Urban Loneliness an Urban Myth

[Robin Lester]

NY Magazine, one of my favorite resources for commentary on city life and culture, recently published an excellent article on how life in NYC is not nearly as isolating as legend makes it out to be, and in fact is often the exact opposite! Despite nearly 50% of New York City residents living in single person households, the ability to be surrounded by people and activities outside the physical home keeps most people well-connected. Bustling streets, lots to do, public parks and more make NYC a great place to meet people. One of my favorites? The off-leash hours at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, where I've made many friends.

How do you make connections in your city or town?

[Harry Pasternak]

Haven't read the above article yet (I will); but, there is research to show that as the number and/or speed of vehicles (for example) increases on a given street - the odds of neighbors knowing neighbors decreases - drastically. With enough traffic on a given street - people living next to each other in single family houses or townhouses will not know each other! They will be strangers!

Why? The "forum" where strangers (neighbors) meet is the sidewalk. Heavy traffic is a signal of danger to any rational person. Hence people don't even go to the front window (or porch) to see if anyone worth meeting exists on the sidewalk. The latter process either happens or doesn't happen depending on how many barriers have been set up by all the "professionals" responsible for the planning and development of the particular neighborhood.

[Alex Sommer]

Not that I am debating you, but this article came out in November about how "researchers found that residents of sprawling suburban spaces actually have more friends, more contact with neighbors and greater involvement in community organizations than citydwellers who live in very close proximity to each other."

I am sure the data is debatable, but just an interesting counterpoint.

[kevin vincent]

hey robin,
that was an extremely long, though well-written article. thanks for sharing. she makes a lot of good points, especially regarding differences between close friends and "weak-ties" and the benefits of each as well as the new york city - internet comparison. i've actually never lived alone in nyc but still identify with a lot of what she wrote.
as far as the other article from the university of california, i'd be interested in reading the full study. the points one of the authors of the study mentions include specifically interacting with neighbors and involvement in hobby-oriented clubs. while there are probably more factors looked at in the study, one wonders just how many of us in nyc actually include our neighbors among our social circles. this might be the opposite for more sprawling areas, where if enough time is spent driving or traveling (whatever means) to and from work or errands, a person prefers to spend free time (evenings or weekends, whatever the schedule) at home, thereby allowing him/her to become better acquainted with the neighbors. also interesting to look at would be the amount of civic participation vs. hobby-oriented participation. i remember hearing in one class i took recently that suburbs did experience higher rates of civic involvement initially (i.e. the fifties/sixties) but that has since lowered significantly. added to that would be looking at the percentage of children as part of the population. kids might be more inclined (probably at the urging of the parent) to be involved in hobby-oriented activities like after school sports, scouts, little league, dance classes, etc. if kids were found to be a larger and larger percentage of the population for every 10 percent decline in density (per the U.C. study) then perhaps that's a contributing factor.
data is always debatable and i suppose this is just a little more fodder for discussion. and it's also possible that nyc might be an exception to the trends found in the university of california study, as there hasn't been a Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey for nyc.
and alex, thanks for the counterpoint, that was an interesting article.
sorry this is such a long comment. at any rate, i don't feel lonely in nyc! mostly through volunteering and community involvement (community board meetings and such.)

[Karen Levy]

This was a really well-written article, I thought. It's also interesting to think about how the increased availability of mobile technology can influence public engagement and isolation in urban space. There's some promising research being done (by, among others, Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman) about whether public wi-fi increases community engagement or causes people to isolate in public space (staring into our laptop/phone/ipod screens or shouting into bluetooth headsets instead of looking around us).

[Tom Peyton]

Agreed that this is a really interesting article. The New York City-Internet comparison really struck me. Both offer endless opportunities for individual actors to create new and substantive connections with one another. But the author didn't touch on one of the key things that make engaging New York and being on the internet such drastically different experiences: corporeal engagement. Walking through streets, tasting food, having random conversations-being in the city requires the full engagement of all of your senses. Just another component to the idea that being in the city (whether alone or not) breeds a whole, engaged understanding of the world around us.

I have to say, it is pretty appropriate that a study from suburban UC Irvine claims that suburban living increases human connection and social activity while an article in New York magazine argues that urban living breeds robust social networks and fights off loneliness!

[Harry Pasternak]

First of all, I always have to see the raw data that supports the conclusions in any “research”. More often then not, the structure used in primary research is flawed; consequently, the data will be flawed, as will the conclusions be flawed.

The latter is found in all fields of study; the worst being in the “medical” field. But “research” in urban studies is almost as bad. My background is in urban design and usage research and as well as “teaching” at university in the same field.

In one case an “expert” with a doctorate in urban studies came up to do at presentation at a Canadian university. She talked about how wonderful the “perfectly” planned city of Columbia Maryland was “doing”. Of course everything she claimed was rubbish. She didn’t know that Rouse, the developer for all of Columbia, had asked Antioch College to come to set up a campus in the brand new city of Columbia; in order to study Columbia and come up with re-design recommendations. Why? Because Columbia had been a complete failure! Yet the doctorate was running around North America telling everyone how wonderful it was (no she didn’t show any raw data.)

Jan Gehl has 49 years of primary research, done around the world; that shows over and over again, that if Hard Surfaced Public Open Spaces, with the required elements; people will come and STAY a long time, loitering/hanging out, and even talk to strangers.

For example, the wider the sidewalk, with lots of small time retail shops with large windows facing the street, the more people are on the specific sidewalk and the more people STAY for a long time. Instead, produce a narrow sidewalk, with gigantic truck traffic, without small time retail shops with large windows facing the sidewalks - equals few people on sidewalk and no people STAYING.