> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco.
This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
Still, a heartwarming story all the same. And yes, this is _exactly_ what city living should enable.
>just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
This is a bitter stereotype that is leveled against both city-dwellers and suburb-dwellers, and, like many stereotypes, has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity. Some people don't want to interact with their neighbors, regardless of whether they live in a city or a suburb. Others are sociable with their community, and express it just as well whether they live in a city or a suburb.
Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen. And even if you are sitting in front of your house, neighbors are more likely to be driving by instead of walking so not very likely to stop and chat.
In densely populated cities, you are often in close proximity with other humans you haven't met yet. But there can be social and cultural norms to keep walking and avoid eye contact because social interaction with all the countless people you pass is completely impractical.
I think we're a long way off from the communities when Jane Jacobs lived. An except that I frequently think about, I can't even fathom in a large city in the current era, and not because technology has solved the key problem.
>Joe Cornacchia, who keeps the delicatessen,
usually has a dozen or so keys at a time for handing out like
this. He has a special drawer for them.
>Now why do I, and many others, select Joe as a logical
custodian for keys? Because we trust him, first, to be a respon
sible custodian, but equally important because we know that he
combines a feeling of good will with a feeling of no personal
responsibility about our private affairs. Joe considers it no con
cern of his whom we choose to permit in our places and why.
Around on the other side of our block, people leave their keys
at a Spanish grocery. On the other side of Joe's block, people
leave them at the candy store. Down a block they leave them at the coffee shop, and a few hundred feet around the corner from that,
in a barber shop. Around one corner from two fashionable
blocks of town houses and apartments in the Upper East Side,
people leave their keys in a butcher shop and a bookshop; around another corner they leave them in a cleaner's and a drug store.
>In unfashionable East Harlem keys are left with at least one
florist, in bakeries, in luncheonettes, in Spanish and Italian groceries.
>This still happens in my experience, I've picked up keys from friends and Airbnb hosts via a local business in the past few years.
Seems strange to me, I've never done anything of the sort and wouldn't consider it. The closest is maybe leaving things at school for another parent to pickup because they left them with my kid.
But there is usually a code with some app and all of the social aspects have been removed. It’s not much different than being a higher scale realtor key box.
Well, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't but the idea that a local store owner wouldn't give me if I were to give off a "dangerous vibe" would be somewhat concerning. But maybe I have ancestry etc. where I just don't give off that vibe. More generally, I guess I'm just pretty used to lodging where a delayed flight doesn't mean I can't get in.
I'm a paying customer, why tf should I care what the clerk thinks?
I paid the money, give me the key. Plus at no point did I pay them any money -- they're just, essentially, key escrow.
It's good marketing for them since being in and out of a pizza place means someone will likely buy a slice, but as a BnB customer IDGAF what they think outside of giving me that bloody key.
In the context of a lot of discussions here, Jacobs also seemed to believe in community driven development. Yes, she helped stop some highway development that many people here would (mostly rightly) hate. But a lot of people here would also consider her a NIMBY--even a fairly strong one--for supporting the right of communities to drive their own development whatever outsiders might desire.
I’m not sure it’s so much hostility to outsiders as such, as we like things mostly the way they are and we won’t appreciate if you come in and agitate for big change.
I live in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago (Oak Park) and stoop coffee would be much easier to do here than in San Francisco (where I lived many years ago).
There's no official definition of what the "the suburbs" means, but when people say that they usually mean "areas that follow a post-war suburban style of development". Think culdesacs and no sidewalks. The area you linked looks to me more like an older "streetcar suburb", which I think most people would just call "the city".
Nobody I know would call that street the city. In my mind, "the city" is, minimally, houses that are a few feet apart, small yard in back/front, pretty much nothing on the side. Frequently, it's 2-3 story buildings, with whole floors rented out as an apartment. That's my "least dense" vision of a city. Anything less than that (ie, full yards) falls into my vision of suburb.
Those houses are more densely packed than in what I'd call a suburb. And much more importantly, nothing in that area is more than a few blocks from some sort of commerce. Suburbia (at least in the US) isn't so much about the houses themselves, but what's around them. I'm in one of those "streetcar suburbs" and the nearest store is a mile away and the bus comes every 20 minutes. I could get by without a car but it would be very annoying. You might find a fairly similar set of houses in the nearby city, but they'll be near a lot of stuff and living without a car would be far more practical.
Yeah, I wouldn't call that a suburb either for practical purposes. It would be one by the definition of "small city near big city," but in terms of how it functions it looks like city to me.
This is the Chicago block I grew up on. It's less dense than Oak Park. It's easy find blocks like it elsewhere in Chicago. Jeff Park in Chicago and Oak Park are basically clones of each other.
This is really what most of Chicago looks like (modulo economic conditions in the different neighborhoods --- they're not all this upscale). It's a city of neighborhoods. Most of the streetscapes that jump to mind about Chicago, if you don't live here, are places people basically don't live.
Wow, you weren't kidding about the relative density between those areas. I'd consider Oak Park dense compared to most suburbs, just not as dense as some neighborhoods in Chicago. I'm most familiar with the north side neighborhoods and had those kind of lots in mind, with their near non-existent front yards, with front steps right off the sidewalk, and virtually no front driveways.
Apartment building on Pine Grove in Lakeview for me and then a beautiful old two flat in Ravenswood. My rent in Pine Grove in 1999 was $400 I think for a two room apartment.
Small world, my wife and I literally just moved to Beverly not far from there. This area is a bit of liminal space between city and suburbs (or at least my definition of them) and it can vary quite a bit block to block. I'm walking distance to a grocery store, the Metra, coffee shops, restaurants, parks, etc., which is unfortunately more than many areas of Chicago can say.
I moved from a denser part of Bridgeport, so it definitely has been an adjustment (particularly in variety). But even some areas of Bridgeport, which is much closer to downtown, had pockets that are equivalently walkable to where I'm at now, or maybe even less so. Anyone surprised to see SFHs and front yards in Chicago probably hasn't ventured far out of downtown/a handful of North Side neighborhoods.
Some US cities incorporated their lower-density "streetcar suburbs" over the years and other US cities didn't. This is why "Kansas City" proper has literal farmland [0] within its city limits, while "St. Louis" proper [1] on the other side of the state doesn't even include most of the skyscraper development that's occurred there within the last 40 years.
This is entirely arbitrary and knowing whether a particular place is technically part of "the city" doesn't really tell you anything about it. As you might expect, this causes a ton of unnecessary confusion.
They're pretty clearly not using "the city" to refer to city but instead to a certain density threshold, so pointing out that city limits are arbitrary doesn't really help anything.
What you're describing is called "agreement." I'm very plainly arguing that if the distinction between "city" and "suburb" is to mean anything at all, then it can't just be about what's within municipal boundaries and what isn't.
So you were agreeing with OP's comment, not disagreeing?
> Nobody I know would call that street the city. In my mind, "the city" is, minimally, houses that are a few feet apart, small yard in back/front, pretty much nothing on the side. Frequently, it's 2-3 story buildings, with whole floors rented out as an apartment. That's my "least dense" vision of a city. Anything less than that (ie, full yards) falls into my vision of suburb.
That's why people have been using paragraphs to clarify what they mean. Paragraphs that you seem to have ignored in favor of critiquing the utility that specific words have when taken out of the context the author intentionally put them in.
No clue about Seattle, but they definitely do in Northern VA where I live. Every new development that requires a change of permitted use goes through a lengthy review process with plenty of opportunity for locals to object.
Edit - sibling comment indicates Seattle has something similar.
> but when people say that they usually mean "areas that follow a post-war suburban style of development". Think culdesacs and no sidewalks.
Define people?
When most people I know say suburb they mean this: You're far enough the urban core that you probably have to drive to get to shops and jobs, but close enough to the urban core that you don't pass through farmland to get there. Some suburbs are like what you describe, but most are exactly like what OP links to.
I'm not at all sure what the utility is of a using a definition of suburb that excludes most of the not-high-density but not-rural US and only counts the absolute worst-designed spaces. It just means we're all talking past each other, with some of us saying "not all suburbs are terrible" and others insisting that suburbs are by definition terrible and anything that isn't terrible isn't a suburb. It's a bit of a True Scotsman fallacy and doesn't make for very useful dialog.
I believe the colloquial definition has changed substantially over the last ~100 years in the US. As a concrete example, Travis Heights (part of Austin) was initially advertised as "Austin's first suburb", but is very much inside the city core today. In the UK, this is true of places like New Malden or even Wimbledon, which were as-built not part of London and were referred to as "suburbs", but are categorized that way by approximately no-one today.
You're right that people in practice use the word "suburb" to talk about all these different things, but that just reinforces that the word isn't very useful. Oak Park and Naperville are both "suburbs," but this reveals nothing to us. In fact, it mostly obfuscates.
A suburb is outside of the city in low density housing, typically not within walking distance of anything. That reveals plenty for a lot of purposes, and if you want to critique something more specific than that you should use a word that people will recognize as being more specific than that.
Clearly the author of TFA believed that this was the definition of suburb, because they were clearly thinking of a space where people could in fact just hang out in front of their houses and meet neighbors. So for the purpose of this conversation, this definition of suburb is the only one that makes sense.
There is nobody in Chicago who would describe Oak Park and Evanston as anything other than "suburbs". You'd get laughed at if you called them "the city".
Right. I'm not at all sure why some people on here think "suburb" is only meant to refer to a very specific type of housing development, rather than a description of a location's spatial and cultural relationship to "the city".
I mean, you’re making the same sort of NTS argument here, aren’t you?
> Some suburbs are like what you describe, but most are exactly like what OP links to.
Without defining what constitutes a suburb, how can you argue that most are good? Your argument hinges on your own definition of suburb IMHO.
I’m not sure what the right answer is, but in my experience most people mean post-war development patterns when they talk about suburbs, but in any case it probably doesn’t hurt to be more precise about what we are praising or criticizing.
No, I'm not, because I'm not saying that what you are identifying as a suburb isn't a suburb, I'm saying it's not representative of all suburbs. I provide a perfectly valid definition:
> You're far enough the urban core that you probably have to drive to get to shops and jobs, but close enough to the urban core that you don't pass through farmland to get there.
Since my definition is broader it's less susceptible to NTS fallacies. What you identify as a suburb is a suburb but it is not all suburbs.
> but in my experience most people mean post-war development patterns when they talk about suburbs
Even this is too broad to sweepingly say all suburbs are bad. I've lived in 5 different suburban neighborhoods as an adult, 4 of which were developed post-war, and all had sidewalks and plenty of walking around and neighborly interaction.
That is a definition you're making up to suit an argument you're making. It's not the actual definition of the term. Anybody can just look it up and see that! The Oxford Languages dataset that Google uses for the definition literally uses Chicago's suburbs as an example.
And, seriously, who cares? Why would you want your argument to die on this hill? What could it possibly matter?
I'm not sure why you're critiquing my definition, given that I'm trying to emphasize that your specific Chicago suburb very much does meet the typical way that people think of suburbs. So yes, I agree with Google: Chicago's suburbs are suburbs. Oak Park is not within walking distance of anything that most people I know would identify as "the city", which puts it squarely in the suburbs in my book.
Did you read me as disagreeing with you, or did I misunderstand and you were trying to say that Oak Park isn't a suburb? Or is Oak Park actually within walking distance of "the city" as Chicagoans would identify it?
Oh I may just be reading the thread backwards! Sorry. Yes, Oak Park is definitely a suburb. Oak Park is also extremely within walking distance of the city; it's across Austin Blvd from it.
Yes, both the parent and I agree that Oak Park is a suburb (and a lovely one by the way; I hit up Amerikas every time I visit)—I was pointing out that he was making an argument of the same style that he was criticizing (using his own definition of a suburb to advocate for his own definition of a suburb).
In any case, I think there are multiple valid definitions for suburb—one which talks about smaller towns on the periphery of large cities and another which emphasizes postwar design principles/philosophies. I don’t see the point in arguing for a single true definition; language doesn’t work that way.
Agree. Lots of US cities have neighborhoods like this outside of the downtown business districts. Even in NYC, famous for concrete-jungle apartment dwelling, you find this in Staten Island and in parts of Queens.
we each can only rely on our own experiences, but mine don't agree with you. suburbs in the US northeast have sidewalks. most of LA looks like a suburb to a nor'easter. No sidewalk? rural.
