<story><title>Why don’t more people live close to friends?</title><url>https://annehelen.substack.com/p/youd-be-happier-living-closer-to</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hibikir</author><text>If anything, you are being too nice to US suburbs: It&amp;#x27;s perfectly possible to have towns that are much denser than any US suburb. My Spanish home town has about 100K inhabitants: You&amp;#x27;d not call that a city anywhere in the US. And yet, It&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;As a pre-teen, I could go to any of my friend&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t get me to 300 front doors, total.</text></item><item><author>zamnos</author><text>This is a bit of an unconventional POV, but I don&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t count), it&amp;#x27;s really not a city at all. It&amp;#x27;s endless suburban sprawl, and many people do appreciate that. Just don&amp;#x27;t call it a city when it&amp;#x27;s really not.</text></item><item><author>naremu</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been wondering how related these feelings of distance and isolation in the middle of society are to &lt;i&gt;how&lt;/i&gt; the area is designed.&lt;p&gt;I had always known for a long time the &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; I didn&amp;#x27;t want to go out on weekends and such, but it wasn&amp;#x27;t until I watched some of those videos from &amp;quot;Not Just Bikes&amp;quot; that it really, really struck me. I literally dread finding parking more than I enjoy finding friends.&lt;p&gt;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. Like there&amp;#x27;s just enough people around to not be alone, but not enough to feel safe for many.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s another comment in this thread positing that the social closeness of the old days broke down because of more urbanization, but it&amp;#x27;s clear it&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;sprawl&lt;/i&gt; that&amp;#x27;s killing socialization.&lt;p&gt;The other day a friend and I were talking about cities since I complain a lot about this now, and we did a quick check: Houston is far, far LARGER than say, Zurich, but their population density is a fraction. Everyone lives in cars that don&amp;#x27;t talk to each other, going to little boxes that mostly don&amp;#x27;t talk to each other. And the parking lots required for people to travel to a restaurant or bar means that there&amp;#x27;s less restaurants and bars.&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, I&amp;#x27;ve found a single combination pedestrian&amp;#x2F;bike trail near me, and it&amp;#x27;s busier than the other trails, and people there are so much friendlier. It&amp;#x27;s a joy to go, and I&amp;#x27;m slowly realizing I may still be introverted, but being out and about without it being a chore actually alleviates a lot of my anxiety.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jesperlang</author><text>More Europe anecdata:&lt;p&gt;I live in a small town of around 2000. Within 5-10 minutes walking I got: a restaurant, a cafe, a grocery store, pizzeria and kindergarten. Within 5-10 minutes of biking I have: public library, another grocery store, two bars and a restaurant. Public transport is readily available to take me to the neighbouring hustle-bustle (pop. 600&amp;#x27;000) within 35 minutes. So my town is 50 times smaller than your Spanish example but it is perfectly possible to have all these services at this scale as well!</text></comment>
<story><title>Why don’t more people live close to friends?</title><url>https://annehelen.substack.com/p/youd-be-happier-living-closer-to</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hibikir</author><text>If anything, you are being too nice to US suburbs: It&amp;#x27;s perfectly possible to have towns that are much denser than any US suburb. My Spanish home town has about 100K inhabitants: You&amp;#x27;d not call that a city anywhere in the US. And yet, It&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;As a pre-teen, I could go to any of my friend&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t get me to 300 front doors, total.</text></item><item><author>zamnos</author><text>This is a bit of an unconventional POV, but I don&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t count), it&amp;#x27;s really not a city at all. It&amp;#x27;s endless suburban sprawl, and many people do appreciate that. Just don&amp;#x27;t call it a city when it&amp;#x27;s really not.</text></item><item><author>naremu</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been wondering how related these feelings of distance and isolation in the middle of society are to &lt;i&gt;how&lt;/i&gt; the area is designed.&lt;p&gt;I had always known for a long time the &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; I didn&amp;#x27;t want to go out on weekends and such, but it wasn&amp;#x27;t until I watched some of those videos from &amp;quot;Not Just Bikes&amp;quot; that it really, really struck me. I literally dread finding parking more than I enjoy finding friends.&lt;p&gt;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. Like there&amp;#x27;s just enough people around to not be alone, but not enough to feel safe for many.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s another comment in this thread positing that the social closeness of the old days broke down because of more urbanization, but it&amp;#x27;s clear it&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;sprawl&lt;/i&gt; that&amp;#x27;s killing socialization.&lt;p&gt;The other day a friend and I were talking about cities since I complain a lot about this now, and we did a quick check: Houston is far, far LARGER than say, Zurich, but their population density is a fraction. Everyone lives in cars that don&amp;#x27;t talk to each other, going to little boxes that mostly don&amp;#x27;t talk to each other. And the parking lots required for people to travel to a restaurant or bar means that there&amp;#x27;s less restaurants and bars.&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, I&amp;#x27;ve found a single combination pedestrian&amp;#x2F;bike trail near me, and it&amp;#x27;s busier than the other trails, and people there are so much friendlier. It&amp;#x27;s a joy to go, and I&amp;#x27;m slowly realizing I may still be introverted, but being out and about without it being a chore actually alleviates a lot of my anxiety.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vkou</author><text>&amp;gt; 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!&lt;p&gt;Someone walking through a six-story downtown is, by such a measurement, traveling faster than a car traveling at ~90 mph through suburbia.&lt;p&gt;(Of course, a car can&amp;#x27;t travel that quickly through suburbia.)</text></comment>