I once lived and worked in the Midwest, in a medium sized city, and drove 30 minutes to work. Traffic was not bad. It gave me a chance to listen to audiobooks, podcasts, and sometimes just to think alone in silence. Now my subway commute from Brooklyn to the financial district on the other hand...

Both of those sound horrible to me. 5 to 15 min walk/bike is much nicer.

When I moved to a smaller city for grad studies, I soon started missing the subway system. Crowded and dirty as it is, taking the subway was a constant reminder for me that there is life outside of my confined world and that alone contributed a lot to my sanity.

In the smaller city, I took buses or walked, but I noticed taking a bus still makes a difference, even though one might have to stand up a little. Just the idea of being surrounded by people, each with their own untold stories and problems, made me feel part of something bigger. I agree with the OP; commuting actually helped me feel like I belong to a community, even though I'm introverted and would never talk to any of the people that I would see.

Now with the pandemic on top of it, depression has kicked in. I sometimes play youtube videos with city/car/library... ambient sounds, just to get that feeling again. It does help a bit, but I can't wait for things to get back to "normal", whatever that means from now on.

We need to replace the "work as social outlet" with something else. It's not the office anyone wants, it's the connection, we're just lacking the connection part to make remote work... well... work.

I’ve been saying this for a while.. we are missing local communities in today’s society.

People used to go to church and do religious events and things sometimes during the week - this is all gone now, and I wish we had an alternative that didn’t rely on religion, just based on the local community somehow.

Community centers 2.0 or whatever, but a place where people have a reason to go. I can only think of classes which doesn’t quite work I think (hard to really get everyone there at the same time) but maybe it’s the key I have no idea!

Here's a random thought:

Community, in some ways, require some lock in (don't think in absolutes here but switching costs etc.). If you're locked in to the community you have to sort out differences and make it work. For religion and work the lock in is obvious. But outside of these we can easily chop and change our community leading to us not bothering about compromise as much and us missing out on the deeper relationships.

I think this is an important point. Recently I was reading a post that talked about how one belongs to a community. Which on one hand means you are accepted and identify with it, but also that the community has a claim back upon you. People within that community depend on each other and that dependencies offers opportunity to connect more deeply.

In the article he blocks out a longer excerpt from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather, with this bolded bit:

> Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere.

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-convivial-soc...

I wouldn't say I was exactly _surprised_ by this dynamic in hackerspaces, but perhaps I was caught off-guard by how strong it is. The tools and projects really are secondary in a space that has a strong and welcoming community.

This next bit is extrapolation on my part, but I suspect the hackerspace demographic has particularly minimal church attendance, and that may contribute to our appreciation of "third place" dynamics elsewhere.

I've never been to one of those but it does sound great!

I'll have a look around my area and try one post-lockdown, although I feel like it'd be so much easier to join if I already knew someone who went...