I agree, and outside of Fly.io the thing I work hardest on is advocating for more density here; we're slowly transforming into Winnetka (if you're not a Chicago person, Winnetka is the John Hughes suburb you have in your head when people say things like "suburbs are nothing like the city"). Thankfully, we have a board consensus that has us pointed in the general direction of eliminating single-family zoning, allowing as-of-right 3- and 4-flats everywhere in the Village.
Lol this is the most chicago looking chicago that has ever chicagoed. I clicked the link before really registering the comment, and was confused why I was looking at a random Chicago neighborhood. While I do like the way chicago neighborhoods are set up (especially the space between houses and general greenery) I think the compactness that SF has creates more opportunity for interaction.
That being said, we did have this sorta thing on my block during covid times (once ppl stopped caring abt the social distancing and mask nonsense) but then the main families that did this moved away to bigger houses (as their families grew) and now it’s basically dead as there wasn’t a lot of intention behind it like the OP clearly has.
My wife and I, several years ago, stayed in an Oak Park hotel while visiting Chicago. There was a sort of food festival we happened upon and everyone was extremely friendly. As we rode the el train in, we were fascinated by the view of the closed Brachs factory.
hey neighbor :) we should totally do this in oak park. oak parkers already kinda do "stoop coffee", but usually only twice a year during a pre-planned block party. i could see this expanded to something a little more frequent, like maybe sunday mornings from memorial day to labor day.
I'm amused to see so many of my neighbors on here - we could do a Hacker News Stoop at one of the coffee shops (Whirlwind is my regular, but it's not like any of the ones in OP are hard to get to!)
My thing since I moved houses a couple years ago is just hanging out on the porch, and I'm probably just going to start telling people when I'm going to be out there and inviting everyone to just come over.
I live in a big city in central Illinois, and we have neighborhoods like that in the city. It's hard for people outside to understand that I have suburban style neighborhood but I could walk to the DMV.
Sen was a lifeline during the pandemic when going into the city for Japanese stopped being an option. One of the better Oak Park restaurants, in a suburb that is not exactly known for great restaurants.
Looking around the neighborhood, I'm seeing sidewalks on many of those streets, paved paths along public green spaces that run between the houses, multiple apartment buildings and a retirement center. Looking at the map, there also appear to be trails through the woods leading to a nearby sports center that's a 5 minute walk away, as well as a nearby bakery.
> Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen.
This has not been my experience in the surburbs. A typical suburban home has both spaces: a front yard/patio and a back yard/patio. If anything the physical constraints are substantially more conducive to hanging out out front than what I'm seeing in these photos here—people in the suburbs have some amount of space that they actually own in front of their home, they don't have to occupy the sidewalk.
As OP said, which one people choose to use depends on the personality of the individual, not the layout of the space. For example: our last four homes, like every home in each neighborhood, have had both, and I always prefer to be out back while my wife loves being out front interacting with the neighbors as they walk by (which, yes, they have regularly done in all four neighborhoods!).
Apparently there's some idea that suburbs by definition don't have sidewalks and have half acre lots with oversized McMansions. If that's your definition of suburb, I take it back: I've never lived in a suburb. But I also strongly question the utility that definition for discourse like this.
If some people here think that a suburb has to be the absolute worst stereotype of NIMBY living to count as a suburb and others are talking about anything with detached single family homes and yards, we're having very very different conversations. It seems more useful to work with the definition of suburb that simply means "outside the urban core".
There's a spectrum of density, and perhaps the sweet spot for front-porch interactions is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. I live in a neighborhood with ample front porches and sidewalks -- and I've heard it referred to both as a suburb (by dense city dwellers) and "the city" (by people who live further out from the dense urban core). But it's easy to imagine both a dense city neighborhood and a semi-rural far-flung suburb with no front porches and no culture of interacting with neighbors.
Even the definition of "outside the urban core" is hard to pin down; I'm pretty sure you could get disagreement on whether where I live is within the urban core or not.
Yes, counterexamples exist. But the vast majority of American suburbia is quite like what you describe: isolated homes with very low density where the only way to get to anything you’d want to do is drive, even within the neighborhood!
I don’t have a front yard in my home in the city. But I do have a million things outside my front door. So I walk to them, and I see and meet neighbors along the way.
But you know what suburbs typically do have? Pleasant areas to walk in.
I walk my dog and meet neighbors who are sitting outside their houses. I also sit outside my house and meet neighbors who are out walking their dogs or just out for a stroll.
When I've spent time in big cities I simply don't see this, because there aren't good places to walk dogs and it's generally unpleasant to just be out in the street for the sake of it.
The idea that all suburbs are isolated nightmarish hellscapes of pavement and car accidents is some combination of a myth spread by city dwellers and a minority experience in a few types of McMansion housing developments.
I think this may vary massively depending on what suburbs in what country and even what city you are talking about. The "usable front yard" or "front patio" is an almost non-existent design feature in free standing homes in Australia, at least in the more moderate climates in the southern side of the eastern seaboard.
I'd heavily agree with the idea that my suburban experience is that I do not know my neighbours, and the only time I've known them has been for bad reasons (harassment, fencing disputes etc.). In the inner city, I may not know my neighbours, but you probably know and interact with your general community in public spaces a lot more than the suburbs, mainly because you don't get everywhere by car. The small coffee shop on every corner in the gentrified inner city where people wait on the path for their coffee is a bit reminiscent (to a lesser degree) of the "stoop coffee" idea. That experience in the suburbs only really exists through your children (i.e. via schools and sports clubs) and doesn't exist much for child-free people.
With growing high density development near train stations in the suburbs, there is a bit more of this experience further from the city center. However it is really limited to a few square kilometers of urbanism and apartment living that then gives way to endless free standing houses and car dependent suburbia.
It’s easier to sit out in the suburbs, but the layout and infrastructure don’t generally encourage walking around, so there are a lot fewer neighbors walking past.
Generally, surburbs are better at encouraging walking/cycling around (since there's very little traffic), but worse at encouraging people to walk to commercial areas (since they're usually far away and the path there is unpleasant).
In my experience, you're far more likely to see kids biking/wandering around neighborhoods in the suburbs than in the city. This is the reason why people want things like cul-de-sacs, because eliminating through traffic means that people are able to use the area much more freely without having to worry about cars.
This doesn't match my personal experience, at all. Even the cutest and most pedestrian friendly suburbs have far less walking than typical cities, with faster more dangerous traffic, and less infrastructure for alternative modes of travel.
> far more likely to see kids biking/wandering around neighborhoods in the suburbs than in the city
This also doesn't come close to matching my personal experience (though it does match many people's inaccurate stereotypes, which I have heard repeatedly in conversations with people who don't live in cities). There are tons of kids and families around in cities.
> eliminating through traffic means that people are able to use the area much more freely
Quite the opposite. Cul-de-sacs cut places off from easy pedestrian access and make it usually significantly more difficult and dangerous to get anywhere by walking, because to get to destinations requires crossing massive (sometimes 6–10 lane) quasi-highways with high-speed traffic. Such places typically also come with separated residential and commercial zones and few useful destinations nearby: not as many schools, museums, libraries, parks, coffee shops, restaurants, retail stores, etc. within a reasonable distance, and lower population density with much more pavement per person. The predicable result is that in most places with many cul-de-sacs hardly any trips are made on foot or bike and people end up driving everywhere. Public transit also tends to suck in places with cul-de-sacs everywhere.
> (though it does match many people's inaccurate stereotypes, which I have heard repeatedly in conversations with people who don't live in cities)
I run into the opposite problem - people who grew up in the suburbs, move into gentrifying city neighborhoods as adults, and who carry idealized view of the city they moved to, will often accuse others - even people who have lived in the city there entire life - of being an outsider if they don't hold the same idealized view.
Judging by how shocked this type of person often gets when I tell them I was born and raised here ("You from here? 'Here' here? Wow, that's pretty rare!"), I get the impression that many of these people live in a bit of a gentrification bubble. Which is fine, but it would be nice if they were aware that there was much more to the city than the gentrification bubble (including people who have lived here far longer than them, sometimes for generations).
Anyway, you'll notice I never claimed there weren't "tons of kids and families around in cities," but rather that seeing kids roaming around neighborhoods on their own was more common in the suburbs than the city (at least based on my personal experience).
> Cul-de-sacs cut places off from easy pedestrian access and make it usually significantly more difficult and dangerous to get anywhere by walking, because to get to destinations requires crossing massive (sometimes 6–10 lane) quasi-highways with high-speed traffic.
This is a non-sequitur. I already mentioned in my post that in the suburbs it's more difficult to get to commercial destinations. That doesn't change the fact that a cul-de-sac is an area with little traffic, that most suburban developments/neighborhoods have pretty light traffic, and that you're typically going to encounter very little traffic inside these developments/neighborhoods.
> Generally, surburbs are better at encouraging walking/cycling around
Having lived in both, this is just categorically untrue.
Cities are filled with pedestrians and cyclists. Both recreationally and for practical purposes. In a given hour I might see over a hundred pedestrians outside my window and perhaps twenty cyclists. This would be an order of magnitude higher if I was on a commercial corridor or actually busy street.
In contrast you might see ten pedestrians a day in most parts of the suburbs. And maybe one or two cyclists, unless you leave your neighborhood.
Suburbs also have far worse traffic. City streets have small roads and slow-moving vehicles. Suburbs have giant thoroughfares and fast-moving vehicles. As a pedestrian and cyclists, I know which of the two I’d rather be in.
Really? My experience in the suburbs is that there are a lot of people "going on walks" with dogs and kids in the evening. People aren't walking TO places, but there is a lot of just walking around.
Suburbs are not hostile to pedestrians. They are hostile to getting anyplace on foot so cars are common. However they are great places to walk for exercise and many people who live there do that. (see the sibling comment about walking the dog)
My experience with suburbs is different from yours. I have lived in places where walking is downright dangerous because the architecture is oriented around cars and the drivers are not accustomed to yielding to pedestrians.
Many homes are designed such that the inhabitants rarely use the front door, using only the garage.
That doesn't sound like suburbs I know. The streets are so empty you can safely walk down the middle of them most of the time. People don't, but you could. (kids used to play baseball/basketball in the streets, stopping play when cars come). Of course to get anywhere you need to leave and so it is never far for a major road that is dangerous to be near.
I am sure that you have seen some pedestrian friendly suburbs. So have I. I never said that they are all hostile to pedestrians. Some are designed for people instead of cars. It is rare.
It also depends on the suburb. I was sad when I lived in Mountain View, heading in sight unseen, but there were a lot of sidewalks and a little main drag with some bars and shops.
A lot of "suburbs" in the Midwest lack sidewalks -- you can have the cops roll on you if you try to walk anywhere.
Where I am in the suburbs, all the dogs know each other, because most of them are on invisible fence lots and they all visit every other dog when on a walk. And it's common for the owner to come out and say hi, too. That being said, I know some of my neighbors by their dog's name ("That's Taj's dad").
>Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything.
Sure, but they are a lot more setup for walking dogs and casual walks and bike rides with your family and friends. The version of stoop coffee in my neighborhood is people walking their dogs and then stopping to chat. That and leaning on their fence talking to their neighbors.
Suburbia houses are usually right next to each other. Densely populated cities stack housing so you have to go down to get out. I've found that its much easier to meeting people in single family homes than five level flats. In any case, the US even in cities, is not set up for gatherings like it is in Europe where there are large spaces people go to socialize.
His thesis is some of the US must be torn down to rebuild it in a
friendlier community-enabling way.
Curiously, to the OP's "stoop coffee" topic, he already recognized
the communicative potential/value of the space in front of houses, and he
points out that old European cities "got that right" (and having a central
market square, too).
In my city, the only places I see neighbours gathering on their front porches is in prewar neighbourhoods with single family style homes (many actually split into apartments).
These houses have narrow lots, a porch right up to the sidewalk, and are on narrow streets. Newer neighbourhoods don't have that magic combination - even when the lots are narrow and there is no garage in the front, there is always a setback, a useless front yard, and more often than not no porch (or a "vestigial" porch that's too shallow to use comfortably).
Editing to add: The old neighborhoods are nearly always on a grid of streets, where every street has passers by. Newer neighbourhoods will have hierarchical streets that include crescents and cul de sacs, which connect to nothing and have nobody just passing through (although that does seem to be changing in the newest neighbourhoods).
I live in the burbs and I feel like almost everyone in the neighborhood has a dog. No matter what time I'm leaving my house, there's always someone walking their dog. Of course some times are busier than others, but I feel like dog walking itself can become a pretty good sense community.
