How Cities Can Cure Loneliness

When city-dwellers report feeling lonely, it could be an urban design problem.
What’s missing?
As a permaculture urbanist, I notice how often our society forgets a key insight from ecology: prosperity is based on sharing.
When cities structure themselves to make sharing easier, people thrive in every way—including socially.
But what should cities build to foster sharing?
In today’s episode, I give 46 examples from six categories that I call “the publics:” public spaces, amenities, programs, transit, housing and schools.
I also make the case that when cities build all six Publics to work together in certain ways, the result is a much richer social life for everyone.

Sources:

Resources:
Prior episodes:

Books

YouTube stills and book covers by the creators cited above. Images by Kev Polk, as cited above, public domain, or courtesy of Pexels.

Copyright 2024 by Edenicity LLC. Written and presented by Kev Polk.

#PermacultureUrbanism #LonelinessEpidemic #CuringLoneliness

[edenicity]

When city-dwellers report feeling lonely, it could be an urban design problem.
What’s missing?
As a permaculture urbanist, I notice how often our society forgets a key insight from ecology: prosperity is based on sharing.
When cities structure themselves to make sharing easier, people thrive in every way—including socially.
But what should cities build to foster sharing?
In today’s episode, I give 46 examples from six categories that I call “the publics:” public spaces, amenities, programs, transit, housing and schools.
I also make the case that when cities build all six Publics to work together in certain ways, the result is a much richer social life for everyone.


Sources:

Resources:
Prior episodes:


Books

YouTube stills and book covers by the creators cited above. Images by Kev Polk, as cited above, public domain, or courtesy of Pexels.

Copyright 2024 by Edenicity LLC. Written and presented by Kev Polk.

[ErlingGrey]

I haven’t watched this yet but I just moved to a city at 30 for the first time. The town I was raised in was all old people, so it’s surreal to see people my age and younger. I’ve been here a month and made 3 friends..at a climbing gym, restaurants, my new job. I feel very alive for the first time.

Edit: I have watched it and I can relate to your observations. I really think young people need to be moving to cities, it can help with a lot of your problems.

[jakew]

It just feels so overwhelming because we are so far from this. Those 6 publics that you mentioned — the USA might be near the bottom in every one of those categories of all developed nations in the world. And I grew up in the suburbs of Portland where you’d expect to see some of this implemented.

[fleecejohnsonn]

Really good video. The only thing I would add is that trains are an even better form of transportation than busses, especially if it's between cities. Japan, Korea, and China are examples of great train systems.

[BuildNewTowns]

Good tips! I just found your channel. I'll watch some more videos to learn more!

[sicko_the_ew]

I enjoy the thoroughness of your videos. One can to some extent get across that sharing just makes sense in a general kind of way, but these details make this imaginable in concrete ways, and are a good reminder that there's a certain depth of detail necessary (e.g. not just facilities but amenities).

If I put together a massive home library, I'm guessing that could amount to maybe a thousand books, mostly just sitting there on the shelf, waiting for their day. If I join the municipal library, I effectively own 100 000 or so books. And there might even be a complete Oxford English Dictionary there. (I've only met one person, ever, who had a complete OED, and even she didn't have 100 000 books). I think this counts as a kind of "leverage"? (But I suspect I'm using the wrong term. Sorry, I don't have an OED to check in. And, let's face it, I'm a bit lazy that way.) The library just gives numbers that give a good measure of the individual benefit of all the sharing.

Oh, and just as far as the "don't build cheap" approach goes, in principle, yes, that's a great idea. But just imagine stretching the sharing principle to "house amenities" for a moment, and I think there's still room for "non-bad-neighbourhood" cheaper housing-related units. Imagine if there was a pool of shared "spare rooms" in every building. Everyone could then have a smaller principal dwelling, while at the same time having the equivalent of a big house, depending on how the rules could be worked out (in practice). An empty nest couple could maybe have a two room unit, but have (i.e. the right to book three additional rooms for guests when needed - and maybe even a really good price on extra rooms enough to bring that up to ten, if booked far enough in advance, or whatever).

So there it looks like you only have two bedrooms, but really you almost have ten.

And then in the "spare room corridors" you could have people living who were either very poor, or just very frugal-minded when it comes to accommodation. They'd have a steady rotation of temporary neighbours coming and going around them, and a small number of permanent residents they could get to know better. (So if there's a need, I reckon there should also be "cheap" - but good quality options. Some people don't want more; some people can't afford more.)