minimum parking requirements, anti-density zoning laws, and other car-first regulations have forcibly shaped our communities to be hostile to walking, biking, and transit. A huge loss in spontaneous community interaction is the inevitable result.
> Minimum parking requirements On the flipside, if you have friends who aren't right next door (or perhaps who once were and you don't want to write them off because they moved), it helps to have the ability to drive to their place. I'm not arguing for "car first", but I don't think "pedestrian first" makes sense either. Most of my friends are scattered around a 20-minute radius. (And quite frankly, you can choose yo…
>I'd have less problem with dense housing (especially since I don't actually care about the stereotypical "yard and a white picket fence") if said housing started including -90dB or better soundproofing.
Yep. Instead of having a thousand of single-family houses, I would rather have a beautiful 30+ stories castle surrounded by a park of ~1 km radius. Cars are expected to live underground and reach the surface outside of the park.
Saying that as I have lived a few years in a very similar setting, while being at a university: http://cdn.absolutevisit.com/blog/photo-of-the-day/100075/Mo...
Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#7Note that it's not just individual choices that have led to this. Minimum parking requirements, anti-density zoning laws, and other car-first regulations have forcibly shaped our communities to be hostile to walking, biking, and transit. A huge loss in spontaneous community interaction is the inevitable result.
On the other hand, people in rural areas tend to be on friendlier terms with their neighbours than people in high-density areas.
For various reasons, including the fact that it's much easier to be on good terms with your neighbour when he lives way over the other side of the hill and nothing he does really affects you or vice versa.
Also because of necessity -- if there's only two people in a ten-mile radius who can help you if you have a problem, it's nice to be on good terms with them.
And finally just the fact that the fewer people you come into contact with, the easier it is to become friends with them. If you keep running into the same fifty people over and over again you'll get to know them, but most of the people I see in the city are people I'll never see again.
Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#8Note that it's not just individual choices that have led to this. Minimum parking requirements, anti-density zoning laws, and other car-first regulations have forcibly shaped our communities to be hostile to walking, biking, and transit. A huge loss in spontaneous community interaction is the inevitable result.
Well that's 100% out of phase with my experience. I just ended 21 years in the "Front Range" area; Boulder, Fort Collins CO. Bike trails and bikers abound, anti-car municipal governments impeding road development, everyone living on anti-sprawl 0.2 acre plats. However, actual contact with neighbors was very sparse; a service for every need, everything on auto-pilot. The last three months I've been living semi-rural i…
Agree. I don't think physical distance and density are important factors. Culture might be.
People are more friendly in the midwest, and they are more open to talk about family matters. Family matters are in essence intimate, and the topics draw the people in the conversation together. In the big cities, these topics are regarded as "more" private (they are indeed private). It is a social norm to not share them unless to good friends. The less people share, the less opportunities to make friends.
I also find it is easier for adults, especially men, to make friends in Asia, like in China and Japan.
Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#9Well I have learned a lot from my wife in this regard, we walk our dog in the early evenings and say Hi! and chat with anyone willing to stop and talk.
Perhaps the biggest thing I learned is that you have to give your time unconditionally, sometimes for a while, before people will trust you enough to reciprocate. But you can break down barriers this way.
Re: How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Minimum parking requirements On the flipside, if you have friends who aren't right next door (or perhaps who once were and you don't want to write them off because they moved), it helps to have the ability to drive to their place. I'm not arguing for "car first", but I don't think "pedestrian first" makes sense either. Most of my friends are scattered around a 20-minute radius. (And quite frankly, you can choose yo…
>I'd have less problem with dense housing (especially since I don't actually care about the stereotypical "yard and a white picket fence") if said housing started including -90dB or better soundproofing. Yep. Instead of having a thousand of single-family houses, I would rather have a beautiful 30+ stories castle surrounded by a park of ~1 km radius. Cars are expected to live underground and reach the surface outside…
> a beautiful 30+ stories castle surrounded by a park of ~1 km radius
The problem with this is that you're basically getting the worst of both worlds. You lose many of the real benefits of dense development because there's no space for jobs and shopping, and you lose the benefits of privately kept land like customized yards and broken-up sightlines and so on.
The "giant building separated from everything else by a giant moat of grass" style also has a long, ugly history in public housing developments, with it meant as idealistic but ultimately turning to crap.