I think the real problem is that some people forget how to go places. It's so easy to do the routine of work -> dinner -> screen time -> sleep -> repeat that time vanishes from people.

Whenever I hear people, usually young and single, complain that their 8 hour job leaves 0 hours in the day to do anything and they're too tired on the weekends to go out, it's always this: Their time is disappearing into their screens, which makes it feel like their only waking hours go to work. I try to give gentle nudges to help give people ideas, but none of them really want to hear that it's something they can change. It's just so easy to believe that life has thrust this situation upon us and there's nothing we can do about it.

Usually when I see the retort, its also with the understanding that 3rd places need to be free, or essentially free. If theres a significant expectation of money being spent in order to spend time there, its not really a “3rd place” by the intended definition. (Thats the argument I’ve seen)

Though I do agree that the privatization of public spaces is a problem (in the US, not sure about globally). For example, the local "town center" is owned by a giant developer (BXP/Boston Properties) and bans photography. The layout is like a typical downtown business district - grid streets, mid-rise buildings with retail/commercial on ground level, office or apartments above, and a park on each end. And crawling with rent-a-cop losers who have nothing better to do than chase people who aren't actively shopping.

[0] A mile is essentially the farthest the average person will comfortable walk versus driving a car for travel that does not require carrying anything back. Once you add in carrying things (e.g. groceries) it drops to half a mile. Anything less dense than that and people won't want to walk, anything more dense than that and you're into standard city planning.

[1] Assuming you're American of course and obviously I'm not about to ask you to dox yourself, considering this type of thing can vary right down to the neighbourhood level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

If you pack people in too tight they just tune each other out.

If you can walk to these things, you don't live in the areas the parent comment is talking about. "Suburban sprawl" doesn't mean all suburbs, it's specifically the ones which don't have facilities and community.

It might be a composite effect of different things contributing to the easiness of being alone. Cultural skill that overtime gets eroded, and as less time people spend among others, it becomes even harder to go back.

We need to do things ourselves.

There are lots of libraries with cafes, maker spaces, and more. Seattle is one.

If yours doesn't, this is your wake-up call to get involved with your local library. Stop waiting for someone else to do things.

There is no maker space listed at https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/a-z-programs-and-s....

Within KCLS, there are two public libraries that have maker spaces (AFAIK): Bellevue, Federal Way.

PS this is not meant to be confrontational, would love it if there were more maker spaces in libraries (when have asked in the past, the usual answer is that they do not have enough space for it).

Don't think you have to live in some idealized fantasy land to go talk to your neighbors.

Never seen "cul de sac" in English before...

The city added sidewalks there in the '00s or so, but when I go back there I almost never see anyone using them.

I think the trend of isolation and loneliness is not really related to infrastructure or stuff like "walkability." Those things are pretty minor obstacles.

I lived in a car dependent burb for 20+ years and would rarely, if ever, run into my neighbors out on the town. Living in a walkable neighborhood in a medium-low density city for under a year and I regularly run into my neighbors.

For what it's worth, many (most?) countries have most of their people living in places that are not sprawling suburbs. It's worst in the "Anglosphere" countries (US/Canada/Australia) within the last 50-70 years, but it's absolutely not a fantasy land. It's the way things were everywhere before 1940, and most places still are today.

I say that because it is fixable, if we let ourselves fix it...

Your point stands though, even in a fairly antisocial layout of a suburb, you can still usually make friends with a decent number of people nearby.

Our lopsided emphasis on individualism, our definition of economic efficiency that does not include the mental health value, these have been detrimental to our connections, roots, community, family etc.

We said, let the mom and pop stores die, their replacements provide the same value but more efficiently. Let community bonds die they intrude upon our individual destiny.

But we did not correctly account for the value provided by those that we chose to replace. So it is not surprising that we find ourselves here.

Could it have played out any other way ? I doubt it. Our world is an underdamped system, so we will keep swinging towards the extremes, till we figure out how to get a critically damped system. The other serious problem is that the feedback system is so laggy, that's a biggy in feedback control loops.

This seems a wild generalization to make, though I guess "be suspicious of newcomers" is a little biologically hardwired. What's your epistemology for believing "newcomers" are "the ones to avoid"?

This reads like that pattern where people assign blame for all issues to whatever thing they happen to not like. The US is the least individualistic it has ever been, but there was much more community and less loneliness in the past. That make it pretty obvious that the issue here isn't "individualism".

You are saying that in the past, more resources were spent supporting individuals than the resources spent supporting communities and yet communities were stronger. That sure would be an interesting thing to understand if true. My interest is certainly piqued, seems too good to be true though.