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Why don’t more people live close to friends?

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

#181

Post by throwaway22032 »

mikrotikker wrote: post #169
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.

Heh.

I live in a city and more and more I feel this.

The whole idea behind urbanism seems to be - give up the outdoors, give up hobbies that require tools and space.

Go to the bar. Or a "makerspace" where you can have controlled use of someone else's tools. Rent this, rent that, take an uber here and there.

It's just so commercialised.

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

#183

Post by rebeccaskinner »

habosa wrote: post #124
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…

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 matter as much, because you're going to encounter fewer people. Another example is noise pollution. One of the primary reasons my spouse and I decided to leave the city for a more suburban area (and one of the reasons we're thinking about moving to an even more rural area) is to escape the constant presence of unnecessarily loud noise. Loud music is the major culprit. Between unbearably loud car stereos and loud neighbors (especially when living in an apartment building), low contentiousness means that even in a moderately dense area it's nearly impossible to find a moment of quiet.

It's quite possible that we're in a vicious cycle where low contentiousness causes people to be more isolated and more cynical and that in turn may cause some people to be less considerate of others, but if that's true it's still a systemic problem and at an individual level looking for more isolation is the only reasonable solution.

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

#184

Post by rolisz »

WaffleIronMaker wrote: post #142
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…

> Sprawl exists because it’s nice. I think the vast swaths of single family homes have much more to do with restrictive single-family zoning rather than just because there's demand for it. In many areas, there is clearly demand for more high density housing as well, but often mixed use developments are not available under restrictive zoning laws. I hope someone more qualified than I could expand on how the FHA influe…

I live in Romania, in a city that has been growing a lot. There's plenty of new development, both high density and single unit detached homes. Zoning is not that restrictive here, so it's actually people preferring to live in a separate home. So yeah, sprawl is nice.

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

#185

Post by Symbiote »

mikrotikker wrote: post #174
philsnow wrote: post #55

> why don’t we do this? The fetishization of the nuclear family, of course, as well as the building and zoning codes that facilitate that fetishization. Zoning calls them "single family homes" but it doesn't call it "nuclear family homes" or anything like that. Single family homes are more about American individualism [0] and not wanting to share anything if you don't absolutely have to. That's why, outside of at mos…

> insane density-averse zoning policy Hell is other people. I way prefer to live in low density areas and I do. If I can see my neighbours house, that's too close (my neighbours are actually wonderful). I live on the edge of a suburb with a goal to push out further into the rural areas. Where I'm trying to get to is a more commune style property where those that are closest to us can come and stay or live, with share…

> You can go and live in high density areas with all the potential zombies if you want, but don't make me do that please.

The situation is currently reversed in much of the USA. Building dense housing is forbidden by regulation.

People like you have forced your preference on everyone else.

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

#186

Post by pharmakom »

Cars.

Everything is designed around cars. Cars require lots of space, particularly at the destination (parking). So everything is built spread out (sprawl). Now you can choose between living in a tiny apartment or something bigger, but far away from everything. When you are younger, enough of your friends might choose the apartment and you can live near friends. This is for many what makes the college experience special. As you grow older, more will choose (perhaps including yourself!) to live far away. One day you realise that you have no proximate friends.

Cars, man.

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

#187

Post by theshrike79 »

abalashov wrote: post #127
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…

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.

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

#188

Post by refurb »

rolisz wrote: post #184
WaffleIronMaker wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sprawl exists because it’s nice. I think the vast swaths of single family homes have much more to do with restrictive single-family zoning rather than just because there's demand for it. In many areas, there is clearly demand for more high density housing as well, but often mixed use developments are not available under restrictive zoning laws. I hope someone more qualified than I could expand on how the FHA influe…

I live in Romania, in a city that has been growing a lot. There's plenty of new development, both high density and single unit detached homes. Zoning is not that restrictive here, so it's actually people preferring to live in a separate home. So yeah, sprawl is nice.

Same thing in Singapore. Great public transit, subsidized apartments, but what do people aspire to? A landed, single family home with a yard.

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

#189

Post by SllX »

TylerE wrote: post #146
SllX wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that’s a defensible argument on the merits against the colloquial usage of the word city as applied to some of these places but you’re running up against the fact that the term “city” has been eroded to near meaninglessness in North America. New England has counties and townships and cities, California and Texas only have counties and cities. Even a place that calls itself a town is still a city as far as their…

And a few places like Virginia, you have Cities and Counties, and you can only be in one or the other. Sort of a Vatican City/Italy situation, except the same country.

I omitted it for simplicity, but San Francisco is basically that: a consolidated City and County, the only one in the State. I mean in legal effect it washes out to a charter county that is also called a city, we have a Board of Supervisors and a Mayor but no city council, and we employ both a Police Department and a Sheriffs Department.

Texan cities though, some of those cross into three counties.

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