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Comment by AmericanChopper | Hacker News Reader

As a car owning suburbanite, I can’t shake the suspicion that people who complain about lack of community, in actuality just have a lack of social skills. I know all my neighbors, and talk to them on a daily basis. I know all the people who own or work in the local businesses that I frequently go to. I know many of the people who frequently go to the same coffee shops and bars that I frequently go to. I know all the people who work at the butcher, and at the fish market, and at the grocery store that I frequently go to, and always have a conversation about something with them when I go in. All of that feels a lot like community to me. Yet I have the very strong suspicion that if somebody who likes to bemoan a lack of community moved in down the road from me, they’d probably just keep on bemoaning it.

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I agree. I live in the suburbs. Have lived in urban and rural in the past. I like the suburbs. Plenty of green space. Plenty of privacy. Lots of interaction with neighbors and lots of families with similar aged kids to play with. All amenities are close by (but beyond where I would walk). Sure i have to drive, but its 3 minutes and its easy. To each their own on what they choose as a lifestyle. Stop hating on mine.

But your lifestyle is inefficient, NIMBY, and just wrong! /s

I suppose suburbs are not the most efficient way to live. My priority is quality of MY life, which I find is higher in the suburbs. So i am willing to not be optimized because thats not what provides value to me.

> the butcher, and at the fish market, and at the grocery store

Those are all just commerce that you commute to, though. As someone who worked in the service industry for years, 99% of the people I met at work (the "regulars", the overly chatty parents who haven't seen an adult this month, etc) I would never consider part of my community.

How many conversations do you have with members of your community that you're not buying something from?

Most of them... a majority of them would be other people who go to the same places I go.

That said, most relationships in a community of people are going to be at least somewhat superficial, because nobody can maintain deep personal relationships with hundreds of people.

The idea that the whole thing is just a cynical commercial racket is silly though. Building a real relationship with your community is the whole point of small local business. A lot of those relationships are genuine friendships. The owner of my local coffee shop invites my wife and I over for dinner every so often, and vice versa. I had my local butcher over a couple of weeks ago because he wanted me to teach him how to make beef rendang.

Even if commerce underlies the relationship, it can still be entirely community based.

I'm not saying it's a cynical commercial racket, that would be silly.

What I am saying is that you should have connections with the other people in your community at the shop, not the person hired to interact with you. The relationship with the store owner has nothing to do with whether you drive a car or not.

The relationship you have with others, the other folks at the store shopping, etc are much harder in a suburban geography literally because of the lack of interactions. Drivethu's are the extreme of this.

It's my hypothesis that having a relationship with your local butcher or coffee maker has little to nothing to do with your car, but the relationships you have with others merely due to their proximity to you is the beauty of community. Digital or physical.

> What I am saying is that you should have connections with the other people in your community at the shop

I don’t think this is an essential element of community at all, but as I said “ a majority of [the other community members I interact with] would be other people who go to the same places I go”

> It's my hypothesis that having a relationship with your local butcher or coffee maker has little to nothing to do with your car

I’d say you’re right. But I’d also say that the comment “cities are made for cars not people” is equally as insightful as the comment “footpaths are made for shoes not people”, “cycle lanes are made for bicycles not people” or “rail lines are made for trains not people”. Because at the end of the day, shoes, bicycles, cars, buses, trains... are all made for people. I would suggest that a persons perception of their local community has much more to do with how they interact with it than it does the form of transport they use. I’m also certain that there would be a large number of people who live in the same community as I do, which I find to be particularly vibrant, who spend their time not socializing with anybody, and then go home at the end of the day to take out their phone and complain about lack of community.

> “footpaths are made for shoes not people”, “cycle lanes are made for bicycles not people” or “rail lines are made for trains not people”.

Only one of those literally puts a glass and metal wall between every single person, and I think it's a significant difference in how social you can realistically be, as all time spent traveling is no longer occurring within a social context, but a private one.

Having travelled to many different cities that have many different styles of public transport, I can very confidently say the cities of the world are firmly divided into two camps on this topic. One where you don’t talk to other people on the bus/train because you never know who’s going to turn out to be a violent drug addled lunatic, and another where you don’t talk to people on the bus/train because it’s impolite.

