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Why don’t more people live close to friends?

annehelen.substack.com

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Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#161

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #21
nonethewiser wrote: post #5

Isn’t being friends with your neighbors a far more obvious answer to this? I thought that’s where this was going. > Sometime during the pandemic lockdowns, I began to nurture a fantasy,” Adrienne Matei writes. “What if I were neighbors with all of my friends? Every day, as I took long walks through North Vancouver that were still nowhere near long enough to land me at a single pal’s doorstep, I would reflect on the p…

In addition to what other have said, the definition of "friends" may change with time and context. Like yourself, my family was super "close" to our neighbours when I was growing up. But they weren't even remotely "friends" in the sense that I might use the word today - there were zero common interests; significantly different backgrounds, world perspectives, priorities, lifestyles; they had little to talk about othe…

Love this analysis.

I now live in a small village in rural New Mexico, and your 2nd paragraph precisely describes things here. We love our neighbors - not as people to bare our hearts to, but as people we can rely on (and they can rely on us). Yes, I do miss the sense of a deeper connection, especially since I've been fortunate to find a few (remote) friends in life where that happened from day one. But you know what, sometimes you just have to grow that over time.

Before this location, I lived on an amazing block in suburban Philadelphia, where the middle of the block had five families/households (us among them) who were similarly "utterly dependable". But over time, we became closer to some of them (amidst the christmas round-robin dinners and block parties and standing around outside while raking leaves), and so last summer we were invited to a the daughter's wedding, and next month one of them might join me on a 1600 bike ride from Santa Fe to Seattle.

I do like meeting people that I just immediately click with, but we should not discount the merits of long, long neighborly relationships that deepen and ripen over many years to become a different, but similarly valuable sort of friendship.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#162

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

com2kid wrote: post #47
clipsy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, as the rare suburbanite HNer, I fondly recall my family having the same sort of relationships with neighbors in the late 80's and 90's; unfortunately the same just doesn't seem to happen even in socioeconomically comparable suburbs today. Even just attempts to strike up small talk with a neighbor when we both happen to be outside at the same time are usually rebuffed, and the idea that anyone wou…

> For what it's worth, as the rare suburbanite HNer, I fondly recall my family having the same sort of relationships with neighbors in the late 80's and 90's; unfortunately the same just doesn't seem to happen even in socioeconomically comparable suburbs today. I used to live in a townhome in Kirkland Washington, ~10 minutes from Microsoft's main campus. One year my wife and I made Christmas cookies and went door to…

I think it's at least as much to do with expectations.

The small village in rural NM where I live generally has larger properties than you're describing, and people are really not "on top" of each other to any real extent. But for reasons that are hard to pin down, there's an expectation here that people will be neighborly - it's an expectation that is frequently broken, but persists anyway. We have community breakfasts, village cleanups, dinner gatherings, communal dog-walking schedules, book clubs and more.

By contrast, just 15 miles away in a geographically similar place, someone I know remarks with amazement at any description of life in our village. They say "just about everyone who lives here came here to be private. Nobody wants anything to do with anyone else".

So I think that some of what you're describing can be the result of a semi-self-sustaining culture of a place (a place as small as a block, sometimes). Although I'm a big believer in designing urban (and really, any residential) areas for better neighborhoods, I think that part of the equation is really independent of the physical nature of the place.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#163

Post by hibikir »

zamnos wrote: post #37
naremu wrote: post #25

I've been wondering how related these feelings of distance and isolation in the middle of society are to how the area is designed. I had always known for a long time the "why" I didn't want to go out on weekends and such, but it wasn't until I watched some of those videos from "Not Just Bikes" that it really, really struck me. I literally dread finding parking more than I enjoy finding friends. And suburban (and fran…

This is a bit of an unconventional POV, but I don't consider large areas of suburban sprawl to be cities but just really big towns. This covers Houston, swaths of Atlanta, lots of Southern California. There are lots of people living there compared to rural areas, to be sure, but without the density to support usable public transportation (once-an-hour buses don't count), it's really not a city at all. It's endless su…

If anything, you are being too nice to US suburbs: It's perfectly possible to have towns that are much denser than any US suburb. My Spanish home town has about 100K inhabitants: You'd not call that a city anywhere in the US. And yet, It's basically a circle with a one mile radius: Yes, just one mile. In that situation, one can walk everywhere, and public transportation is limited to the elderly, people carrying heavy things, and the impatient that live in the outskirts of town.

