Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
I don't think we should put too much stock in community building or social capital, or whatever it's called.
Generally speaking, the things that negatively affect the amount people interact with their neighbours are things that we urbanists tend to like: density, renting, different social classes and ethnicities living in close proximity to one another, etc.
If you want to have people talk to their neighbours, build a neighbourhood of single family detached homes on a cul-de-sac that are geared toward one specific income and demographic.
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I would also counter that meeting up with your neighbours on your cul-de-sac is just one form of community building, and it often doesn't happen anyway.
In healthy cities community building is a diverse activity that takes many forms. Communities can be based on lots of things other than proximity, perhaps because so many people live near you in an urban setting that proximity is not a big deal and you can specialize more than that with your social groups.
I think there are other fundamental social factors that are so much more important than built form of housing that built form is clearly a second-order concern. If you don't have a stable income and you can't afford housing in the first place or have any free time because you are too overworked then you cannot participate meaningfully in any community. We should be talking about structuring housing development so that it serves these fundamental goals of affordability and accessibility or ease of movement. Canadian cities are actively failing at these goals.
The fact that we have one portion of society setting the agenda based on block parties and having places for their kids to play road hockey while another portion struggles to find any place to live or have any kind of social life is terrible.