Friendships and the Built Environment

[Avian]

I just ran a cross this interesting article on Vox. It deals with how our current housing choices - which are a relatively recent social construct - can interfere with the idea of how we make and sustain adult friendships.

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/28/9622920/h ... friendship

The author also wrote a piece about Germany's baugruppen, a form of shared housing:

http://grist.org/cities/i-want-to-live-in-a-baugruppe/

Do you have similar experiences the author speaks about?

[mister.shoes]

My wife and her three closest girlfriends do an impressive job of staying in touch, despite all of them having kids and homes spread across the metro (EP, Lakeville, S MPLS x2). I attribute this to the three of them all being planner-types who are willing to put in the effort to get together.

By contrast, I hardly see my closest friends, despite being the one member of the group who is actually attempting to coordinate things (albeit 21st century introvert style: emails, texts, etc.). My friends are as spread out as hers (MG, AV, StP, Woodbury, S MPLS) and we all have kids too. The difference is the ambition and energy we're willing to exert to plan.

Consider the repeated chance interactions outlined in that article: despite being one who has long tried not to get too friendly with co-workers, I find myself wanting to actually build friendships with the people I see nearly every day at the office. The void left behind by my communication-averse "real" friends needs filling, and my fellow cube-farmers are a really appealing way to do so. Unfortunately, becoming friends with co-workers doesn't solve the geographic problem when it comes to involving families.

Similarly, our neighborhood is in the midst of a baby boom, and our family's nearly-nightly jaunts out to and along the Parkway have led to lots of sidewalk chats with young parents in similar life stages as ourselves. We've even been invited to a 3rd b-day party down the block.

So yes, every single word of that article resonated with me. And while living near Minnehaha Creek is closer to suburbia than dense urban living, we have an order of magnitude more opportunities for chance meetings than if we were out in a second ring somewhere.

[Anondson]

Friendships absolutely become an EFFORT once you get married, have kids. As an introvert I didn't mind when I spent less and less time among adult friends. Until it went on long enough that I felt a "missing something".

I'm lucky that we moved into a home very near to my parents. But family is that, I'm grateful for having my kids grandparents within a five minute drive. That isn't friendship. A recent Strib article on buying a home near parents struck a chord. I'll find that link later and post it in this thread. I think it's tangentially related.

Otherwise, that Vox piece has something there.

[Anondson]

I wonder if we can make a correlation with the recent headline grabbing study that says middle age whites rate of death is ridiculously high relative to peer countries (alarmingly so) and the social isolation inherent to North American suburbs.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... as/413971/

Climbing suicides, climbing "poisoning" (alcohol and drugs?) ... definite symptoms of despair.

It may sound extreme to ask it, but is this evidence that the suburban form's inherent isolation has deadly consequences?

[Nick]

Have you seen people lately? They're not looking so hot.

[up north]

I wonder if we can make a correlation with the recent headline grabbing study that says middle age whites rate of death is ridiculously high relative to peer countries (alarmingly so) and the social isolation inherent to North American suburbs.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... as/413971/

Climbing suicides, climbing "poisoning" (alcohol and drugs?) ... definite symptoms of despair.

It may sound extreme to ask it, but is this evidence that the suburban form's inherent isolation has deadly consequences?

Yes that's one factor. Among other things.

[Rich]

Our suburban family ends up chatting with suburban neighbors while raking leaves, walking the dog, collecting the mail, shoveling the drive, tending the garden, mowing the lawn and pruning shrubs and trees. We bump into folks at the beach, in the park, at the coffee shop, grocery store, hardware store, gas station, movie theater etc. Also at kids’ practices and games, at recitals, concerts, plays, graduations, banquets, fun runs, parades, art fairs and farmers’ markets. And we meet new families while volunteering or chaperoning, or at grad parties, backyard gatherings and so on and so forth…

So yeah. A lot of isolation and despair.

[Anondson]

And I've never gotten in a car crash while driving, biking, or walking, ... so it's the safest mode out there for everyone. :/

I'm pointing to a possibility of increased risk over time for certain population demographics.

[Didier]

A robust walkshed is an area in which a community of people regularly mingles doing errands, walking their dogs, playing in the parks, going to school and work, etc. Ideally, cities would be composed of clusters of such walksheds, connected by good public transit.

In my experience, the community in the suburb where I grew up was much closer than that in the multi-unit, urban condo building I've lived in since 2010. My next door neighbors for the past several years still barely make eye contact when I see them. A couple renting the unit next to ours for a year straight out refused to make eye contact to the point of it being really weird. Meanwhile, older neighbors tend to be much friendlier.