As a pre-teen, I could go to any of my friend's houses to do tabletop roleplaying all by myself. If my mother needed a break from parenting, she had three different siblings living within a quarter mile. When your average building is 6 stories tall, and your typical street is 30 feet wide building to building, a quarter mile circle holds a lot of families! In comparison, my neighbor from across the street in the US suburbs is 60 feet away, door to door, and a quarter mile circle won't get me to 300 front doors, total.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#164

Post by waboremo »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #129
trinovantes wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal theory is that suburban sprawl killed the "third place" in modern society. If you have to drive to a place to socialize (which probably involve drinking), then you're probably not going. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

My hypothesis is it's connected to the decline in religion, or, more specifically, the mandatory church on Sunday type of religion, no matter what flavor it took. A built in semi-mandatory third place seems pretty nifty as far as building social relationships goes. I'm an atheist but I do remember building bonds this way in those heady pre-smartphone days. It's a shame the baby is stuck in the bathwater.

The decline in religion happened after the increase of convenience. Hence the popularity of televised religious content.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#165

Post by r2_pilot »

dopidopHN wrote: post #86
whydoineedaname wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistically, five to six out of ten of my neighbors think my marriage shouldn't be allowed, so yeah, I'd say there's a pretty big barrier with the neighbors of happenstance. The ones who will deign to talk to us politely discourage us from attending the BBQs, "Oh you know, it'll be mainly families so it won't be of much interest to you."

Damn. move. Friendly place do exists. Anyway, none of my business but I got anoyed on your behalf

I can only speak for myself but if you want to help change, come and get involved in people's lives. I partly live where I do so I can have a positive influence.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#166

Post by kodah »

selimthegrim wrote: post #150
kodah wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And suburban (and frankly disturbingly high percentages of urban) America IME is a strange cross between in constant proximity of others, and constant suspicion of others When I lived in San Jose I trusted my immediate neighbors but someone on the street was basically a neighborhood watchdog for unkept lawns and cars that were parked too long. The neighborhood was mostly rentals, so landlords were responsible for l…

Curious about where in Portland this is - St. John’s?

Good guess. I live in SouthEast, near Gresham and Powell Butte Park.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#167

Post by ETH_start »

I think this is a great idea but it's hard to effect in practice. We have formalized relationships between significant others, including the obligations that come with that.

Less formalized relationships like friendships have less defined obligations, so it may be hard to negotiate who makes the effort of moving to bring the friends' residences in geographical proximity.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#168

Post by scarface74 »

rayiner wrote: post #93
lotsofpulp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> about American individualism[0] and not wanting to share anything if you don't absolutely have to. I don’t know if this is an American quality specifically. It could just be that Americans can (or used to be able to) afford it, whereas most other people in most other societies never could. For example, what young married couple would want to live in their parents house if they can afford their own? All of my extend…

> For example, what young married couple would want to live in their parents house if they can afford their own? Anyone who has kids and sometimes wants a break. > All of my extended family grew up in intergenerational households because they were poor immigrants who had to make do, but all the cousins became doctors/lawyers/engineers/etc and got their own house. How much of that is just unconsciously going along wit…

> Anyone who has kids and sometimes wants a break

And then there is the lack of privacy. Your parents who came from a different generation trying to tell you how to live your life (ie my parents are very religiously conservative). I would have to deal with my mom and my wife walking on eggshells to not offend each other. I would have to deal with my dad wondering why I would waste money paying people to cut my lawn, etc.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#169

Post by mikrotikker »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #14

Access to friends is probably the biggest reason I prefer dense urban environments. There’s something magical about being able to step out your door and be within a 10-20 minute walk of close friends or family. It invites casual get togethers like Saturday afternoon coffee or an after work drink. Living an hour or two apart kills these opportunities. I recall walking through Vienna one weeknight evening and being ama…

I'd far rather go for a long drive in a comfortable car with scenic views than go to a bar.

My closest (in both meanings of the word) friend is three hours away through a scenic mountain pass and when we go there its for an entire weekend. This gives time to help with things like building a shed or swapping an engine in a car.

Re: Why don’t more people live close to friends?

#170

Post by epistasis »

bavell wrote: post #143
dopidopHN wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s unconventional, it’s just a definition of suburbs. Worse of both world in my book. Unless you want to raise your kid in isolation.

Huh? Growing up in the burbs (90's and 00's) I had dozens of kids around my age within biking distance.

This is changing, kids are riding a lot less than in the 00s (here's one of many articles):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/06/04/fewer-kids-...

It may be social, in that letting kids roam on their own is not as acceptable and could get you in trouble with courts. Also, "cars" are more dangerous these days, ans they shift into more trucks and SUVs with massive blind spots and distracted drivers, and there have been many efforts to eliminate penalties for speeding, and the difference between 20mph and 30mph is literally a ton of death.

The number 1 thing I would love for my child is to live in a place where I was not in constant fear of cars when on the sidewalk or street. It wasn't like that when I was a kid in the suburbs in the 80s. And I will likely have to leave the US to find what I want.

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