The painful reality is that the internet somehow makes it easier to find friends who live halfway across the world than to connect with the people who live down the street.
“self-interested behavior is learned behavior, and people learn it by studying economics and business.”
“It’s not just about density and walkability. It’s about fostering a sense of place and uniqueness.”
Urbanists often discuss mixing uses and designing a public realm that promotes social interaction. If that’s robust neighborhood hardware, it can’t properly function without the software.
The term ‘the commons’ has been increasingly used to refer not just to “things” or “assets” (as Silke Helfrich puts its) but more broadly to the “social practices of commoning, acting together, based on principles of sharing, stewarding and producing in common” .
Mutual aid inherently centers human connection. It requires cooperation to create networks of care and levels of generosity to meet the immediate needs of a given community. BSS strongly emphasized having conversations with neighbors –even at the expense of efficiency – as its organizational model necessitated mutual support and community involveme... See more
Our research has revealed a potential solution to the local paradox: networks that are values-driven, closely moderated, trusted, and local.
Without close moderation, local social networks risk racism, toxicity, and misinformation. But for close moderation to be acceptable to residents, they need to trust the people who are moderating and running t... See more