Comment by Yizahi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Yizahi | Hacker News Reader

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While I also like "Not Just Bikes" and this idea in general, I must say that urbanists sometimes make this mistake - living right next to a dozen of people next door and a hundred more in the same building doesn't mean that you will talk to them. I've lived in the apartment for all my life and changed it last year. I have no idea who are the people next door to me, I don't know their names and the whole social interaction with them is limited to "have a nice day" once every few weeks when we accidentally meet in the corridor.

The other benefits of the higher density living does work though. More small businesses and shops nearby, hobby points of interest in the 15-30 minutes distance on foot or bus/tram, better infrastructure, etc.

The benefit isn't so much that you can be friends with your neighbours, but that the density makes all distances shorter and by extension your friends are still much closer.

In a suburb many of my friends would be 15+ minutes away by car. In the city I live in now (almost entirely apartments/multi-household buildings), almost all of my friends are within a 15 minute walk. It has been a massive improvement to my social life, mostly due to the ease at which gatherings can spontaneously/easily occur.

It seems vastly harder to make friends in a city, to me. When I lived in the suburbs, it was really simple to make friends. In the city, I dont know anyone. I agree that its nice to live so close to friends, but it seems impossible to MAKE any in the city.

I lived on 2nd Ave NYC for a while which matched your observations on interacting with neighbours. However there's an interesting urbanist video [1] that suggests that even in a higher density neighbourhood with appartment buildings, the amount of traffic on the road affects both how many friends you have and how much you socialise with neighbours in your building. Ie in a car lite environment, everyone is friendlier.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESgkcFbGiL8

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