It makes me think there is some sort of generational aspect in which young, childless adults tend to be awkwardly distant from one another.

[twincitizen]

It makes me think there is some sort of generational aspect in which young, childless adults tend to be awkwardly distant from one another.

There's probably something to that. And I think it can apply to introverts and extroverts alike.

[kirby96]

Our suburban family ends up chatting with suburban neighbors while raking leaves, walking the dog, collecting the mail, shoveling the drive, tending the garden, mowing the lawn and pruning shrubs and trees. We bump into folks at the beach, in the park, at the coffee shop, grocery store, hardware store, gas station, movie theater etc. Also at kids’ practices and games, at recitals, concerts, plays, graduations, banquets, fun runs, parades, art fairs and farmers’ markets. And we meet new families while volunteering or chaperoning, or at grad parties, backyard gatherings and so on and so forth…

So yeah. A lot of isolation and despair.

I don't necessariliy think that's what Anondson is getting at. I grew up in the northern suburbs, lived in the suburb of Hillsboro, OR, and then moved back to live in Highland Park and now Kingfield, and if you are talking about interaction with neighbors, my anecdotal evidence is that it depends: growing up we weren't close to neighbors, in Hillsboro I was. In Highland Park I wasn't and in Kingfield I am.

That said, I think the issue here is about more than 'friendly neighbors', and more about closer, deeper friendships, and how the environment shapes those. I hardly ever see my suburban best friends from high school and college, while my more urban friends I might see a couple times a week in a good week. Everyone's busy with families, so the best way to meet up is an spontaneous 8:30 PM text asking who's up for grabbing a beer. In my group of 12-15 buddies, someone's always up for unwinding for an hour or two, or coming over to play guitar, whatever. These are quite frankly my absolute favorite social events, and I know that this rarely happens with my suburban friends simply due to distance and the planning required. So even though I've spent a decade of my adult life in the 'burbs, I really don't think I'd be as happy there, especially if I was single.

Edit: literally just got a text from a buddy to meet at Nighthawk's tonight for a b-day beer at 10:00PM. I guarantee none of the suburban guys will be driving in from EP @ 10:00.

[xandrex]

I think it's more the types of people living in a given neighborhood than the built environment. I live in a rental in a mostly owner-occupied/co-op building in Whittier filled with childless, mostly single people. I've been there since June, but it wasn't until last night that I even really chatted with someone spontaneously for any period of time. Meanwhile, I grew up in an area where everyone has 5+ acres of land and was frequently biking alongside a two-lane, 50+ mph road to see friends nearby. Go figure.

I have a mostly urban set of friends, but I have a few who are settled in the suburbs and are looking to move outside the 494/694 beltway in the north/northwest (they "don't want to see other houses" when they look out their window and need a place between their work on opposite sides of the metro - EP and Vadnais Heights). I warned them that they'll be isolated, because nobody is going to drive out to Blaine or Maple Grove to grab one beer, and they're not going to want to stay late with a 30ish minute drive home. But they're also homebody sorts of folks. So is it personality deciding a quiet place to live...or the environment discouraging them from socializing? Probably a bit of both.

[min-chi-cbus]

A robust walkshed is an area in which a community of people regularly mingles doing errands, walking their dogs, playing in the parks, going to school and work, etc. Ideally, cities would be composed of clusters of such walksheds, connected by good public transit.

In my experience, the community in the suburb where I grew up was much closer than that in the multi-unit, urban condo building I've lived in since 2010. My next door neighbors for the past several years still barely make eye contact when I see them. A couple renting the unit next to ours for a year straight out refused to make eye contact to the point of it being really weird. Meanwhile, older neighbors tend to be much friendlier.

It makes me think there is some sort of generational aspect in which young, childless adults tend to be awkwardly distant from one another.

Owning vs. renting is as big of a friendship factor as the number of households within a walkable distance (i.e. suburbs vs. city).

[twincitizen]

This is perhaps a little bit of a sidetrack to the way the conversation is going, but something I've wanted to discuss with y'all for a while.

What do we all think about Minneapolis' guest parking requirements? (Note: I will edit in what they are after I look them up later)
My anecdotal observation is that guest parking requirements are extremely low, if they exist at all. Now obviously you don't want to drive up the cost of housing by requiring too many empty parking spaces for guests, but it would seem they are important to the social lives of residents, particularly in places like Loring Park, North Loop, etc. where parking is really constrained. Having parking meters nearby helps, but that isn't the case in all locations.

I dunno what I'm getting at exactly. Large buildings should have *some* amount of guest parking I guess.

[mattaudio]

Seems to me like guest parking should be street parking, except for the largest of projects. And we should price street parking to ensure last-space availability. Easy solution.