how we shape cities, and cities shape us
The bike rides. The sleepovers. Your first cigarette. Gossiping about your latest crush. Being consoled when they break your heart. Discovering a new city. Re-discovering your own (at 2AM). The hungover brunches. The tears. The laughs. The love. So many of the moments that shaped us were shared with friends. And then those moments started happening... See more
About amo
You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavour to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people.
Olivia Laing • The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
We accept today that the days of startup cities, at least in the West, are over, but I don't think we should. And the societal changes that a post-COVID world makes possible could restart this cycle. For thousands of years, ambitious young people have had to move to big cities run by the kind of people who run big cities to maximize opportunity in... See more
Marc Andreessen • The Dubrovnik Interviews: Marc Andreessen - Interviewed by a Retard
There is a gentrification that is happening to cities, and there is a gentrification that is happening to the emotions too, with a similarly homogenising, whitening, deadening effect. Amidst the glossiness of late capitalism, we are fed the notion that all difficult feeling - depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage - are simply a consequence of
... See moreOlivia Laing • The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
According to Simone Heng, author of Let's Talk About Loneliness, there are five types of human connection, and we need a mix of all of them to feel connected in our lives: micro connections, such as chatting to your barista; self-connection; intimate connections, i.e. having people who know and love you warts and all; relational connections within
... See moreAccording to Putnam, the more we prioritize our private bubbles over public life, the more we disconnect from our local surroundings. This has weakened American democracy. Fewer people are engaged in politics, and those who do are often at the political poles. With less social capital, our neighborhoods are connected by fewer informal, reciprocal... See more