Hacker News Reader

Comment by massysett | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think the built environment is that determinative. I live in a car-dependent suburb. Walk Score 2.

My neighbor knows the whole street. She knows the garbage men. It’s because she wants to. When I run into her outside, she chats. She walks her dog and chats with dog owners and anyone else she sees.

Easy relationships are available at the grocery store, post office, etc. I’ve been seeing some of the same people working at Costco for years. I don’t know them. It’s not the built environment. I’d need to take effort to build a relationship with them. My neighbor would. I’m simply not so inclined.

View on HN

This is an incredibly important point - you could remove the car entirely, even make you dependent on others (as you're dependent - or were before self checkout - on the Costco clerk) - and you still would have the disconnect.

Hardship can force it more often, perhaps, but that is accidental and secondary.

In all the times I've traveled on forms of "mass transit" (airplanes, subways, trains) the only time I've ever really talked to someone was at the seat-together dining on a long-distance train. Otherwise you can sit next to someone for 20+ hours and never say much more than "excuse me" if you need to use the restroom.

(Another counter to this is kids, if you have kids and there are kids anywhere within screaming distance, they will find each other and immediately be best friends. Parents get dragged along - https://www.bluey.tv/watch/season-2/cafe/ )

It's absolutely the built environment. Your Costco example is a clear example. you drive to Costco, you walk in, grab generic packaged goods without needing to really talk to anyone, and then go to the checkout and use the automated kiosk to make your purchase.

There's no reason to have a human interaction, so why would you bother getting to know the cashier? You're never going to build a relationship with the cashier precisely because of the environmental structure.

Contrast that with walking down the street to a local store that one of your neighbors owns. I bet you would already have a relationship unless you chose not to. Why? Because you'd also see them at your kids birthday party, or you'd see them at the bark down the street, or out on a walk.

I made the choice at Costco to not build a relationship with anyone. There's a guy standing at the entrance checking memberships. I've seen him for years. I don't know him. I don't use the automated kiosk if I have several items. I see some of the cashiers for years. I'm cordial but I don't chat them up. One woman who has been there for years chats with me a bit; I'm cordial but don't reciprocate a ton.

There's a corporate supermarket owned by a Dutch multinational not far from me. I see some of the same employees there every week. One of them loves people and recognizes me. I could stand around and chat with him if I wanted. But I don't want to.

I made this choice. Someone who wants to build relationships chats with people. Folks like that chat with people at the grocery store, on the airplane, waiting in line, etc. Often it leads to nothing, occasionally it leads to something. But the point is, they practice it. I don't. The built environment is not stopping it. Not being in a "local store that one of your neighbors owns" has nothing to do with it either. Plenty of relationships are built in corporate chains.

I think this is fundamentally incorrect, and the way we live today and the problems we experience bear this out. It's not about individual choices you make to engage with a cashier at Costco, it's about the opportunities to engage and where they occur. You're still talking about a forced connection you have to decide to make at the checkout line, and ignoring that you never see that person again in a different context, like in your own neighborhood or at your local restaurant.

Socialization isn't a choice one makes, it's supposed to be organic. The fact that you have to choose and make decisions around interacting with other people proves my point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com