Would like to see data from the US, as the EU is generally much smaller (per nation) and doesn't have the same "open frontiers" mentality the US does.

There's a reason we have so many cars (er SUV's) and roads here.

The distances in the US might be larger, but the pattern similar. Most people go between home and work. And then other trips are similar--shop at the same stores, go out at the same restaurants, etc. Most weeks I don't leave a three mile radius.

home-makers: home and home & shopping and shopping & internet and internet :-)

doctors: hospital and hospital and hospitals :-)

insurance agent: home, office, home, office and home (all homes are other people's home) :-)

bloggers: home and coffee shops and library and barnes & noble :-)

taxi driver: no home; only taxi :-)

Now if only we would get out of our SUVs and talk to each other, real communities could form...

And why would that be a good thing? How would these "real" communities be superior to our current "unreal" ones?

See Kunstler's "Places not worth caring about." This is worth seeing because of his stunning observations about how distorted our surroundings have become. He gets into a rant, but he's spot on! (Except where it comes to the "end of cheap oil.")

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/121

I love sitting in courtyards and squares in my visits to places in Europe. I loved sitting in the courtyard of the Student Union in graduate school. I loved sitting in a cafe on Ludlow Avenue in Cincinnati, which by US standards, is a very European street in that town. It's relaxing. You can meet people by accident and find yourself invited to dinner or chat with old friends. Sometimes, you even get laid.

Maybe you can do all of those things online. I find the interpersonal bandwidth and the quality of the experience superior in real life.

A lot of people may find this sort of experience foreign in the US. In the US, the rampant use of the automobile has caused the loss of much of our public space. Now, it seems like all we know how to build are public spaces where no one normally wants to be. We have to entice people there with some event. There are places that are conducive to community, however, where people are actually drawn to in order to be together. Places near where people live, that you don't need to pay to get into.

Here's my take on congregating in the central piazza in Padova:

http://padovachronicles.welton.it/articles/search?q=spritz

Absolutely superior to anything similar I've ever experienced in the US.

I'm all for real life and for meeting new people, but it's important to make a distinction between meeting a particular kind of people and meeting random people. There are already many cities and neighborhoods in the US where particular kinds of people gather and meet each other.

On the other hand, your average inhabitant of a "regular" place in the US (including all of suburbia) is someone I want to keep as far out of my mind as possible. "Real communities" would make this task much harder.

This says a lot about American society -- that we no longer have enough of a civic life to promulgate manners. If there were more "real communities" with a sense of both tolerance and manners, there wouldn't be any need to avoid the "average" American. Such places exist in Europe. That they don't exist here indicates that it's a peculiarity of the US, and not of "real communities" in general.

I wasn't bashing on virtual communities. The discussions here are more interesting than the ones with my neighbors. I just think it's good to know who lives on my street, and the folks I don't know are the ones who drive in and out of the garage in the SUV and never say hello. It's their right to do so, but I think it weakens the community.

...but the nice thing about having a web-based business is you can work anywhere (that has internet), even travel the world without having to stop working if you so want.

This is unbelievably creepy. First, i wonder about the ethics of scientists that do the study overseas because it's illegal here... It seems like the moral equivalent of waterboarding.

Second, no data... this is no better than someone saying jesus loves you. Maybe true, maybe not, but no actual knowledge is produced.

This article is the opposite of hacker news.

erm, I'm only ever found in _one_ location at any time and that location is here, not over there.

this is so true:

working people on weekdays: home and work place

students : home and school

on saturday's (day): home and grocerry store (in evenings) : movie/night clubs or home

sundays: home and church