Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why don’t more people live close to friends?

annehelen.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 572 posts

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

#281

Post by OJFord »

theshrike79 wrote: post #187
abalashov wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that unconventional. I'm a published critic of American-style automobile sprawl, and I've argued that 90% of what notionally passes for a metro area in Middle America should be reclassified as a rural area in the eyes of most reasonable people from elsewhere in the world.

If you can't walk to a corner store, you're not living in a "metro area" in my opinion.

In the UK you would barely even have neighbours if that were the case, it would be properly rural, US 'suburban sprawl' needs a different word IMO, it's a housing estate basically (though that implies social housing) but a spectacularly isolated/car-assuming one.

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

#282

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

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…

Except large suburbs go back over 70 years and the loss of community is a much more recent thing.

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

#283

Post by [deleted] »

ambicapter wrote: post #3

I have also fantasized about this recently. I also think it'd be great to live near people who are having children at the same time as I am having children. It seems pretty hard to coordinate however. I just bought a condo and my friends are still renting. That basically puts us in different zipcodes by default. As well housing is so touch (in the US) that when you find a good deal you're unlikely to move, even if yo…

[deleted]

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

#284

Post by OJFord »

nicbou wrote: post #265
enaaem wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just came back from Vietnam and I noticed that many Western countries lack low intensity socialising. There are tea carts everywhere. People sit, sip tea or some other light beverage and just do nothing. They’re close to others who are also doing nothing with whom they may or may not engage with. Bars and clubs are too intense, too expensive and unappealing if you don’t drink alcohol. At libraries and coffeeshops p…

Most of Europe has a café culture. It is sorely missing from North America. You just sit outside and watch the world go by. Berlin in particular has lots of parks, and people can go there with drinks, grills, frisbees etc. The sheer number of them means that most people are within walking distance from one. It’s great to meet without spending money. Again, those are almost absent in most of North America. You have to…

Illegal to 'loiter' in a park? What does legal use of it look like? Moving through at a swift pace with eyes straight ahead and a stamped permit that it's the most efficient path to your destination?

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

#285

Post by npteljes »

bspammer wrote: post #219
sneak wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I find it hard to believe that there’s some agenda against friends out there. What I find much easier to believe is the auto industry lobbying against public transport and for urban sprawl.

>I find it hard to believe that there’s some agenda against friends out there

Freedom of assembly / association is not something that's neutral, politically. In certain regimes, it has been explicitly banned to gather in groups. It others, it has been recognized as an essential human right, and law has been made to recognize this.

So if you take this into account, there could very well be an agenda. But I don't think so either - I think isolation is just a byproduct currently. But I also think that it's a still a useful one - isolated people are easier to control, and unhappiness drives business.

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

#286

Post by steveBK123 »

bradlys wrote: post #17

Cause we have an economy that has atomized everyone to where you have to fight for your own survival - constantly. I'd love having some of my friends be my neighbors. But I had to move cross country just to find a partner because living in Silicon Valley was going to leave me an incel. (No surprise - I leave and I've had far more partners than I ever did in SV) I'll move back eventually with a partner in tow but the…

Yup, this describes NYC pretty well. If you are in the HN crowd, and moved to a hood you consider desirable with a good commute to where our offices are..

You can have friends nearby if you make them after you move in and are happy with a social circle comprised of people almost entirely in the same field, with a few trust funders mixed in.

If you live in an older hood like UWS/UES there will also be some old timers mixed in who bought/secured a lease in the 80s~90s and maybe from other fields. Or more often than not, they are lawyers and doctors or other high paying but not-quite banking/consulting/software.

Growing up outside the city, my friends dads were, in no particular order - teacher, principal, engineer, auto mechanic, IT, roofer, etc.

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

#287

Post by fallingknife »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #183
habosa wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans are friendly but when it comes to the decisions that matter (voting and the votes with our wallets) the preference is for the private over the public. People are scared to depend on each other or to be forced to interact with strangers. So we’ll all try to have our own cars and drive on huge suburban streets and put our kids in private schools and build fences around our yards and vote down zoning laws that…

I think "scared" is the wrong word for it. People in the US tend to have very low levels of contentiousness, and that in turn makes people want to avoid strangers. The most obvious recent example is the push back against masking. In a high population density urban setting, even a few people who aren't adhering to masking raises the general risk level for people substantially. In less population dense areas it doesn't…

All mask rules should have been lifted the second the vaccine was available without a wait. But the government kept it for another year. Of course we pushed back on that nonsense. Of course we don't trust those government people.

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

#288

Post by CaptainDecisive »

Yizahi wrote: post #239
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…

While I also like "Not Just Bikes" and this idea in general, I must say that urbanists sometimes make this mistake - living right next to a dozen of people next door and a hundred more in the same building doesn't mean that you will talk to them. I've lived in the apartment for all my life and changed it last year. I have no idea who are the people next door to me, I don't know their names and the whole social intera…

I lived on 2nd Ave NYC for a while which matched your observations on interacting with neighbours. However there's an interesting urbanist video [1] that suggests that even in a higher density neighbourhood with appartment buildings, the amount of traffic on the road affects both how many friends you have and how much you socialise with neighbours in your building. Ie in a car lite environment, everyone is friendlier.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESgkcFbGiL8

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

#289

Post by lynx23 »

coldtea wrote: post #242
jonny_eh wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lay off the Fox News

Yeah, it's just Fox. Not official crime statistics. Or even Wikipedia: "The American city of Baltimore, Maryland, is notorious for its crime rate, which ranks well above the national average. Violent crime spiked in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015, which touched off riots and an increase in murders. The city recorded 348 homicides in 2019, a number second only to the number recorded in 1993 whe…

I don't understand why people like to bath in drama like this. Yes, there are statistics... But, to be a bit cynic, you can spend your whole life being afraid of everything. But you can not spend the rest of your death being sorry about the decision that led to your demise. IOW, I'd much rather have a burden-free life where I might be a little unlucky and die before I reach the average lifespan... Instead of being careful and afraid the whole time but very old and bored.

Is it that my doctor told me that I have only a 50/50 chance of reaching the age of 30 that I see risks as a worthwhile thing to embark on. Or am I just stupid not wanting to waste my life with fear and not caring enough about becoming old?

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

#290

Post by mab122 »

midoridensha wrote: post #227
ehnto wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think work expectations and schooling play a bigger role in that than the city planning, but it may also be suffering from it's own success in some ways. An abundance of choice can sometimes make commitment difficult, dating apps are one example. It's easy to stay non-commited to a social regulationship when it feels like they are a dime a dozen. I also get the impression that a lot is expected of individuals in th…

This is exactly it. People are very busy with work, and work too much, and then there's so much choice socially, so they end up making plans for their free time several weeks in advance.

Just wanted to throw this in: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-working-hours-per-... because recently I was talking to some friends and they were very much under the stereotype that in Japan you work some horrendous amount of hours - that is not true. IIRC data is both self reported and from companies.
Post reply on HN