Social Bonds Are Fraying Fast in America’s Cities | Hacker News Reader

Social Bonds Are Fraying Fast in America’s Cities

thedispatch.com

45 pointslongdefeat32 comments

My prediction is COVID will precipitate a decline in major urban areas that will last at least ten years.

The bargain urban cities made was that the residents got easy access to their workplace, restaurants, bars, theaters, events etc, in exchange for living in exorbitantly expensive tiny cramped apartments.

COVID has upended this deal and most pragmatic folks are thinking hard about moving out. What is the point of living in a small box if you can't do anything and you work from home? And if the government can shut it all down any old time they want anyways? Add on top of that the increase in violent crime/unrest and only the true believers will stay.

I think it's much too early to say. my lease is up in 60 days and I don't have any intention of moving. if things are still not back to normal a year after that, I would probably consider leaving the city. FWIW, most bars and restaurants in my area have been open for outdoor dining for quite some time now, so it's really not a huge inconvenience. in any case, the ability to walk home drunk is not my main reason for living in a city. I can still walk to several lovely parks any time I want, and several of my friends live close enough that they can walk to meet me there. in my experience, these casual meetups are much more likely to happen when everyone can walk to the location, but YMMV.

I don't think the fact that the government has temporarily closed a lot of businesses during the worst pandemic in several decades implies this will be a regular occurrence. to change one's entire lifestyle over temporary restrictions during a rare crisis seems like the opposite of "pragmatic" to me.

Wild hypothesis derived from personal experience: I love cities, but I love my friends more. American cities have experienced regulatory capture from local homeowners. But local homeowners eventually die and their kids usually can't buy in before they die. So their kids move out and when they die, the home becomes remote-owned. This leads to a gradual sparsification of the long-term residents of the place and a conversion to renter neighbourhoods.

I guess a way to test this hypothesis would be to see if the measure of social bonding is the same in cities without restrictive housing policy.

Interesting note in the article, too: In the city, we usually hang out at common city areas (pubs, bars, restaurants). In the suburbs, you usually hang out at someone's home.

Mostly due to the media being very divisive. People get dragged unknowningly (mostly) into these media/thought bubbles on IG and other platforms... of course things will get divisive.

And it's self-perpetuating, because the leaders of each thoughtbubble are getting paid/making income from posting the same bubble thoughts that their followers love.

TFA notes: "58 percent of Americans want to live in either a suburban area or a small town, and another 28 percent wanted a rural area. The turn away from cities is a 55 percent drop from 2018."

Through what mechanism do you connect your proposed explanation of "the media" and its "thought bubbles" to this result?

Not the person you're replying to, but my guess is this: "The media," one or two outlets in particular, has been very strenuously playing up the "astounding lawlessness" and "terrible conditions" that are supposedly "ravaging" cities.

Living in one that's been the subject of thousands of minutes of talking-head coverage...this is surprising to me. I have friends who live elsewhere who partake of news from those outlets and they are absolutely convinced that I am living in a doomed hellscape from which there is no relief. No amount of my telling them that I look out my window and my city has not completely burned to the ground disabuses them of this belief. (There is absolutely nowhere in my city that I cannot or do not feel comfortable going.)

A lot of media reports are also linking this with COVID response and implying, though not stating, that the virus is far more rampant inside cities, even though where I live is doing better, per-capita, than any of our suburban neighbors both on case rates and testing throughput.

Receiving this constant drumbeat of "cities are absolutely fucked, here's some stock footage of people breaking windows" is bound to influence poll results.

Eh, my favorite is the meme that San Francisco is covered in shit and homeless people. Oh yeah, and if you get on a bart train you'll get jabbed with needles and covered with poop by homeless people.

Seriously... I lived in the bay for 10 years dealing with that. Now i've moved up tot Redding and everyone is sure the homeless here are everywhere and causing all sorts of crime even though it's the furthest thing from the trutth. The homeless here just want some where to camp they won't be assaulted by police and bothered by all the nosy rednecks.

Apparently I should have said that I was ridiculing the people who constantly say that.

I have ridden many bart trains. Every now and then I'd smell pee - and the bart station bathrooms are biohazards for sure, but I've never seen needles or poop on a bart train before lol.

I was not a major BART rider and cannot comment in depth but this is a thing that happened.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-dow...

There is a real homelessness situation in San Francisco, and it does have some of the effects you describe at least sometimes. The question is its scale. While my experience is now years out of date, I think part of the way this understanding comes about is visitors and tourists are more likely to encounter the homeless people in touristy areas (particularly if they start at Powell St for the cable cars and make the mistake of going southwest, but also in the Haight-Ashbury) while the well-off residents tend to enjoy the city in different ways, and end up in different places than the homeless.

