friends
Problems with maintaining friendships in adult life
- unplanned interaction with friends is rare when you're living the "grown up
life"
- we don't accidentally bump into friends anymore
- making friends requires repeated, unplanned interaction
- kids, a big house, in a suburb kills making, and keeping, friends
- maintaining friends means actually seeing each other, hanging out.
- the layout of our cities makes this especially rough
- the status quo is default isolation
- we are meant to have tribes, to be among people who know us and care about us
Solutions to maintaining and making friendships as an adult
Living with people
- walksheds (shared spaces within walkable distance) in the city provide
options for regular, spontaneous encounters
- a good walksheds 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.
- co-housing is another option
- baugruppen are like condos, but with robust shared spaces. Collective
ownership rather than developer ownership.
See Also