I agree with your points about the challenges in both suburban and urban environments. I think the design of public spaces also plays a significant role. Intentional design can help overcome some of these challenges and foster more impromptu social interactions.
In my experiences of living in suburbs for 30 years, I’ve seen the default is to ignore neighbors.
I don’t really get this. Our communities have so much in common and so much overlap, we shop at the same stores, go to the same parks, get stuck in the same traffic, our kids are at the same schools,our neighbors care for us medically, teach our kids, maintain our dwellings, work on our cars, and contribute to our local municipalities through property tax. We vacation at the same places.
We have so much in common but we put our heads down and duck into our homes ignoring our neighbors. To be honest it makes me really sick to think about. Like the internet has allowed us to live these parallel lives, highly dependent on our neighbors but completely isolated from them. We smile and nod then go to the ballots and kick our spite up to the federal level (in the US).
To me, we have the majority of our lives in common.
Social media and the political engines preys on our differences making them the focus of our interactions ignoring the fact that 90% of our day-to-day lives are overlapping and our concerns are similar: health, wealth, prosperity, safety, education and recreation.
It’s not much, but as I get older I’m making a point to slow down and talk to my neighbors, have real conversations with them, many of them fly political flags that are contrary to my political beliefs but I find out we have so much In common because we have such similar day-to-day lives and experiences.
> we shop at the same stores, go to the same parks, get stuck in the same traffic, our kids are at the same schools,our neighbors care for us medically, teach our kids, maintain our dwellings, work on our cars, and contribute to our local municipalities through property tax. We vacation at the same places
I think this is only true if it's true. If you have a neighbor who doesn't have kids, doesn't shop at the same places you do, doesn't vacation at the same places you do, and doesn't work on their car, how do you think they feel about you characterizing the neighborhood that way?
After growing up in a small town, I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life explaining that no, I don't have kids (and hearing them say, "oh, I'm so sorry,") no, I'm not fascinated by how my car works, no, I don't want my lawn to be a perfect uniform shade of unnatural green. I feel much more comfortable in the city, but I'm aware that it's only because I fit my liberal city neighbors' assumptions much better than I fit the assumptions in the small town I came from.
To me, being on good terms with my neighbors is work. It's sometimes pleasant and almost always worth the effort, but it's work, and I'm always aware that I'm participating in the same game that felt so alienating and excluding when I was a kid in my hometown. The only differences are that the gap is a lot narrower and I've become more pragmatic about it. I skip past questions that uncover differences. I help guide the conversation towards commonalities. I try not to think about how it feels for people who have to paper over bigger differences than I do.
This experience fits me as well. I'm older, no kids, don't spend a lot of time outside. The neighbor on one side is nice and friendly and he gets to have all the apples and plums off of my trees as he wishes. The neighbor two houses down gets red in the face angry at me if I wave at him as I drive by. Apparently, just keeping my lawn mowed regularly but not perfect is enough for him to hate my guts with a surprising amount of passion. The neighbor who shares a line of property with me (but lives on the street behind me) I've talked to twice the summer I moved in in '99. Both times he berated me about my lawn while I tried to just say "hey, I'm your new neighbor, nice to meet you!" He put up a fence high enough so he couldn't see my lawn before I managed to tame it back to the "not perfect, but not crazy" state it's normally in now.
It's amazing to me that not keeping my lawn looking like it's part of a fancy golf course is my biggest hurdle in making friends with my neighbors.
You would be surprised how little in common you can have with your neighbors. You likely don’t shop at the same places, don’t frequent the same restaurants, bars, parks, etc.
It’s not even politics related, people just don’t like the same activities. Some people cook, some people eat out, some people buy in bulk, some people hit farmers markets.
Easy transportation, internet shopping, etc make it trivial to have zero overlap with your neighbor’s day to day, regardless of city or suburb.
> In my experiences of living in suburbs for 30 years, I’ve seen the default is to ignore neighbors.
This rings really true for me.
My last house was in a small gated set of 16 townhouses.
I knew everybody's cat or dog's name, but only on of the human's names.
Most people I knew by descriptive tags. There was saxophone lady, federal drug cop, potsmoking couple who lived on the other side of federal drug cop and who's pot smoke I could smell if I opened my back doors, there was ski boat guy, Harley riding girl, there was shouty dad and annoying child.
I still live nearby, and I passed an older couple from there in the street a while back and greeted their dog by name, and they said "No, this isn't Oscar, he died a few years back, this is (new dog name that I've already forgotten)."
Part of it is politics. Totally correct about everything in common, and yet in the multicultural fabric we call society, politics could be vastly different:
Neighbour 1 cares about Trump, neighbour 2 about Ukraine, neighbour 3 is focused on Palestine, neighbour 5 about public transit, while I might not care about any of those. All of them are going to seek like-minded people who are unlikely to be their next door neighbours. It wasn't like this in the past, where economic mobility was relatively limited.
Multiculturalism coupled with economic mobility means often neighbours and you don't really have much in common. As an example my next door neighbour: He's a major, I'm in the sciences. We travel in different circles. I have a dog, he doesn't like pets. We both have kids but they are of different ages, don't go to the same schools and basically don't know each other. We met a few times then realized that we have very little in common and stopped interacting. There's nothing binding us beyond a shared geography.
That's okay. You may still benefit from knowing each other when you run out of milk and shops are closed, or whatever favor neighbors can provide via the valuable indirect social graph connections (need a reference for a job or to enter a good uni, ask a neighbor who is a Harvard alum; or just let a kid interview a Republican neighbor for a school essay, or...), so it's good you sounded each other out.
Not everybody has to be best buddies with their direct neighbors, but in my experience in a one-mile radius from you, whereever most of us are, there are some interesting folks nearby that are worth knowing, and they would say the same about you.
Because of TV, social media, computer games and gadgets, we forgot how to socialize well, but if we (enough of us) care enough, we can re-learn it.
only the most onerous of neighbors are going to launch into tirades about politics before getting to know them anyway. these people will already have their giant TRUMP flag on the lawn.
I don't discount anything you have said. But my experience is different.
One of my neighbors I lived next to for over thirty years, was so nosy, passive aggressive, and judgmental, I avoided them like the plague. They finally moved and the new people called the city on us because my dog barked for more then ten minutes during the daytime, on the second day after they moved in! (She was only outside for an hour.) On the other side of us is a car on jacks and 'stuff' in the front and back yards.
I've learned to keep my head down and not worry about them.
My neighbors are fucking assholes. We don't shop at the same stores, or see each other at the park, we don't have kids, or work on cars. One neighbor doesn't like me because they don't like dogs and I have a dog. The other is just a mean, bitter, old lady. Not everyone is nice and friendly dude.
I suppose the trick is that these people won't come out and drink coffee with you! The people who do come out will be more fun and social, and these two you mention would just stay home like usual.
Yeah -- my partner and I moved to a small island in WA and this is so intensely true that I feel it to my core. Nextdoor attracts mostly vain self-promotion where we're at. Where we move to after this, I'm going to get on their Nextdoor and make a list of names of people who post there regularly, and when I meet them in real life I'm going to avoid them as much as possible.
When they started mentioning WhatsApp, I did have the briefest thought that this could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
There's certainly opportunity. NextDoor comments here are of mixed quality. And the NextDoor feed seems to have the ad saturation cranked up unpleasantly high.
> Thus, the WhatsApp group was born. At first this was just a place to announce when we’d be out having stoop coffee, but we soon realized people wanted to connect over more things than just coffee. So we ended up converting the group into a WhatsApp Community where we could have chats dedicated to certain topics or groups and plan other types of events together.
> This could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
This is kinda funny from my perspective. In most of the world WhatsApp reigns supreme to such a degree, that advertising for it would have the same pointlessness of a Coca Cola ad. In LATAM every neighborhood, department building, workplace and school has a multitude of Whatsapp groups.
The good and functioning ones are: work related, have people that organically have become dang or are too small to receive "manual" spam / random petty fights. The "manual" spam is people sending MLM scams, annoyingly advertising their side hustles, political or religious message chains. People also will fight publicly because someone may or not have flirted with someone else's husband. Forums are eternal.
The only thing like NextDoor here is SoSafe, a community safety app, which quarantines the crazy people that see an "undesirable" taking a walk and wants to call the cops.
I agree that this would be a pointless exercise in advertising WhatsApp, but this is a kinda funny comparison. Coca-Cola is advertised like crazy. Unlike WhatsApp, advertising is an essential part of how they maintain their dominance. They don't have the network effects of WhatsApp.
BTW, good comments, and sorry for the meta aside, but please be careful when quoting. I said:
> When they started mentioning WhatsApp, I did have the briefest thought that this could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
But the quote of a fragment of that, without ellipses, and somehow capitalized, looks like a verbatim quote of an entire sentence, which changes the meaning substantially:
> This could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
The difference in meaning is irrelevant to your comments, but, in general, others who come along will see and respond to quotes, so quotes take on a life of their own, while remaining attributed to a person (who didn't necessarily say that).
Even before we had some unelected mentally ill person making Nazi salutes at a US Presidential inauguration, and then still handed them unprecedented powers to disassemble our government... and a whole lot of people seeming fine with that...
The signs of a populace with wildly conflicting values, a lot of anger, a lot of mental illness, and a lot of cognitive problems and knowledge deficit... has been apparent in online comments for a couple decades.
One thing with NextDoor might be that it's developed a reputation. So that many people expect that the typical post will be some alarmed retiree posting a doorbell cam photo of a "suspicious person" going to doors on their street, who was obviously delivering packages while being nonwhite. In real life, most people would minimize interaction with the alarmed person, not install an app to get more of it.
Another thing with NextDoor is that some aspects of the experience are really user hostile. Besides the ad saturation-bombing, and the user interface that could use some cleanup and straigtening-out, there's things like 2FA (for Nextdoor!). I'd love to see numbers on how many users that 2FA alone cost them, and what they got in return. A UI cleanup is possible only if it's not overruled by the people doing the ad saturation, where user confusion just means more opportunity to show ads (until those users dont' come back, and don't bring their friends, but that's someone else's KPI this quarter).
In the rest of the world (London, at least), WhatsApp is used for communities/building developments. It's the exact same NextDoor hell, but just with more instant messaging.
I mean, I know you're kind of kidding, but there's also a lot of truth in it. When I was last on Nextdoor, a woman had posted asking for any information about a car that hit her as she was riding her bike and sent her to the hospital. She was trying to find people who might have witnessed the incident. People were answering that it was her fault for being on a bike. I uninstalled the app right then and there.
On the way home from the subway one snowy Boston evening, I joked with my wife that what the world needs is yelp, but for snow shoveling. People could get out all their passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive crap about their neighbors by complaining about the quality of the snow shoveling in the sidewalks in town.
It seems Nextdoor has fulfilled that need and more.
It exposes you to the mental illness of some people, like the kind of person who will make a thread asking if anybody knows this new runner they saw jog by their place because it's very suspicious and it's making them very angry that someone would jog down their street.
Or bicker about street parking. Or people who post on social media in general, like to talk about politics or fake outrage over nothing or the weird boasting people like to do like post a news article about some family freezing to death in the Yukon and how disappointing it is that the husband didn't keep his SUV prepped for such an occasion like I do here in Houston—you know, I don't even leave my house without <LARP armor>.
It can get in the way of a foundational part of the social fabric: being able to assume your neighbors are normal, nice people.
Social Media in general (not just Nextdoor) has outed so many angry, belligerent, mentally-unwell, terrible people who, for a really long time, have successfully pretended to be normal and nice. Not just neighbors, but friends and even family. It's like the movie They Live, but where we all suddenly got the ability to see who the antagonists are, and realized there are so many more than we thought there were...
>> the kind of person who will make a thread asking if anybody knows this new runner they saw jog by their place
That's what the urbanologist Jane Jacobs, in her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" called "eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street".
As she said, "The first thing to understand is that the public peace - the sidewalk and street peace - of cities is not kept primarily by the police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves".
To many people, of course, this is disgusting behavior.
>To many people, of course, this is disgusting behavior.
Well in my experience when I lived in a neighborhood like this in practice this meant a lot of really bored soccer moms in the local facebook group posting pictures of every new van on the street because they were now convinced their kids were in mortal danger. The million ring doorbells probably didn't help either.