Did you ever see the maps of tourist-vs-local photography for San Francisco? There is a huge disparity in the way they interact with the city.

The major complaints about homelessness and needles from residents seem to come when the residents are now parents, and there are needles on the playgrounds in any quantity.

I've been struggling with this recently. I'm traveling through New York state in a bit, and my in-laws warned me not to go to New York City because it's being looted and burned to the ground. I wasn't planning to visit anyway, but I was really puzzled by what they said because last I heard the protests and looting fizzled out over a month ago, but apparently on Fox News they keep playing the same clips from months ago (or sometimes even from other countries) while claiming that this is happening right now all over America. Pretty scary times we live in when such a large proportion of the population is completely disconnected from reality in such a basic way. I'm used to having political disagreements, but this is something else.

I'd be willing to ascribe them nonzero influence of the sort that you have described, but compared to the pandemic influences, it seems almost trivial. Like the authors of this article, I think the crux of the matter is that city-dwellers now have to deal with a lot more stringent antivirus measures affecting them much more often on a much more regular basis, relative to suburbanites.

As a city dweller who has done a reasonably good job of adapting (replacing my use of NYC's public transit with a bicycle, for instance) I sympathize. I am paying lots of money in rent, and I am no longer realizing the benefits of living close to the office, or the benefits of living near interesting and unique shops and restaurants. Even the benefits of living near nice parks is a little bit muted. Instead, I find the space I have committed to as part of my lease is not quite big enough, now that I'm expected to make an office in it every day as well, and I find that I could really use some more outdoor space that I could enjoy by myself.

Oh, I completely agree that some of that shift is because of this pandemic and its effects. I just also think that it is gut-level reacting, particularly since humans are pretty bad at long-term thinking. I've had those same thoughts, especially since my household sold our house and our last car a few years ago to move to a mixed-use development near a train station. But I also remember that there are reasons why we did that and, even with the cool shops and tasty restaurants temporarily closed, those reasons still exist. We still have parks and grocery stores to walk to, still don't have to drive, and so on.

This, too, shall pass (assuming we can all get it together for a few months).

But, anyway, turning back to your broader point, I agree that some people will reevaluate the decisions they made that led them to this point. And there may even be a shift if this drags on for two or three years--which it had better not--but I think a large part of this polling is unease, a lot of it externally-influenced, instead of calm thought.

I am biased, of course; we do not plan to move from the city where we live, so that plays into our thinking.

There is a large portion of the US that thinks all our cities look like Gotham from Tim Burton's 1989 version of Batman. Non-city dwellers don't understand that cities have gotten continually safer and are generally nice places to live.

A small anecdote: I know someone from Norfolk, VA who was visiting Massachusetts. He was very concerned that he would be shot if he walked around Charlestown (the Boston neighborhood) which is insane. There's a lot wrong with Charlestown (gentrification, Sullivan Square, New Rutherford) but Irish gang wars don't make the list and probably haven't for 20-30 years.

The funny part is some of wish we could visit super shady new york in the 70's. But now I hear it's basically disneyland.

If it is so painfully obvious to city residence how wrong the narrative is why are so many people fleeing the cities?

Semi-rural and rural homes are selling like I've never seen before. Crappy modulars in the mid-west last maybe a week on the market; places that would have taken months and a couple price drops to sell get multiple offers and vanish. Home builders are busy despite covid-19. They're building on rural lots that have sat empty for years. You can't get a modular home builder to call you back right now; they're too busy filling orders.

You know who the buyers are? Refugees from coastal cities.

Yeah, this is a real thing. I live in Portland which certain right wing outlets love to demonize. My parents have been out here to visit multiple times. They've seen how nice the city is in general with their own eyes. I still have to assure them it's not all Blackhawk Down outside my front door every time we have a call.

It's infuriating but it just is what it is. Particularly the older generation has had this image of cities being overrun by lawless gangs since the 80s drilled into their heads by so much media they'll believe it over their own first hand experiences.

This is more about bonds fraying due to quarantine induced isolation. Urban dwellers tend to not know their physically proximate neighbors, whereas suburban dwellers do, so given this imposition, urban dwellers feel more isolated and alone than their suburban counterparts which is somewhat counterintuitive given people’s preconception that suburban dwellers live in isolation from each other.

From the article, it appears urban and suburbans are roughly equally likely to know their neighbors (56% -> 47% for urbanites and 48% -> 52% for suburbanites). It's rural people that know their neighbors better.

I guess I've lived at both ends of the spectrum, but it's not surprising to me that city dwellers are more isolated.

In rural areas, you have no choice but to know your neighbors. You'll see them regularly, whether you like it or not, because there's only a handful of local stores. It's that repetition that builds trust and opportunity to slowly build a friendship up, and eventually become part of a community.