There is literally no city in the world where people are interested in the social experience of public transport.

"What I am saying is that you should have connections with the other people in your community at the shop, not the person hired to interact with you."

What connections do you find in your grocery store?

Well, this year I've met two friends at the store because we were buying similarly weird produce.

But it's just a reply about the car making your interaction with your community almost exclusively commercial. I've met far more friends at the park, usually when I'm walking through with my dog.

I mean, I worked retail too and I get what you're saying. However, just because you don't have a deep, meaningful relationship with someone doesn't mean they aren't a part of your community. Hell, I've probably chatted with my mailman 3 times in the past 3 years, but we recognize each other and say hi and ask how each other are doing.

Just because I wouldn't call him if I needed a kidney doesn't mean he's not a part of my (the) community.

> I know all the people who work at the butcher, and at the fish market, and at the grocery store that I frequently go to, and always have a conversation about something with them when I go in.

This feels like a commercial transaction to me.

I guess it could be if you wanted it to be. But if you just wanted a coffee with no social interaction or sense of local community, you’d be better off going to a Starbucks over a local shop.

Any human behaviour examined from the correct perspective can be attributed to an egoist motive.

I like and enjoy a good and friendly commercial transaction.

I just don't consider it a real friendship, and I think this is potentially dangerous thinking. Your counterpart is being paid to form that connection with you, and you are in a specific position of power over them in that situation.

It's nice, in the moment, to be given service - by someone working in a service industry (this is certainly not unique to the suburbs) - but I find it odd that you seem to describe this as a satisfying personal relationship. You will likely never see that person again, whenever they stop doing that job. Your connection and their connection is to the transaction, which includes a personal element at your behest.

If you had said: and I often see them outside of work, then I would consider that slightly differently.

But I’m not talking about having “real friendships”, I’m talking about community. A community is just a type of social unit, and people who deride a lack of community tend to be talking about the lack of that social dynamic. There is not much socialization involved with placing an order at Starbucks and waiting for my name to be called out. There is a much greater level of socialization involved when I go to my local coffee shop, where I know the staff, and we talk for a few minutes about how our lives are going before I head off again. That’s even more true when I stop and talk with some of the other regulars that I’ve gotten to know. That’s just typical community social interaction.

That said, I do have “real friendships” with a number of people that I’ve meet in these settings. Because, perhaps unsurprisingly, a nice local community can be a good place to find new friends.

See this is exactly it - everyone overthinks everything.

Everything has to be "Real friendship" What does that even mean? You're just talking to others to be a decent human being. Not everyone has to be your wife/husband/BFF for ever.

I've seen plenty of people after commercial transactions. In fact, many times I remember people and they remember me for pleasant interactions - they aren't my best man but it's still really satisfying to me.

Great!

This is not a benefit of living in the suburbs. You can have a pleasant commercial transaction anywhere in the world - you pay for that.

The point the OP way back when is making is you can be social in suburban circumstances.

It just goes back to the common theme these days - everything is something or someone else's fault. No one ever just says " man I'm feeling lonely, maybe I should join this club, or start going to this coffee shop and just strike up conversation."

No we have to "blame the suburbs" and "blame cars." No one wants to just take responsibility for themselves, they just want to complain about everything else causing their problems online.

When you talk to the butcher once every couple weeks, and enjoy the interaction every time and think “that person is all right”, you have a solid foundation for empathy and understanding. One week you pull up to the butcher shop and see them get out of their car and it has a political bumper sticker different than yours. Instead of thinking “that person is other, an abstract concept that I am supposed to fight against” you might say to yourself “huh didn’t expect joe to be a ___”. But you most likely don’t start disliking joe.

Obviously there are many other benefits of regular friendly small interactions with people, but this one has stood out in my mind over the last couple polarizing years.

> I can’t shake the suspicion that people who complain about lack of community, in actuality just have a lack of social skills.

Along with social skills I think it's the lack of other hobbies or interests. I have friends from local bars but I also have ones from various sports clubs and other activities. Whether it's churches, the local chess club or sports a city will provide a lot more of these niches for community.

Community doesn't just happen, you have to go out and get involved in them, then you have to talk to people instead of sitting on your phone.

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