I think P.K. Dick was much more accurate and prescient than Jacobs when it came to the paranoid character of local neighborhoods in particular in an age where that is amplified by technology
But you aren't learning that they're pedophiles or violent or that they'll harm you or that you can't trust them to watch your kids or make moves on your wife or poison your dog or burgle your house or can't be a good friend or reliable neighbor.
You're learning things that really have no impact except to make you dislike them.
It might not seem like it since we love to forage for this kind of info on social media, but you only lose from that transaction.
NextDoor used to be bad about that, but they are now much more careful to remove it quickly if anyone does post racist crap.
Now it seems to be 50% paid ads, 30% lost/found pets, 10% unpaid ads, and 10% everything else. Worth checking to find the owner of a stray dog or cat, but not much else.
I deleted the app a few years ago because it was a drag. Glad (and honestly surprised) to hear you say they remove the racist stuff quickly, and not surprised it's mostly ads these days.
The problem is people say the same thing without saying race. “Did anyone see this suspicious character?” with a picture from a doorbell cam of a black guy.
It’s still obviously racist to everyone but it’s not reportable or treated as such.
Many Americans still think of cities as modernist concrete, interstate exits and parking lots. In this imagination, social trust is eroded by homelessness, drug addicts and variety of crimes endemic to inner cities. Unfortunately, cities that were razed for cars fit some of these stereotypes.
In fact, parts of SF match the description too. This story would have unfolded differently in SOMA. Even in safe neighborhoods, (eg: Mission Bay, Rincon Hill) large towers, 5 lane roads and 35+ mph thru-traffic discourage neighborhood vibes.
> has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity
I disagree. This isn't a case of 'both sides'.
Cars destroyed American cities. Then Americans moved to gated suburbs that did everything in their power to limit through traffic and therefore the destructive onslaught of cars. Suburban residents demand easy access to the city by car, but reject the car in their own neighborhood. Suburbs want to have their cake and eat it too, at the expense of city residents. In contrast, cities do not impose their wants or needs onto suburbs. The resentment by city dwellers towards suburbanites is justified.
Fortunately some cities escaped razing. Boston, NYC, DC & SF have many neighborhoods that enable wonderful stories such as this.
Having lived most of my life in cities, I moved from London to the suburb of a smallish town about 4 years ago. Since that move, I've got to know maybe 20x more of my neighbours here than I managed in two decades in London. However, I also got a dog and I think 90% of this is down to that.
Very similar story to mine. Moving from Amsterdam to the “suburbs” of a smaller city in the Netherlands AND getting a dog was the only way I’ve found to meet new people and befriend neighbors.
The dog part is definitely key. We moved a few blocks — so within the same neighbourhood — shortly after getting our dog, and it was amazing how much more quickly we got to know our new neighbours with our (extremely extroverted) then-puppy compared to the previous place. (And, on the flip side, I'm on a first name basis with every dog on my block, which usually implies also being on a first name basis with at least one of their humans.)
For a very different example, I live in a small village of about 250 people in rural New Mexico. Of the 250, there are between 50 and 75 people who are sociable and interested in forming, maintaining and enjoying community. Of the remaining 200 or so, about 1/3 of them are friendly and social, but generally do not want to participate in community activities. The remaining 2/3 live here because it offers them (amongst other things) a chance for privacy.
The thing is that whether you click with your neighbours or not is pure luck and it's no one's fault. That's why you read many opposing anecdotes in this thread. When there are more local third places, there is a higher chance you will find a nice community to hang out with.
Pro tip. Being a good neighbor helps you click with your neighbors, and that can be the difference between life and death in an emergency, or your house burning down or not if a neighbor catches something and calls you because you’re chill, friendly and helpful.
It is worth extreme efforts to cultivate good relationships with your neighbors.
Every house has a front yard, and many have large front porches. And no one uses them. I'd say "anymore" but I've rarely seen them used for socializing in my lifetime. They're almost vestigial.
I remember one beautiful June Saturday afternoon cutting through a gorgeous neighborhood on my bike and amazed it was like a ghost town. All the houses with their beautiful yards on a quiet street, and literally no one outside. It was so weird.
You only have room for a few hundred friends in your life. Sure there might be 500 people who live in 5 minutes walk - but that is too many and so you will learn to take steps to limit the number of people who will accept an open invite.
If you are a Hindu living in a small US city you will find and becomes friends with every other Hindu in the city - there are not very many and you stick together. If you move to a slightly larger small city you will discover that there are too many Hindus and it is hard to make friends with them because their friend groups are already full. (This is a real example from someone I work with, names and exact cities not given for obvious reasons)
I guess my comment wasn’t clear, but I’m saying if on average half the people are not social, then in a city that leaves 250, which as you point out is plenty. In a suburb, because the total population of a block is smaller, the variance in the percentage of anti-social people is going to be much higher, even if averaged across all blocks you still get 50% (or whatever the population average is). If the number drops to 20, for example, my experience is this is less likely to form into a “community.” Twenty is a lot of people but you need more because any given person isn’t available much of the time.
This matches my own experience of living in the suburbs where some streets are way more interconnected than others.
To be clear I’m not claiming this is rigorous social science. Just sharing my intuitions based on experience.
It's all down to the design of suburbs. Many cities have bylaws and zoning regulations that prohibit human-centric suburbs from being built [1]. Older neighbourhoods (prior to these ill-advised laws) are incredibly livable and naturally produce a sense of community. They also feature mixed-use zoning with quaint little corner cafes, restaurants, and small shops. These are incredibly important as third places [2] which have largely disappeared from our society.
I don't think it's "just" a stereotype. There's a lot of literature around how American suburbs are designed to be isolationist. The most obvious example is how much more difficult it is to meet your neighbors when you have to get into your car for every slight errand (FWIW, I've lived in all densities--I'm not some urban chauvinist).
As usual, the people you fill the space with make all the difference. The stereotype gets reinforced by the kind of suburbs HN people tend to live in and to have been raised in.
Wealthy white collar suburbs almost universally suck because people don't really miss out on much by not interacting with each other and people have no real problems so they tend to make each other their problems and not like what their neighbors do.
You go down the economic ladder and things get a lot better because people have enough real problems they don't give a shit about whether their other neighbor pulled permits or what the setbacks are or how long their project car/boat has sat on blocks, and they interact with each other because being friends with your neighbors well enough to share tools and trade favors is worth it.
Another bitter stereotype contributing to the US cultural divide. I live in an economically diverse but mostly well-off white collar suburb (not in CA), and we have a strong sense of community. We walk to each other's houses on a whim, we help each other get things done, we shovel the snow for the older folks, we watch out for each other and text each other, we organize community get-togethers. I realize this is an anecdote - I am not saying the correlation you're describing isn't statistically real, just that it's pointlessly negative.
Exact opposite experience for me. When people have nothing, they have no buy-in, and give no craps about what their neighborhood is like. They’re too busy dealing with their “real problems” to care if someone is robbing a house right in front of them.
Wealthier neighborhoods tend to have massive buy-in from the residents, because who wants to lose something that nice?
Point being: the experience is best when avoiding extremes. Poverty and incredible wealth both lead to issues in a neighborhood.
FWIW, this has been my experience as well. When I lived in poor neighborhoods, yeah, we had more property crime. We also had a tremendous sense of community; I knew everyone, they knew me, food & favors were traded happily. The block parties we had during the summer were tremendous amounts of fun.
Meanwhile, the more wealthy neighborhoods are full of busybodies sniffing around for the slightest HOA infraction, and high-anxiety individuals reflecting and amplifying each other's tensions. Each home is a fortress unto itself. I feel pretty lucky to be in the middle, where we don't have as much crime as the poorer areas, but we still know one another, and still trade food on the holidays.
Same, but I think it really depends on the design on the neighborhood, regardless of if it's a city or a suburb.
When I lived in "Brownstone Brooklyn" I had a stoop and would often hang out on it, as is common in neighborhoods with this feature. I knew tons of my neighbors, people would stop and talk to each other, etc. When I moved to Williamsburg years ago, that stopped. There are stairs that lead to my apartment, but it's not like a stoop that you'd find in other parts of Brooklyn -- they're steeper than you'd get on a brownstone and don't really encourage sitting at street level. I'd hang out on them sometimes, but then a few years back all the street lights and building lights switched to bright LEDs, making it gross to sit under them at night. But if you go to other parts of this neighborhood just a 5 minute walk away the building design is more conducive for gathering and chatting on stoops at street level, and I notice that that happens in that part of the neighborhood.
Anyway, I wish we'd consider these things when building our environment.
I think another part of neighborhood design that influences this feeling is how walkable a neighborhood is — anecdotally, I feel like I've had way more run-ins and conversations with neighbors when I've lived in places that had grocery stores and coffee shops within walking distance, as opposed to when I've been in neighborhoods that required driving 10-15 mins to get to anything.
For sure, walkability is an important factor. Although I think even with that it depends on what sort of shops are within walking distance.
Years ago my current neighborhood of Williamsburg had mostly local shops -- a locally owned grocery store or two, cafes, bagel shops, bookstores, pharmacies, bodegas, etc. Now it's mainly a corporate wasteland -- Whole Foods, Apple, Sephora, Hermes, Chanel, North Face, Trader Joes, etc etc. By all measures I live in one of the most walkable parts of the most walkable city in the country, but as this corporate takeover has happened the small third spaces are dying or have fully died out (depending on the block). And I find that the feeling of community really has evaporated as that process has unfolded over the past 15-20 years.
Yes, my experience in the suburbs is that most residents hop in their cars and take off somewhere with their tinted windows rolled up, and there are no "third places" around to casually encounter your neighbours. Sometimes there will be yard sales, BBQs, or birthday parties though.
But my experience in an urban apartment building is not very different. You might encounter someone in the elevator but it's polite to keep quiet. A lot of dense townhouse neighbourhoods are built without any corner stores, cafes, or bakeries mixed in at the ground floor.
I like that this family found a way to make do without any third place at all, just occupying the sidewalk and roadside. But I'm sure it would be a lot more comfortable if they had at least a shady patch of grass!
> I like that this family found a way to make do without any third place at all, just occupying the sidewalk and roadside. But I'm sure it would be a lot more comfortable if they had at least a shady patch of grass!
Exactly. This is a story about intentionality, which is required regardless of whether you're living in the suburb or the city. In the US, neither culture prioritizes spontaneous interaction by default, they're only different in the manner in which the isolation manifests.
I used to live in a suburb. I met people the same way you meet people anywhere: common interests.
A dozen or so people with dogs met at the park every day. We knew each other, watched each other's houses/pets on vacation, and sometimes did dinner or BBQs.
A few people organized a DnD group after advertising on nextdoor (which is a cesspool but only 70%).
Of course those with kids the same age often knew each other because of school or activities.
The neighborhood park had a system of "pea patches" where you could grow some stuff next to your neighbors.
There's nothing that unique all in all about this space other than there was a "third place" we all had built and took care of (the park was originally supposed to be a school that never got built so the community got it to become a park but at least half the work came from the community. The county provided some matching work).
The weird thing is people are people no matter where they are, mostly. And if you are lonely, you can go fix it.
Lots of people move from somewhere they hate so somewhere they think will solve all their problems. And they are right. Or they move from somewhere they love to somewhere that they know will be terrible. And they are right. It seems like whether you think your neighborhood is great or terrible, you're not right.
My suburban neighborhood is great. They have a voluntary group that you can join with a donation, and all that group really does is organize parties and events. It's not a HOA and doesn't have rules. We have a full community get-together event every two months or so, with volunteers who host at their houses. We also have once-a-year events like a community-wide garage sale event, and a car show.
I've also lived in neighborhoods where nobody knew each other. I think all we can get out of this HN thread is: "Not all suburban neighborhoods are the same."
Out of curiosity, did you know the neighborhood was like that before moving in? Or was it luck?
I agree there's a huge variety in neighborhoods in the suburban umbrella, which is unfortunately ignored in urban/suburb discussions. We're house shopping and want to find a "good" neighborhood, but short of knowing someone in the neighborhood already or spending significant time in the neighborhood it's hard to get a good indication of vibes.
> This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
This post and the comments here are genuinely interesting to me, because it shows how much people have different experiences in "suburban" and "urban" living. That, in turn, puts a whole new spin on everything I read about NIMBYism and urban development and whatnot. People don't even have a shared basis for what a city or suburb is and totally different experiences in each, so it calls into question how well we can even agree on or communicate what we want!