In the city, you get relative anonymity through sheer numbers. On one hand you get to blend into the crowd, but on the other hand you don't get to interact with the crowd. You have to luck, or maneuver, your way into a social circle of trust to get any kind of serious bonding. Even then, you may just be an isolated pod of people, still not feeling directly part of the community, you just walk through.

This is why I've always found the idea of not making friends with your workmates to be really backwards. They're pretty much your only social circle when you first get to a city. You're going to see them 5 days a week, what better group of people to bond with. You won't get that anywhere else in a city.

Anecdotally, my preconception is that suburban/exurban counterparts know their neighbors a little more because there tends to be less age variance in newer developments vs. 100-year old neighborhoods.

A new townhouse development goes up in a suburb/exurb and everyone that moves in is essentially 28-38, increasing social cohesion, but losing some diversity. My 100+ year-old neighborhood houses college students to people in their seventies.

True in our experience. We’re considering moving back to the Midwest to be around family, because the alternative is to be in a house alone all day every day.

Why does the article not address the elephant in the room: cost of living?

What was already a poor use of money (being an urban renter) is now a much worse use of money thanks to plague and other social ills. US urban quality of life has not kept pace with international standards, also, with antiquated infrastructure being one of the most significant issues combined with an anti-development regressive political mindset.

I feel like this survey would benefit from asking about relationship status, employment status, remote-working possibilities, etc.

Right, I think the big confounding factor is that single childless people tend to be urban apartment dwellers...

I'm extremely skeptical about the claims that COVID-19 is going to cause a long term mass exodus from cities. Of course cities are less attractive places to live when everything is closed down. But if that makes city living less attractive, then why would moving to a place where those bars, restaurants, etc don't even exist be attractive? I grew up in a place where the population of the entire county was only 25,000 people and there are downsides to living in such a place.

The biggest thing is that there is simply less to do. I remember that meetup.com and similar sites had maybe a dozen things listed within 50 miles and they were generally things like "Senior Citizen's nature walk" and "Small Business owner social group". Finding a D&D group? Much more difficult and you'd better be prepared to drive long distances? Makerspace/hackerspace? non-existent. Your favorite musician is generally going to stop in the big cities and you're going to have to drive to get there.

If you're a foodie then your choices are going to be restricted to fast-food, a few traditional local places and maybe one or two Chinese restaurants. Food trends might reach you a year or two after your friends in the city. And hopefully the only Pho place within an hour drive will be decent. Museums will be small and limited and sporting events will be limited to the local recreational/high school teams.

Buying things will be more difficult. Your amazon packages will take longer to there. Socially, you're much more limited. The dating scene is much more difficult (which goes 10x if you're not straight). And the existing social groups can be insular and difficult to break into.

That's not to say that it's all bad. Such places can be incredible if you tend to be more introverted and love the outdoors.

Overall it strikes me as an "the green is always greener" situation. I think that, at best, most people will try it out for a year or two and realize that they miss trivia night at the bar/concerts/sporting events/parties and move back.

Why was this flagged? Many stories which I am interested in get flagged and I do not understand why.

Just move to the midwest or New Hampshire or Boise. Get a 4-bedroom house for $200k close to a lake. If the nearest city has a Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and REI, that will probably indicate a population and lifestyle that is compatible with most millennials, as those stores do a huge amount of research before deciding to open a new location.

You will not find a 4BR New Hampshire house by a lake at that price. You will not find any lakeside property for $200k unless it is a shack. I know, I was just up north in Coos County to do boating stuff and was checking prices. My 3BR in Northern NH is valued at $320k. We are near multiple boat launches and a sizable lake, but it wouldn't be considered a lake property.

> this pandemic could trigger a spatial reordering where America moves back into countryside where people are more social, trusting, and would simply prefer to reside.

This is in the last paragraph.

The author tells a bunch of stats but seems unable to make actual sense of them, beyond the surface level.

People go where the jobs are, not where they prefer to be. With more people than ever being out of jobs, the only way they magically move to the countryside and stay there is if we place them on permanent welfare.

'The people' don't get to decide anything. They are sheep, for shepherds to play with. Grapes of wrath by Steinbeck expressed this in a way an average American can relate to.

If people recall all of these predictions were made after 9/11 and the subsequent two decades were not exactly a period of decline for NYC. I live in and love NYC. If it’s not your thing that’s fine. There doesn’t have to be one way to live for everyone. I’ve been in the country three weeks now and it’s lovely. I’m happy to be here another three weeks. But my god am I itching to get back to the city.

I’d also point out that if we have a vaccine by year end or early 2021 which isn’t a certainty but is hardly a trivial possibility then all of these grand prognostications (which garner clicks) that life has changed forever will look awfully silly.

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