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Notes -
Why is it then that the social ties among residents of SFH neighborhoods are almost universally stronger than among apartment dwellers? I don’t think that a typical renter even knows the names of people living in the neighboring apartments, or, for that matter, anyone else in the building.
If you are not living in a huge metro, most of the people you can conceivably meet on a regular basis will be within 10-20 minutes drive, because driving in non-dense places outside of big metros is very fast. This is not the case in big metros, to be sure, but in big metros, you cannot cram everyone into walking distance from everyone else anyway (see: NYC). The choice is not between driving 20 minutes to see your friends in suburbia vs waking one block over to your friends, it is between driving 20 minutes vs taking 20 minute subway trip. If your friends are free to move so close to you, why cannot we assume that they also cannot buy a house in the walking distance in the same SFH neighborhood? If you are instead assume that you make friends with people who already live close by, why not assume the same when you’re living in SFH?
Frankly, I am reading often about how suburbia is alienating compared to dense city living, and I am frankly bewildered. My experience have been completely opposite of that. I think people are comparing suburbia today vs communal living in cities 70 years ago, where yeah, you could make the case that the social ties in cities 70 years ago were stronger than are in today’s suburbs — but this is the whole Bowling Alone thing, not dense city vs suburbs issue.
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