Personally, having lived over (urban: Manhattan, Boston, suburban: Houston-ish, Chicago-ish, rural: California, Missouri), I tend to agree that suburbs are the sweet spot for knowing your neighbors to some degree. In my Manhattan apartment, I lived in a tiny studio crammed into a building with tons of other people who I never met. In my rural living, people were mostly too far apart to mingle. In my suburbs, we were "friendly" with people about 6-7 houses in either direction, and front or back.
I live now in what I'd call a suburb (along this street: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7VfBtjzq3fMJRGXL9), and there's lots of people frequently "going for walks". There's not that much to walk _to_ but people are generally pretty active when the weather is nice, and so you run into your neighbors a fair bit. I'd say I know by name the families (so, multiple people) of about 10 houses in my near vicinity, and have the cell phone numbers of a handful.
I love this stoop coffee idea, and am going to have to try it here with my wife and kids.
I think that part of the issue is “suburbs” means different things. Suburbs can be pre-war streetcar suburbs or villages, often pretty walkable and dense. It could mean a housing development which can be large with hundreds of houses or town homes or small. My development has 13 houses on two culdesaca and everyone knows everyone, gives a great neighborly vibe. But ive lived in a town home development with 200 houses and most people didnt know anyone. Urban environments and apartments I didnt really know my neighbors.
Small villages, street car suburbs that have individual houses but walkable, and small developments seem best.
The biggest differentiator I have found is: do the majority of people consider this place their long term home or a temporary home? an apartment or town home people know they will only live 2-4 years or so, makes different behavior with a house that everyone plans to spend the next 20 years in.
I think suburbs with porches and stoops help as well, too much garage/car focus means people dont spend time in the front of their house.
Dunno, I've found suburbs more friendly than the city. Someone's more likely to say hi when you're grilling, mowing your lawn or just walking around.
Urban settings have more 3rd spaces which can be good places to socialise, but your immediate neighbours are less likely to speak with you in my experience.
And having a toddler amplifies the experience since most families move to the suburbs when they have kids, urban spaces are far more likely to have young people without families.
>This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
I've lived in both settings, and my own experience has been a mix. In the (walkable) suburbs I've lived in, I've connected with my immediate neighbors, strength of connection rapidly dissipates with distance. We are friendly, occasionally have a BBQ or meal together, and lots of random chats while going for a walk or doing yard work.
When I've lived in cities, it's been a much larger and more active community where the connection is less about proximity of our homes, and more about being in the same place at the same time since our daily errands and living were generally on foot. For those and the simple reason of small homes, we were more likely to meet somewhere or do an activity. I was also FAR more likely to run into someone I knew in my city than I was in my suburbs.
It depends on the suburb. Some suburbs are effectively just city neighborhoods in a different school district, and they have blocks and block parties. Other suburbs are nests of culs-de-sac, where you'll say "hi" to your next door neighbors but not know anybody else.
This is very true; I've experienced both extremes.
In one neighborhood there was a yearly block party where we closed the street and cooked out, kids played together in the street consistently and visited each others' houses, neighbors babysat, etc. Everyone on the street knew everyone else's name. Whether this was a suburb is maybe up for debate, I don't know, but it was at least all single family homes.
I moved directly from that to a more rural suburb. Homes were still pretty close to each other - nobody had much land - but there were no sidewalks and the neighborhood was a network of cul de sacs. I knew the last names of my two next door neighbors but only talked to them maybe three times in about ten years. I knew of some people ("a fire chief for a nearby town lives in that house, that one has a family") but that's really it.
My assumption is that this is getting worse over time as entertainment gets more and more individually catered. Basically _Bowling Alone_ but moreso and as the most civically-minded people die off. Not sure if there's anything individuals can really do about it other than be friendlier with your neighbors
Lol exactly. I 100% cannot imagine this happening where my parents live, in a typical US suburban subdivision. On the flip side, I can absolutely see something like this taking off on my block in Brooklyn and would just be another addition to the already established community
Where I currently live, in a medium-density area of town-houses (actually, pretty high-density for town-houses), seems to be the perfect density for community. I see my neighbours all of the time, just doing our things, and you say hi and chat because that's what humans do. Any more dense and you have apartments, where strangely people are more distant (even though closer) (unless effort has gone into the apartment design to get people interacting), less dense and you have a suburbia with its fortresses.
We had block parties like this in Brooklyn while I was growing up. People would make or buy food and we'd just occupy half of the block with loud music, running around for the kids and drinking for the adults. Cars could still pass by, but they were careful and people would move out of the way. It was fun!
Pretty sure in Brooklyn, and other NYC boroughs, that is more of a cultural thing rather than a "try to create a sense of neighborliness" thing.
As a cultural thing, that type of community behavior has likely been going on for most of the past century in NYC.
But the person in the article tries to create that in a place where there is no cultural proclivity to that kind of behavior. That's actually a far more difficult thing to do.
Still, it is awesome to have it just as a cultural practice. No question.
There are definitely places now within Brooklyn that do it with an intent of creating a sense of neighborliness and community, as well as many that still do it just because that's what people have always done on their block.
My block and many of the surrounding ones in the neighborhood have block associations that organize events like block parties, clean ups, stoop sales, holiday events, backyard garden tours, workshops etc, as well as being able to advocate for the block's collective interest as a legal entity.
I live in suburbia and one of the neighbors periodically hosts coffee and pastries in their front yard. I also do happy hour at different houses. I never got this community feel living in SF for 10 years.
Suburbs are typically more socially homogenous, with more institutional connections between residents (kids go to the same school, people work for the same local employer, same church, etc) with a physical environment less conducive to connectivity. City neighborhoods (again, typically) have better physical presence with neighbors that are less likely to have things in common. I think that's what the author is trying to say.
An old rationalization of prejudice. Everyone seems homogenous to me and what was heterogeneous yesterday (e.g., Italians and Irish) is homogenous today. Just stop worrying about it. People with different backgrounds are much more interesting, all else being equal. All are Homo sapiens.
Also, kids in city neighborhoods also go to the same schools. In suburbs I've seen people don't generally share an employer and church - that's a small town.
It depends on the definition of suburb (some are pretty urban), but my experience in cul-de-sacs is neighbors rarely interact. Lots of places don't even have sidewalks.
Those were generalizations covering 100M+ people in each category, just in America, and my guess at what the original author meant by the statement that GP was surprised by.
I've lived in suburbs where I had a good idea of who lived in each house, talked to some of them semi-regularly, and kids ran around the neighborhood together every day, and I've lived in neighborhoods where everyone stays inside and nobody interacts with each other and even the few group things explicity set up (neighborhood street potluck, chili cookoff at the attached park) couldn't be sustained. I moved directly from the former to the latter, so the difference was stark.
I think it has much more to do with demographics and type of people that happen to be living there, and whether there's an existing community. The more lively neighborhood in my case was in a "worse" neighborhood with cheaper houses, while the new neighborhood was all newly build housing. We were all starting from scratch with each other, with some people maybe having a year or so more history than others (as they staged builds 5-10 houses at a time). Community is a frail thing, and needs to be tended or it will wither, and sometimes it dies before it even has a chance to flourish.
> This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
I've found the opposite. My neighbors and I (apartment, in the city) rarely speak to each other in the city, but when I lived in the suburbs I knew LOTS of my neighbors
Not all suburbs are built the same. My dad grew up in suburban Cleveland in the 50s, which has a bunch of some of the very earliest style of suburbs. When I have been there, and from what I remember my dad telling me, there was actually a pretty decent community there despite it being a suburb.
Personally having been there, and also many suburbs in the rest of the US, I think it's more complex than just "typical suburban problems are inherent to the suburban environment". That is to say, very early-style suburbs like Eastern Cleveland, suburbs of major cities like NYC, suburbs of smaller cities like Cincinnati, cities that are almost entirely suburban like LA or San Jose, and very old/organic suburbs like the gold coast of Connecticut are all completely different from each other.
Even within places like Cleveland or New York, the time period in which the suburb formed (50s-60s suburbs are completely different from 2000-2010's suburbs) and the circumstances of how it formed (it could be completely organic and decentralized, totally centralized in a big development project, organized as a purely residential community with hoa fees and gates and community pools/golf clubs, or organized as a natural extension to the city and include spaces for business and schools) make it so that two places can both be suburban but have very different problems.
And then of course you have demographics as a major confounding variable. In suburban Cleveland in the 50s and 60s almost every house was occupied by a nuclear family with school-aged kids, most men were actively employed (mostly unionized blue collar workers in eg steel). But the rust belt happened, people started living longer and stopped having so many kids, upper middle class people started preferring bigger houses, etc. so now that community is significantly more elderly, fragmented, and not really upper-middle-class any more despite the suburb itself not changing much. Similarly, Palo Alto is not really built that differently from many nice parts of Florida, but the culture is completely different from the physically-similar communities in Florida, because one place has lots of upwardly mobile people in tech/finance/affiliated with Stanford, and the other is a retirement destination.
I guess my point is that "suburban problems" are oftentimes just "problems in suburbs" or "a problem in that suburb" or "a problem with that kind of suburb", not "problems with suburbs in general". Suburbs can have a sense of community but their residents need to want that and make it happen.
And just as true: being a city does not by itself make for good communities. Residents need to want to make that happen—as in this story in TFA. If they don't want it, most cities are just as poorly designed for more-than-cursory spontaneous interaction as most suburbs.
So I live in a big city in the beltline area around the core and the problem is it's a car culture and we all have detached garages. This means a big majority never use their front door, they enter their garage via the alley and go in the back. The suburbs typically have garages at the front and people who are driving to work are likely to leave and return at the same time so this increases the odds of bumping into your neighbor.
The equalizers: dogs and younger kids. Dog walkers seem to fall into 2 camps: friendly and most definitely not friendly; the former give you lots of chances to have a casual conversation. Young kids are likely to be playing out front too.
I live in a big suburb outside downtown Denver with the alley situation you describe but we have a thriving community with monthly or bi-monthly events. Previously lived in the Bay Area for 15 years.
Factors that help:
-Every house is within two small blocks of a park.
-We don’t have individual mailboxes so most people walk to the park daily as part of the USPS CBU initiative
-Every park has a different theme and two different age appropriate activities
-Walking trails around the suburb
-Amazing community pools
-Very well run HOA with transparent communication, minimal intervention, low ($50) monthly dues.
I know all my immediate neighbors, and am great friends with one, and amiable with all the others. You just have to not be shy, I have a type A personality so not afraid to walk over and say howdy. Most people are good with small talk if you open. Not everyone wants to be your best friend and I keep that in mind, but would rather say hello than a total stranger.
It really depends on the suburb. American ones are mostly garbage for social interaction, but I just moved to one (Houten, NL) that is really good for this.
The key, of course, is to get cars away from people so that the streets (or bike paths and gardens in my case) are a place for humans, where it's comfortable to chat, let your kids run around, etc.
I now live in a suburb and it’s plenty social. We baked cookies and took them to every house up and down the block when we moved in and we greet new neighbors with treats when there’s turnover. We also exchange holiday cards and cookies every year. We either know or recognize most people within a few blocks and we have become friends with a few families that also have kids the age of ours whom we met at the neighborhood park. Suburbs can be great!
Is that your lived experience of the suburbs, or just what you've been led to believe on online forums filled with both a) city dwellers, b) angsty teens?
As someone who lives in the suburbs it threw me because it's so rare for anyone to acknowledge any positive of the suburbs. The suburbs are always some lifeless dystopia where we all drink away our days and wish we could visit the bodega and get a fresh baguette or something.
Here in suburbia in an exurb, everyone knows each other. We have regular street parties. All of the kids play games together frequently.
My suburban neighborhood here in the bay area is mostly cul-de-sacs, and on the 4th of July about half of them close off the entrance to non-residents/family, and have a collective BBQ in the middle of the circle. Several of our neighbors are musicians, so we get live music from people we know, and we all know how to cook up good stuff for the party. It's genuinely a lot of fun, and I look forward to it every year.
I see a fair amount of that here in Sacramento. People having block parties, chairs out in the driveways, etc. One of the newer neighborhoods in the area seems like it was designed with this in mine as well. '
It's been a lot of fun. We know our neighbors, people are frequently out walking, talking to each other, and so on.
yup, they probably mean small town/village life as opposed to suburbs, which is what this community has come to resemble, which is what they wanted so a great success, even if the terminology was off.
Cities are that too dense (Manhattan) don't have the space to do "stoop coffee" or equivalent. Everybody is in a tall apartment.
