Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #38

less globalised (and less nationalised) cultures tend to produce highly localised, more divergent styles

the great thing about living in a world of dying systems is that you are uniquely well-positioned to replace suboptimal systems with something superior. New growth takes root best in the decay of its predecessors. For most of the past, if you wanted to create a better future, you had to rally the troops and take someone else’s land or destroy exist

by virtue of being less planned, they are filled with personality, character, and charm.

We [also] build our sense of civic identity and opinions about government through social interactions. […] Our social capital — which Putnam defines as the overarching belief about society that facilitates co-operation — diminishes when we lose opportunities to engage with people outside of our regular social networks.

Experiences with strangers can shape how we define our community and politics.

Vernacular architecture also tends to be more human-scale as a direct result of how it was built. Such places are therefore often more suited to social integration and to community, to healthier and happier lifestyles, and all the other benefits of human-scale design.