Community and more

Though we’re already a few months into 2022, one of my conclusions from 2021 really stuck with me. 

The moments where I was ~in movement~ outside, or sharing an experience with many others and feeling like I was part of a community, are the ones that made me happiest. This could obviously be correlated with how we were all stuck inside during 2020, but I think this stood true for me in college as well. 

Examples (in 2021) include

-  running with a half marathon in San Jose w a close friend & thousands of others 

-  sitting with some friends in a crowded Alamo Square Park on a sunny Saturday in early 2021, right around when people were getting vaccinated!

- going to a team lunch together at work

These were all experiences I had in-person, and I have to admit that most digital communities have yet to bring the same amount of satisfaction or happiness into my life. 

And what I’ve kept thinking about is how little we’ve prioritized emphasizing community in designing our public spaces. (The exception to this is maybe NYC, because of the high density close to public transit, but NYC is arguably the most expensive city in the country)

I’m concerned about this because it’s seemingly becoming more common to live a “nomadic” life and be extremely transient. I had a conversation about this with my friend, and I talked about how being transient like this is actually consumptive.  He disagreed, saying that if you partake in your hobbies in different places, you’re a resident, and not a “tourist”. Because of various sociological trends and economic trends such as the growing percentage of people who can’t afford a house, people who are marrying later, or just not having kids, it’s likely that people don’t feel incentivized to contribute in a meaningful way to where they live because they think “I’m out of here in 6 months.. re: problem a, b, c - well, hopefully this place figures it out!”. If most of the people coming to your city are thinking like this, then who’s going to care about these different places? And more than that, it’s not a sustainable way to maintain strong relationships (unless your whole friend group moves)! 

I’m not suggesting that people have altogether stopped caring, but more so that people don’t feel like their efforts in improving their communities won’t hold benefits for themselves. 

The reason community matters is because we all need support as human beings. There was a study done last year that showed that ~20% of Americans have no close friends. How devastating is that? 

It’s not surprising, given that meeting up with someone usually means that the people involved will end up having to drive or figure out a safe mode of transportation. At first, I thought that this (i.e“Americans wanting their space” ) was it, but it’s probably on a deeper level of individualism vs collectivism. Don’t get me wrong: individualism is probably one the reasons why Americans are less risk-averse, but collectivism, though associated with sacrifice, encourages people to consider their lives alongside others, as opposed to just something they need to do on their own. 

Building our cities and towns with the concept of community in mind should be the main goal. 

Thank you to some of my pals for reading, sharing thoughts, + encouraging me to share :)