The cookie-cutter suburb is too spread out and too car-dependent. You could have "stoop coffee" but your neighbors are in their cars, so don't stop to talk.
An older bedroom community, or smaller city with single family dwellings (row homes or tightly-packed detached) hits the balance - enough people on foot, enough space to spread out and not block the sidewalk.
I live in Chicago, in a denser part, and we have all the things you mention.
I think this idea that a “city” is like Manhattan just doesn’t hold up in the US. Manhattan is approaching unique here and there are places in Manhattan that could be described by your ideal.
Would still benefit from eventually moving the initial meetup group to a green space, especially if there can be a community garden to work on (yes I realize we are re-inventing the wheel of a village)
Ya, came here to say the same thing and I'm glad others are similarly surprised.
I do think that people who live in the most downtown of downtown areas are more similar to cul-de-sac style suburb dwellers, because there's often a similar kind of implied distance to third-spaces that people want to be in, as if taking the elevator down is equivalent to getting in the car and driving somewhere, and being elevated is like having your fenced off yard in a way, but there's so much more to urban spaces that include skyscrapers than there is in suburbs that include cul-de-sac car centric hellscapes, imo.
If you move to the city from a particularly isolated suburb, please leave the social isolation where you came from, and do what you can to just be present and open to conversation, it's amazing how it feels to be connected to people that you can by on the street because you're both going to the train stop or cafe, and it's this sense of connectedness that makes the thought of moving back to my hometown quite repulsive, despite the individuals who live there otherwise being alright
I came here to say the same. Sense of community in the suburbs? That has not been my experience and tends to be one of the main complaints about the suburbs.
I'm the co-author of Supernuclear and editor of this post. We've been writing the blog for almost five years now, you never know what will go viral!
I've spent my adult life living in Istanbul, New York, San Francisco, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In Istanbul it sometimes felt like my neighbors knew too much about me - they would comment on who slept over (I had a lot of friends visit!) and once when I went out of town for a week my landlady said she nearly let herself into my home to make sure I hadn't died because no one had seen me in a few days. That being said, it was also comforting to know, 5000 miles from my home and my family, that people around me cared about my wellbeing and my whereabouts.
And this is the thing those of us who live in the US sometimes forget: knowing your neighbors isn't just about being able to borrow cup of sugar when you're out. It's about knowing someone will share their generator when a hurricane has knocked your power out. It's about someone noticing when something looks off and coming over to knock and make sure you're ok. We aren't just happier when we get to know our neighbors better, we're safer.
Greetings from Istanbul. Unfortunately what you describe in your blog post sounds impossible to me in (at least many districts of) Istanbul. The only place to "socialize" in a neighborhood is to sit at coffee shops.
I lived on a street in Cihangir for three years. In the walk to and from work I'd pass several shops and cafes, and got to know all of the owners and regulars.
I’ve lived in scenarios where people saying either of these things would be a huge violation, and I’ve lived in scenarios where people saying either of these things would be natural.
Living in the latter scenario is a far better place, and nothing like, the former scenario.
100% agree! We had moved to a smaller community in New England and was eating an early dinner when we got a single knock on the door. Before we could get up, the UPS driver opened our door to place the packages inside (and out of the snow). He waved and welcomed us and then off we went. It was a bit odd, but then we realized this was a special place that we would come to love and we did.
Well, you should be able to leave for a week without having to tell your neighbors all about it. It may be different for old weak people who are unlikely to just go to vacation all of a sudden.
>isn't just about being able to borrow cup of sugar
this in particular is interesting to me because you used it to illustrate the minimum level of neighborly engagement, but I think many of us don't even reach that level. I for one would never think of asking my neighbor for cooking ingredients; in fact the idea of going over and knocking on their door for any purpose is almost inconceivable to me unless there was a medical emergency.
Not saying my mindset is right or even healthy, but that's how it is. There's a lot of work to be done.
The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.
No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat.
Eventually, newer members will feel too far behind the current discussions, and too socially exhausting to show up to meetups. I've seen these eventually get to 400+ members, many of whom don't live in the city anymore.
The best group I've ever been part of had a simple rule that worked amazingly: If you don't show up to an event at least once a month, you were removed from the whatsapp group. It keeps the group small, and comfortable, and it never felt intrusive to send a quick "Whats everyone up to today?" into the group chat.
>while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board
It sounded to me like that’s been the intention since it was started. The in person meetings are the point and the whatsapp group exists to facilitate that.
> The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.
The way to minimize this fear is by encouraging members to send welcoming messages to those new to the community. Celebrate the growth instead of fearing the unknown.
> No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat.
If new members are made aware that sending a message to the group is perfectly acceptable, then there will be trepidation.
Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.
> Does this lessen the fear of being rebuked when sharing thoughts in a public forum one values?
Absolutely. There is no threat of permanent harm. You just lose your karma count and make a new account
> Perhaps it would for people whom enjoy trolling. I do not and have no reason to think you do either.
Not related to trolling at all. It’s about being able to express opinions you genuinely believe without fear of effectively permanent retribution.
The protection that offers this is abused by trolls, but it doesn’t mean you don’t benefit from it when you are not a troll.
Think about something as basic as a gay man publishing about being gay while living in a country where that is illegal.
> So we are left to stand on what we post here, with no other connection, no other commonality, only to accept each other for the thoughts we exchange
We’re comparing to WhatsApp with your neighbors where everything you have said can be used against you in real life, reported to your employer, church, etc. It’s nothing like posting on an anonymous forum only attached to real life voluntarily and without verification
>> Does this lessen the fear of being rebuked when sharing thoughts in a public forum one values?
> Absolutely. There is no threat of permanent harm. You just lose your karma count and make a new account
This is a myopic definition of harm and one whose identified remedy is trivialization.
>> So we are left to stand on what we post here, with no other connection, no other commonality, only to accept each other for the thoughts we exchange
I was referring to interaction in this forum.
> We’re comparing to WhatsApp with your neighbors where everything you have said can be used against you in real life, reported to your employer, church, etc. It’s nothing like posting on an anonymous forum only attached to real life voluntarily and without verification
Everything a person SMS's, email, and/or speaks with neighbors "can be used against you in real life, reported to your employer, church, etc."
The medium used does not negate the possibility of treachery.
Finally:
Think about something as basic as a gay man publishing
about being gay while living in a country where that is
illegal.
To which I retort; think about something as basic as an introvert making public their thoughts for unknown people to analyze, dissect, and formulate whatever response they like.
Maybe the severity of risks are specific to those who undertake them?
An introvert engaging in a conversation is not the same level of harm as someone’s life being destroyed because they are outed to a government.
> Maybe the severity of risks are specific to those who undertake them?
No. Your feelings getting hurt because someone said something mean about something you said that isn’t even attributable to your real identity is extremely low risk.
> The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.
I'd like to see an analysis of how and when group chats get so big they start to die.
I'm saying that I would generally avoid such a paradigm if I'm trying to make real, lasting friends and build a strong local community, given that I might disappear or travel for a month at a time.
It's great if other people are finding enjoyment in such a process, but it doesn't fulfill my personal goals, and it does indeed come across as harsh and unwelcoming toward non-hyperlocal or family-oriented people.
That's a good question, I think it would have to be tuned around the size of the community and scale/frequency of activities, so it's hard to give a single number as a "persona" threshold.
I've been involved in creating local meetup groups before, I've found good people but I've also had these groups explode and turn into cliquey nightmares with people vying for soft power. I've personally had a relationship destroyed and have seen other relationships be destroyed because of these kinds of people. I've also started several online communities over the years since I was a child.
These experiences have made me think deeply about the role of moderation in communities, as well as the balance between preserving old institutions and allowing new ones to take root without alienating parts of the community.
So, to your point, I think it depends. Would the community suffer more from old-timers being cycled out too easily, or is it the kind of community where current participation matters most?
A primarily activity-based club might be ready to cut people more quickly, as they have a solid foundation for the group, perhaps even a charter, typically have specific leadership structure, and members can be interchangeable.
Whereas a certain kind of social group might value seniority and preservation of long-time members, and wouldn't want to cut them out of the conversation during periods of inactivity.
Maybe OP's group's limit of 1 month works well. Personally, for a social group, I'd consider 6-12 months to be on the short end of the scale.
I think things could also 'creep' in the other direction where the group communication becomes overwhelming. The article mentions that someone actually sold an item through the WhatsApp group. My worry would be that the WhatsApp group becomes and meetings turn into Craigslist, where it's people looking for dogsitters and Buy Nothing posts.
The point, if I have one, is that editing and saying no, especially with the technology, will help the group stay together. In person, obviously, neighbors can talk about whatever they like.
In my opinion a broadcast/newsletter would be the better fit for group communication.
This rules. I want to do it, but I know I can't personally, because I'm not awake at the hour people normally want coffee. Maybe I can figure out stoop whiskey.
Another thing that works for meeting and talking to your neighbors, and has the benefit of attaching you to people who live blocks away from you and not just the people you see getting into the car every morning, is local politics. I've met more people being engaged in local politics than I have through any other activity, including work.
My guess is that civic engagement across the United States works pretty much the way it does where I live in Chicagoland, which is that somewhere there is a message board, Facebook group, or mailing list, and you get engaged by joining it, getting the vibe, and then participating in the discussion --- it's very much (alarmingly much) like getting comfortable on Hacker News. Except you do it well and you can change laws.
Your neighbours are likely absolutely game for stoop whisky.
My neighbours do this from time time, a tradition started during the pandemic.
Use some cones to block off a parking spot. Set up some chairs and a table. Hang out and have some drinks in the evening and catch up on the neighbourhood gossip.
You 100% can do stoop whiskey! Or simply hanging outside with whatever beverage. My block in Brooklyn has a lot more stoop whiskey than coffee but also has a really strong neighborhood feel (and whatsapp chat). I feel lucky to have moved into an already vibrant community but also believe anyone can create this anywhere.
I saw this and did a double-take - I live in the neighborhood and am fortunate enough to be a part of this community. Patty, Tyler, and Luke have done a tremendous job of creating a communal bond that makes everyone feel valued & welcome.
I now know 50+ people who live within ~2 blocks from me, who've gone from "random strangers" to "friendly neighbors" that I run into semi-randomly.
Its roughly a 2x2 block area of The Mission (not a hard boundary to participating, but almost everyone lives in it). I won't get more specific than that in case the author doesn't feel comfortable since it wasn't mentioned in her post.
Cool! I live close to Valencia/17th. Was just wondering if it was somewhere in my area: the houses looked Missiony but I couldn’t immediately place them.
That shop is great! I've found a variety of treasures there over the last few years, including a mint-condition red leather recliner for $150 and a 60's era Soviet toy house. My favorite was a beautifully executed, life-sized oil painting of a nude; it started at $1200 and went down to $200 over the course of a few weeks, at which point I just had to buy it despite not really having the wall space to hang it up. I wanted to find out more about the subject, so I Googled the artist's signature, found the painting on his website, and reached out to chat. Turns out the painting had been stolen from his friend's house decades ago and he'd been looking for it ever since! We met up after he told me his story and I "sold" the painting back to him for the listing price; he left me a very generous tip and an art book. (See "The Platonic Friend" at https://www.kevinkearney.org/portfolio/figures.)
When people say "you can just do things" this is what they mean. Fun article, I hope everyone reading this who wishes they had something like it in their neighborhood starts this weekend by inviting their nearest friend for coffee on the stoop.
Haha, I came here to post this and I was beaten! This is one of the clearest expressions of anarchist praxis I've seen in a while. (Of course, people will not understand this, because anarchism is seen as a weird, deviant, punk subculture.)
Phil, editor of the Supernuclear Substack here. I wasn't expecting "hanging out on stoops" to boot AI out of the #1 slot on Hacker News :) Glad this resonated for folks
A great way of kick-starting stoop culture is having a friend or family member live right next door.
During COVID, the block I live on in San Francisco started doing outdoor happy hours every Saturday afternoon. People weren't traveling much then, so we had near 100% attendance of every person on the block for almost a year. I went from knowing none of my neighbors to knowing all of them quite well, and it has surprised me how much it has improved my day-to-day happiness.
Since then, we've hosted a "progressive" Thanksgiving dinner, which moves from house-to-house on the block for different courses. We shut down the street one day each year and set up bounce houses for the kids. I've made pint glasses with the name our street engraved in them, and given them to my neighbors. It's shown me that there really can be something valuable outside of your immediate family and circle of friends.
