also the increasing unavailability and/or inviability of third spaces where you can just hang out without having to spend a ton of money and deal with unpleasant environments
I know my parents used them, but I never did. My friends used them a bit in university but stopped once they could afford something different. My local community centre's calendar has dried up, despite the space still being there. New neighborhoods sometimes don't even bother to build one now where I am, as there is no demand.
Nobody demolished the churches or the libraries, but they have rapidly aging user bases. Rotary and other similar social clubs would love younger members, but younger people don't want them.
But there also isn't much reason to go there if nobody else does. A weird network-effect thing, right? Like, I didn't bother walking down to the local Chilean bakery that serves food because it's mostly empty most of the time, and there's only so much I can chat to the folks working there about as a stranger who lives down the street.
The US is building most of its new homes in anti-social car controlled environments, where you can't walk anywhere, everything has to be done by driving. Kids can't just roam the neighborhoods anymore and when they do people start asking if they should call the cops.
We are sick and it doesn't look like there is much thinking in how to fix it.
Granted I live in more expensive areas, but still
- churches: not really for the non religious
- libraries: not if you want to actually talk to people
- parks: only if the weather cooperates
- certain community recreational facilities: spend money? too activity oriented
- gyms: same as aboveThen why'd you put gyms in your list? You DO have to spend a ton of money to get a gym membership. And you can't cancel it because you have to sign a ridiculous contract and basically file a lawsuit to end the membership (not really, but it seems almost this bad).
I've been off and on user of several different gyms over the years. I don't recall actually paying for a gym membership myself. It's usually been a gym at my apartment complex, or a gym at the office park where I work, or my employer covered a gym membership, or I got it through health insurance.
- Parks: A lot of them, every few blocks there's a large, well maintained park. Trash cans everywhere. - Many community centers, huge, filled with extremely inexpensive or free activities. Community centers all have gyms in them. - Beautiful, modern feeling libraries
It's hard to describe the difference, but it is non trivial.
Everything in your list is stuff I experienced in most of the parts of Canada I visited. Not all though, for instance it wasn't like that in the parts of Mississauga I visited. And everything in your list is stuff I experience regularly in the US, in the parts I've lived in.