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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?

#471

Post by nicbou »

CalRobert wrote: post #355

I often come back to this comment on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20470085 """ The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives. Loneliness is just a primary symptom. The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Medi…

It's just so damn hard to get away from the Screen. Everything else has a start-up cost to it. The Screen keeps the dopamine trickling.

I know there's something better out there, but I have to look things up, make plans, get dressed, get there. It will make me happier, but it's hard to beat instant gratification.

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

#472

Post by shrimp_emoji »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #466
0zemp1c wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And we’ll wonder why the people in that cute little European town we visited that one time seemed so much happier. except they don't think that the Americans nod politely and whisper to each other " can you imagine living that close to your neighbors? nooooo thank you! " HN needs to just drop this notion that anyone opposed to density is a caveman. I love the fact that my neighbors can't see me and I can't see them…

> HN needs to just drop this notion that anyone opposed to density is a caveman. I totally agree with that. I've been a city dweller (in Europe) for 45 years or so and hated every second of it. I then lived in suburbia for 5 years and liked it much better. I then just spent one year in the countryside in a very remote area and loved it. I knew my neighbors (but we all had big plots so it's not as if we could see each…

I classify myself as an extremophile; suburbs are the worst of both worlds in that you're crammed in with a bunch of people but on a sprawling 2D plane -- large enough to have little privacy and low access to stuff, but just close enough for possible social friction. Ug.

My favorite, but less practical, choice is also countryside. :p

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

#473

Post by vineyardmike »

amalcon wrote: post #404
OJFord wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's a delayed vestige of the "stranger danger" panic of the 80's and 90's. Being in a park without kids is considered suspicious in some places now. Fortunately, not where I live.

It’s also a subtle way to punish poor people. Obviously it impacts the homeless, but even poorer people without yards or adequate access to private space to play/relax will be forced to loiter in public to get out of the house.

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

#474

Post by ptero »

mcv wrote: post #446
MavisBacon wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely this. I grew up outside Baltimore and went on to live in Boulder CO, Orange County CA, moved back home and then to LA on a whim. Finished school in Nashville, TN and my wife and I are about to get out and move to Maine. Zero red tape whatsoever- the flexibility and ease of traversing and moving around the USA is definitely awesome and rarely discussed in terms of the benefits of living here. There’s someth…

With freedom of movement, it's just as easy to move around the EU now. But I don't have to make a trade-off between safety and nightlife. But I've got to admit that Maine looks pretty safe according to https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/charts-and-maps

First of all, I am not bashing EU or Europe -- great countries, great history, etc. But I would pretty strongly disagree on "just as easy to move around the EU" part. From what I understand it is super smooth for vacations, but not nearly as frictionless to move around semi-permanently. For example, someone graduating in Norway, moving to Spain for 3 years, then on to Germany would see friction in renting a flat, sending children to school or buying a house. If this is not the case, I would love to be corrected.

Also, it sounds strange to me to look at guns as an inverse proxy for safety. I would, especially with kids, first look at drug prevalence and second at accidents on the roads (both cars and bikes). Which reinforces what I started with: the ability to select the place I want to live in based on my own preferences. Given a wide variety of options, both politically and socially, one can usually find a place they are happy in. My 2c.

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

#475

Post by vineyardmike »

MrOwnPut wrote: post #456
ausbah wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small towns are almost always in rural areas which at least in American means some amount of trouble if you're non religious, non white, or non heterosexual. Problem with cities isn't overpopulation, it's housing. People want to live there but there isn't enough accommodations, and there totally could be if zoning and infrastructure were properly prioritized.

> means some amount of trouble if you're non religious, non white, or non heterosexual. No it doesn't. Stop generalizing and stereotyping. From my experience people in small towns are nicer than people in cities, regardless of race or whatever. The small town I grew up in was 1/3rd hispanic, 1/3rd black, 1/3rd white and everyone got along. Don't believe what the media tries to racebait you with. > Problem with cities…

Just because you have a good experience, doesn’t mean everyone will. There’s plenty of history in America to defend the assumption that minorities will have a worse experience in rural towns. You seem to live in a very diverse town which is great. That’s not most towns in America.

As a counter example, someone has called me a slur in almost every area I’ve spent time in besides big cities. Like driving by me on a sidewalk, in a bar, whatever, it always happens.

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

#476

Post by Symbiote »

GoldenRacer wrote: post #371
mcv wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always struggle with the difference between a town and a city, because Dutch has only one word for them: stad. A stad (plural "steden" is something that in the middle ages had city rights (or is it town rights?), a dorp (village) does not. And this has lead Netherland to have some steden of only a few hundred inhabitants, while some villages have more than 100,000, which of course makes no sense. The place I grew u…

Cities and towns sound pretty similar to your steden and dorp. The US can get complicated because every state defines things their own way but generally there are different legal requirements and rights for cities vs towns. In North Carolina there is a "city" called Brevard with a population of just under 8,000 but you also have the "town" of Cary with population 170,000. Of course there is still the issue of how the…

A dorp is a village, note all the English village names ending in -thorp or -thorpe.

Although we can't trust the cognates, as 'stad' is related to English 'stead', which meant a settlement of any size.

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

#477

Post by selimthegrim »

yawnr wrote: post #430
zamnos wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is an extreme take but IMO New York is the only real American city. Maybe Boston and Chicago. Everything else is a glorified suburb. I wish we had good, small cities in this country, but we just don’t.

New Orleans?

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

#478

Post by yellowapple »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #291
yellowapple wrote: post #182

One of the perks of living in a smaller city (in my case, Reno) is that if your friends are in the same city at all, chances are y'all are already within close proximity.

I wouldn't count a city of 250k as "smaller". Of course, perspective. I'm in a "big city" right now, smaller than Reno, and it is the biggest city I've lived in.

> I wouldn't count a city of 250k as "smaller".

Salt Lake City is even smaller by that metric, with only 200k people. What gives?

Well, that's why we measure metropolitan areas instead of cities themselves. If your metro area is in the top 100 in the US, then it's bigger than Reno/Sparks by a considerable margin.

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

#479

Post by selimthegrim »

trgn wrote: post #353
iambateman wrote: post #85

Sprawl exists because it’s nice. People really like having a 3,000 square foot detached single family home with a 2 car garage. Especially when all of their friends have one. The only way everyone gets that, by definition, is sprawl. Of course, the drawbacks to personal health and well-being and societal stability are immense. But it’s really nice, too. Like, sitting in a massive basement with three TV’s while the gr…

The aspirational American city is Charleston, its gentle density, lush, verdant. Not he apartment blocks of NYC. That's the picture that needs painting. One of town life. Not necessarily apartment life.

Not NOLA?

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

#480

Post by bradlys »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #45
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…

It is a nice set of problems to have though, diversity of neighborhood or living with millionaires. Choosing to work somewhere you can do something you love for executive wages, or move to another city, with a move that costs pocket change so that you can find love.

Comes with a different set of problems - tbh. The women I'm looking for need to be single and in a similar socioeconomic bracket. Those two things are basically impossible to find together.
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