I’m from a small town in Spain, about 800 people small, and this is what everyone would do every night during the summer, each group hanging out in different spots with different gangs, lol. It was just a way to chat with your neighbors.
Sadly, this has mostly disappeared, but I think it’s a good example of how the sense of community in Spain differs from that in the U.S. And this feeling isn’t limited to small towns, you can find it in big cities too somehow.
Without knowing for sure, I’m almost certain that people in southern Italy and Greece do the exact same thing.
Also used to be very common in Hungarian villages, basically houses would have benches in front of the fences facing the street and people would hang out there in the afternoon. As a kid I remember watching the cows get herded back from the field while sitting there, people biking and saying hi, on the way to and from the store etc.
Nowadays this is mostly dead even in villages. Old grannies watch daytime TV Turkish soap operas, younger folks are on their phones, they anyway work in the nearby towns etc.
I remember seeing a documentary or a video clip of this being followed. I don't recall whether or not it was in Spain, but it was definitely a Spanish-speaking village. That clip came to my mind when I read this post.
This is such a wholesome post. It also shows how much agency we can have in our local community. It reminded me of the Derek Sivers story[0] about the dancing man and the first follower when I read the part about the first person (Luke) joining them.
I love these stories. My adult home city feels off compared to where I grew up in terms of neighborly-ness. So while I'm not a coffee drinker, I have been doing the pancake breakfast thing monthly in my front lawn/driveway for a decade, also an annual crawfish boil that is a big draw for the surrounding neighborhood (probably 300 people show up, free beer never hurts attendance)
FWIW, I live in a mid-century suburb that's now part of the urban core but also still very low density and single family housing oriented. The challenge is that there is a huge disparity of the census in a neighborhood like this. You have 90 year old people who raised their kids long ago and you have newly married folks who bought their first home. You even have some people who are just renting houses and don't really care about getting to know their neighbors. Unlike in the the newer exurb/suburbs where most people are raising family and all going through similar life phases, or in the denser part of the city where most people are single or DINKs. It's also varies alot by when you moved here, because it started out as a very affordable middle class neighborhood and is now extremely affluent with people building new construction multimillion dollar McMansions, etc. Anywho, it's been a good way to get people into a super casual setting and let them get to know each other. It certainly feels more like 'home' to me now.
I'm glad to hear a story of someone constructing a community they enjoy. And this approach does have the virtue of drawing in the kinds of people who are enthusiastically interested, rather than those who aren't.
In general, I and most people I know have largely found more fun and more sense of community in groups whose membership arises from intentional joining through some common interest, rather than groups whose membership arises from happenstance. Or, in short: you choose your friends, but you don't choose your neighbors.
This is so endearing. I've been at odds with my HOA [board] since I moved in and its a decades long tale of my community where everyone is treated poorly by our HOA.
I've asked the board for block parties annually, and events semi annually and theyve rejected it over and over again. Meanwhile I miss this type of community that I had in every building I lived in around NYC before moving to the mountains
If everyone is treated poorly by the HOA, you should be able to get them together and dissolve the HOA. Read the documents, there should be a procedure for dissolution.
Depending on the location, the way to dissolve an HOA is nearly impossible. You need to find out what to do with community assets (in a condo situation, this is not possible), and you also usually need somewhere between 75-100% of all members voting 'yes' (not just present voting). If it's 100% of all members, just a single uncooperative board member could prevent dissolution.
Are you an owner? the hoa is not the board - it’s the entirety of the home owners who can vote and amend any rules at any time with enough momentum and support.
Yea totally. I am an owner and I've been fighting with the board for 3 years over failure to hold elections, and inconsistent treatment of members / rules.
I have a lawyer, have won my first battle already but it cost me $6k out of pocket (and the HOA $25k) for something that should have never happened.
Next step is to expose the board and get people to turn out to vote, sadly there are unelected members on the board since 1995, and not enough turn out for a quorum so I am a bit hamstrung
For the non-native ESL speakers like me, a 'stoop' is apparently the steps or porch leading up to a building entrance. The lack of an actual stoop further added to my initial confusion with this new word.
Very cool! So often we complain about a lack of community. These guys really show the whole 'be the change you want to see in this world'. I also loved the concept of let's just bring a few extra chairs as an ice breaker.
Anarchism in action, baby! (Not "the purge" style anarchism, anarchism in the "self organizing to build nice things" style.)
Turns out that this is the fundamental nature of people. People want to feel connected. People want do to nice things for one another. Bonding and socialization is the natural state for people.
Organizing doesn't have to be hard, and often, the best organizing is just doing something visible and inviting anyone who is coming by to participate.
We live in a mid sized city in the midwest, typical city block with single family homes. Folks keep to themselves a bit - not everyone, but enough that you have to make an effort to connect with neighbors.
My son and I had the idea that we should just organize a block party. I think this was in early 2021 after covid was letting up a bit. He was 7 years old and said we should get a food truck to come.
So that's what we did. Made homemade invitations and handed them out to a couple blocks around us and sent out emails to friends.
I think we had like 75 people show up to the first one! It was great. Had a taco truck come, and the local fire station rolled the engine by for the kids.
Blocked off the street so everyone could sit together and the kids could run around without worrying about traffic.
We've been trying to do this every 6 months or so since then. Great way to meet tons of folks in the immediate vicinity and strike up some new friendships - highly recommend it.
A spreadsheet is not very "community". And most definitely, demanding you to suddenly allow extreme surveillence against you, and to also own a smartphone, and to also install things on the smartphone and be physically able to do so as well, is most DEFINITELY not a "community". By this definition of talking to your immediate neighbors and knowing the whole neighborhood and whatnot.
It's interesting how different people can be, and what energizes us. The coffee on the stoop seems incredibly nice, and I love that they acknowledge that the simplest events are some of the best ones. Once they start taking about "watch parties" and potlucks I personally check out completely, that's way too much for me. The less official stuff sound really great though, just sitting down for one cup of coffees time, or just a beer or two at the end of the week.
You say the 'watch parties' are too much, but these are actually the events that are the best. They are at 8p, people come over when their kids are in bed, we have 4-10 people show up, everyone's in their sweat pants, and we watch a TV episode. We discuss it for 10-15m afterwards, and we generally part ways.
It's such a low-effort and small event, and it allows people to get into other people's homes in a low-judgement way. It's been one of the more successful events at getting neighbors to become friends with each other.
Yeah, that sounds awful. That's the great part though, everyone can participate on their own terms. Do the stoop coffee, do the watch parties, whatever they feel energizes them and brings joy.
Surely it's just very individual? Watch party of that kind sounds like something I'd never wish to do, but I'd gladly hang out outside for a beer or two.
I think the key is to keep things as low-effort as possible for both the organizers and the guests. One good way is to have some sort of recurring event, say movie night or drinks or whatever, happen every X day, with no coordination or input needed, just show up. Another is to live close enough together that people bump into each other and just start doing things. Even the smallest amount of planning/coordinating/etc is friction, and friction will eventually stop anything.
When you start to look at the bigger picture - relationships, aging, childcare, morals, help for the needy, etc - you realize you just want to reconstruct a mildly religious community from the pre-industrial age.
Not that it would ever be enforced against these people (and not like I agree with the ordinance existing at all) but the “typical weekend stoop hang” seems like it would definitely be illegal by a strict reading of San Francisco Police Code §168 a.k.a the “sit/lie law”: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/san_francisco/latest/s...
=======
> Present laws that prohibit the intentional, willful or malicious obstruction of pedestrians do not adequately address the safety hazards, disruption and deterrence to pedestrian traffic caused by persons sitting or lying on sidewalks.
> (b) Prohibition. In the City and County of San Francisco, during the hours between seven (7:00) a.m. and eleven (11:00) p.m., it is unlawful to sit or lie down upon a public sidewalk, or any object placed upon a public sidewalk.
> (c) Exceptions. The prohibitions in Subsection (b) shall not apply to any person:
> 1. Sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk due to a medical emergency;
> 2. Using a wheelchair, walker, or similar device as the result of a disability;
> 3. Operating or patronizing a commercial establishment conducted on the public sidewalk pursuant to a sidewalk use permit;
> 4. Participating in or attending a parade, festival, performance, rally, demonstration, meeting, or similar event conducted on the public sidewalk pursuant to and in compliance with a street use or other applicable permit;
> 5. Sitting on a fixed chair or bench located on the public sidewalk supplied by a public agency or by the abutting private property owner;
> 6. Sitting in line for goods or services unless the person or person's possessions impede the ability of pedestrians to travel along the length of the sidewalk or enter a doorway or other entrance alongside the sidewalk;
> 7. Who is a child seated in a stroller; or
> 8. Who is in an area designated as a Pavement to Parks project.
Those are all folding/portable chairs, not fixed chairs. There are a few fixed benches built into the sidewalk in front of a few houses in my neighborhood, and 5 would apply to them. I'm also curious how this could be interpreted for someone who is merely a renter and not the private property owner.
edit: LOL they edited it out in response to my comment. There was a photo of a circle of folding chairs between the first selfie and the pancake party photo: https://i.imgur.com/Ygd8Of6.png
> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco.
That is not my experience at all! Growing up in Brooklyn, hanging out on the stoop was a major social scene. (Also a factor: no AC indoors, which meant going outside for cool air) Now, in the suburbs, the homes are too far apart to have adhoc convos. Also, in many places the absence of sidewalks makes walking over to others' homes prohibitive.
As a renter that is priced out of the market where I want to live/work, the greatest obstacle I've seen to long term communities are "transplants" or those who live for a few years and move. It is difficult living in a community where the overwhelming majority of your neighbors are all cycled in 5 years. We've found "transplants" are effectively anonymous :/
You can create a community in a neighbourhood like this. Five years is a pretty long time. People will come and go but if you spend even an hour per month with neighbours and other people reciprocate, it will build a community that transcends individuals coming & going. Think of a university campus: community forms there in far fewer than 5 years through regular casual interactions.
I think this is something very general, houses in Romanian villages have benches in front of them where people used to gather like this, in the summer this was somehow the norm, less now, but it's still happening. One of the other options was either the bar or probably church.
Another is a community event in South Bend, IN where people collectively organized a big art/music event in backyards, that spread and covered a fairly large area. I think it was originally back yards, then someone with a large wooded property moved the event there, as it grew too large? https://www.instagram.com/yart_southbend
Also reminded of porch hangouts that happened by necessity during covid to allow socializing while masked/outdoors to reduce risk of larger groups of people gathering indoors.
Rented a house with friends in sf in 2016. We created a facebook group for our neighborhood, put up signs, and very quickly had a similar experience. A few neighbors over for drinks one night, hosted a weekend bbq a few weeks later. Quickly got to know a lot of people on my immediate block. One guy fixed my bike. An older woman called me when her fire alarm was intermittently beepting, to see if I could fix it. Had a few other events through the group, they were a highlight of the year. Made it clear to me how much latent desire there is for connection / friends from your neighbors.
I've been organizing a weekly morning coffee session in Astoria, Queens for the last 2 (or 3?) years. The morning coffees are connected to our local tech community's series of meetups, but they aren't hyper-focused on tech and they don't have an agenda. Just a chance to meet neighbors.
It's really been beneficial for me and my family, who aren't from here, to get to know more people in the neighborhood. These days I feel like it's a rarity to go outside without bumping into someone we know.
It's also been awesome to see friendships and even collaborations form among people in the group.
I recommend people give it a shot wherever they live. And if you're in NYC, come visit!
Your community is what you make of it. Both suburbs I have lived in were tight knit. With kids now, in my current home, I know most of the parents with kids and we have a WhatsApp group. We host occasional BBQ and play dates and when the community pool is open we schedule time to hang out and swim. That's just scratching the surface at what I see. Other suburban community Diwali, Christmas light drive through etc.
For those who have had a poor experience in the suburbs, unfortunately that is on you. The author here created stoops and you could have organized something too.
For the political side of this, a good next step is to have a few peoples assemblies anyone can attend, where issues are voted on.
In my ideal world, these votes would be the "law" of the land. But currently, you'd have to send the results to whatever government is in power. What is and isn't allowed in a particular area should be decided by the local community.
If you do it too often, you won't get a representative picture of the entire community just those who have both time on their hands and either an ax to grind or are somehow very invested. This is a very typical failure mode. The people who are extremely active in such matters don't have an average personality profile. You know what I mean if you've ever used Nextdoor. Also if there are constant meetings and votes, regular people won't know when something important is being decided. It's a typical trick to hide important stuff among lots of other minor things to overwhelm the regular working person and make it impossible to track what's going on.
Make the votes frequent enough to be able to course correct if people are dissatisfied, but rare enough so that people can know when they really need to focus on this topic. Maybe choosing a mayor and local representatives every 4 years is too rare, but I also wouldn't want my neighborhood decisions to be captured by some small clique of "in-crowd" who invest hours and hours into getting things there way and obscuring what's happening.
If you look at buildings from before WW2 in NYC vs buildings from the last few decades, one thing that stands out is the balconies. Older suburban houses are similar, with large porches prewar and no porches or enclosed porches in the last few decades. Our architecture has simply evolved out of having spaces where we can sit around and chat with our neighbors.
I admire the tenacity of the OP. If you look at the pictures, they're occupying a space that is clearly unfriendly to their goals.
In cities, I think a lot of the motivation for this change is anti-homeless sentiment: good places to hang out and chat with your neighbors are also good places for homeless people to sleep. But this contributes to increasingly isolating residents as well. It's one of the subtle ways in which the war on the homeless has negatively impacted those in homes as well.
I think it's sort of sad that this simple act of trust in your community (having coffee and exposing yourself to others) has to be over-analysed and dissected into a blog. Broadening and Deepening events, just dividing the whole act as events it feels like i'm reading a post-mortem on adobe workfront. When the true meaning of that awesome initiative remains the human need for social interaction and the need to be part of something bigger (like a community!). I feel this is poseur-ish and project-managerial to a degree even detailed oriented people will find unauthentic.
I was reading this and thought to myself that I would have stopped at hanging out on the stoop and getting to know my neighbors that walk by. I don't want to yuck their yum, but as an observation, it does seem highly performative and overly organized. Almost like they are trying to proof this out to sell to other communities and eventually make money off of: "buy our community building platform for $20 a month".
My father was born in a small village in Guadalajara, Spain.
I remember in the village my grandma and other neighbours tool their chair outside their homes to talk at the end of the day.
It is great to see good things coming again.
Do it... MORE.
Not everyone wants to hang with everyone. The more charisma you have, the more popular you will be. I question how much this is due to people's charisma versus the norm.
Popularity is a factor of charisma and maybe looks. Not much else.
Great idea, but (as indicated in the article) there are no stoops pictured. A stoop is a series of steps that go to a second level, which makes for way better hang dynamics. Living on a block with stoops is superior to one without because people are far more likely to hang around outside when they can get some height and survey the whole block.
I went to school in Richmond Va. Our flats had big covered porches. Summers there were brutal. The buildings were brick. While sturdy, bricks are excellent. Storing heat and releasing it slowly. None of us had AC. Porch life dominated. Everyone would sit out. Some folk had gliders. I once sat on porch as Dave Brockie strummed away on guitar working out some of his songs
It struck me that no one really did that in San Francisco. For one there are few if any big front porches. For two the damn cold evening fog chases the women inside. It took me a minute to realize the social life was at the corner boozer.
Based on other comments in this thread it sounds like this takes place in SF’s Mission neighborhood — among other things, the warmest and least foggy area in the city!
I wonder about how to do this in my own, much chillier neighborhood… guess getting started in the summer is a big key (the author hits on the broadening/deepening event split re: weather)
I love this concept. I live by a popular head trail, and when I do work in the garage (on my bikes or other projects), I usually keep the door open. That simple thing led to meeting many people from around the neighborhood.
In countries where people are free (almost everywhere except the USA) you can simply open a coffee shop in a "residential district". You have these ridiculous zoning laws so at most you can drive to a Starbucks.
Funny, in countries where people are free (everywhere except your city in Poland) you can use an electric leaf blower to clear your stoop of leaves so neighbors can sit with their coffee.
I'll mention a thing that I learned recently about apartment building design. We were in a building where all the unit entrances faced outward, and after several years only recognized two and knew one other neighbor's name, the guy with mgmt duties.
Then we moved to another building on the same street. This one, all the units face inward towards a courtyard. We know almost everyone by name in this building (a few from the first week!) and often share tips about what is going on nearby, or facilities, send holiday cards, etc. There's an imessage group as well.
The Outershell brand in San Francisco does this on bikes, where a group bikes across the GGB, sets up coffee, drinks coffee, in a beautiful spot in nature. Love this concept though, very accessible!
This is amazing. I am (regretfully) the introverted one in the community that watches as my wife and kids make the most of it. This is something I would love to stumble on. Great read!
We need more of this. People are isolated, afraid, not willing to make the first move. Do it! The worst thing that can happen is you just enjoy your coffee outside, the best - read the article.
I literally walked past this group of people a few weeks ago and thought to myself "I should walk up and introduce myself because they seem like they're having a great time".
At the start of Covid lockdown my group at work started having a daily "drinking alone together" afternoon Google Meet.
When that job ended, our household started drinking on our front porch in the afternoons. Soon a few neighbors started doing the same, and we got close enough (15-20 feet) to trade cell numbers. After that we would text back and forth to communicate during "distanced happy hour".
The friendships we made drinking _not_ together have lasted, and we still count those neighbors as friends...
> We met Luke a month or two after we’d been “stooping” on a regular basis. He came by to introduce himself and asked to exchange numbers so we could let him know if we’d be out there in the future, he’d love to join. At the time we didn’t realize how important this moment was for us. We’d been meeting many neighbors in passing but Luke was the first person to offer to sit with us and he wanted to know how to coordinate. In retrospect we should have been trying to get peoples’ numbers all along but hey, we were new to this!
I feel like the last sentence is a mistake. I think it works way better that they let the first person come up to them first of their own accord. If they'd been pushing for numbers from the get-go, the stoop coffee definitely would have a different feel to it. I think it's important that the first people who want to be there are people who _really_ want to be there, and thus take the initiative to initiate contact. That way you (potentially) start your group with a set of strong connections.
i've walked past y'all on many occasions and thought how cool it was! I had no idea there was such a large group of you :) I'll have to swing by and say hi sometime
Legally it’s still the exception, the municipality has to make it illegal (although I imagine it happens far too often). But hanging in front of one’s house is legal and actually quite common, at least in Amsterdam, much more so than in for ex. Belgium.
Like you see people put benches or even picknick tables in front of their house, which has no garden or clear separation with the pavement. The houses in this street have a back yard, so if you sit down in the front it’s also to be able to hang out in a social space, do people watching and say hi to your neighbours:
i think there's a really valuable app/site to be made that involves discovering people or handling communications literally on your block (i.e hyper local neighborhood). nextdoor is the 1.0 of this that introduced the concept but poorly, and i'm still waiting for a 2.0
i guess it doesn't have to be an app, since whatsapp can handle most of this, but there's a discovery piece that would be missing that this app can somehow handle.
I could not disagree more strongly. I would be appalled at using an app for something better accomplished by a flyer or drinking coffee in front of my house. People live in physical space. "How do I talk to my next-door neighbor?" is not a problem that the internet should be helping with
I wouldn't be so quick to admonish the idea. Neighbours aren't always within talking distance. Even the writers of this article needed to create a WhatApp group, and you can already see the trouble in that. People want to receive messages about things in their neighbourhood, but groups chats cover fixed areas so some people might be on the "edge" of multiple groups. The logical solution here is a digital version of the old church notice boards you see in many towns, allowing people to place and view digital flyers in a certain range of their location.
I live in a neighborhood of apartment buildings. I'm always wishing I had a dog (I have cats so it's not an option) or that there was a small neighborhood park to use as a common space. It's hard to get a sense of and connect with people on different floors, or the other end of the hallway, let alone next-door neighbors, just because it's harder to see the same people repeatedly.
I think the point of the article is that you can make this happen even without an app. And I believe the previous poster is trying to make the point that an app will create an low effort impersonal engagement that brings out the worst in people (essentially all these apps will end up as nextdoor). Why not invite the next neighbour you meet for a coffee, or do what the guys in the article have been doing and take a camping chair and sit in front of the building with a coffee on Saturday morning?
I think the point of the article is that you can do this without an app and the previous posters point is that app encourage low effort impersonal interactions instead of the personal community you want. So every app just quickly desolves into another nextdoor. Why don't you try asking the next neighbour you see to have a coffee, or do the same as the people in the article and take a camping chair and a coffee one Saturday morning and sit in front of your building?
> After a while, we realized it was starting to become unwieldy texting everyone when we were going to be outside. Thus, the WhatsApp group was born.
Tech itself is not _inherently_ dehumanizing or isolating - only when it is used to _replace_ human interaction. When used to enable those high-quality social interactions, it is virtuous.
I agree with you. I like that they mentioned people came by to their larger event by way of the paper invitation. There's something about a paper invitation that signals thoughtfulness and care. You have to print out these things and actually go walk door to door to drop them off. It's not a huge amount of work, but way more than just tapping a button.
I actually have gotten paper invitations from a neighbor on my street for a holiday party at their house and ended up going without having met them before just because it felt good to see it on my door step. Somebody actually took the time (actually, it was their kids) to drop it off.
clearly this isn't working given that this post is highly upvoted as some kind of feat that people sat outside and talked to their neighbors. no one talks to each other, and either way you look at it, certain apps get people out there. love them or hate them, dating apps have made for plenty of encounters possible that otherwise wouldn't be. you can make the argument that they've made society worse, and I might agree with that, but we're already here. we're in the internet/device era where people rely so much on them that we might as well make better versions of the bad ones. i think there could be ways to do it well without making another nextdoor. just needs optimism and imagination
Insert joke that every app eventually evolves into an email (or chat) client?
More seriously, what differentiates your idea (or hope of execution) from NextDoor, and how would the app improve upon WhatsApp or other messaging clients that might already be ubiquitous? (I'm in the U.S. and sadly WhatsApp is not even close to Ubiquitous - but SMS/MMS is.)
Overall how would having to install an app, create an account, sign up, find contacts, etc. improve upon the connections the original article formed through in person meetings in shared space, and the communications they did with an existing communications app?
I really don't. Every attempt at an online local community just ends up gathering gigakarens, racists, and complainers.
It seems so obvious now that social media as an entire concept is rotten and that the best way to connect with your community is to actually go outside and talk to people face to face.
The most important part, no matter if it's email, Nextdoor, WhatsApp, is that we can use it to disperse information quickly, and then get off the platform and meet up in person. Our stoop coffees are broadcasted via WhatsApp, and then some people tell their immediate neighbors via text, and then people show up.
I love how people rediscovers the concept of "third place" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place). Maybe it is because we got so into technology and COVID that we have started to miss face-to-face human connections.
Amusingly, we live in a high-rise in SF and it's like what people talk about neighbourhood living. We have a Whatsapp group and people meet for ethnic festivals, borrow an egg, or sugar, or flour, or a jump start kit, or an iron. It's honestly quite nice.
It helps that you self-select for the audience by who can afford the building, just like they've done the same with their neighbourhood.
Perhaps it’s not. Perhaps the people in my building are just particularly pro-social. But that seems self-aggrandizing.
While I was able to find nice things to do and my neighbors have done nice things for me in the Excelsior, the Mission, Glen Park, and the Sunset none of those places had the frequency and scale of this civil interaction.
And certainly my life in the TL was characterized by gladness for lack of negative interaction than by constant positive interactions.
My experience in SF is that some neighborhoods experience greater pro-social behavior than others.
That's my experience in cities, but I don't see it tied to affluence.
I do see a tie to perceived threat - people who feel they are in danger don't want to risk interactions. First, a rule of the street is, 'don't get involved'. Second, you don't know if the person next to you is crazy.
But few places are that dangerous; if you do get to interact, the only varient seems to be the seemingly arbitrary subculture of that particular neighborhood.
I believe you missed the OPs point. I believe he's suggesting that this couple has it on "easy mode" because of the affluence of the area they already live in. If they tried this same technique in a more working class neighborhood they would likely have a harder time creating and maintaining this group.
>I believe he's suggesting that this couple has it on "easy mode" because of the affluence of the area they already live in.
That's actually even worse than I thought.
Working class neighborhoods already have stuff like this happening. Cookouts and block parties are pretty common! I'm not sure why it would be more difficult if the people were poor.
You're getting dangerously close to describing labor aristocracy when you use established working class communities to suggest that affluent people don't have an easier time starting and maintaining communities. What the original commenter is saying - and they are correct - is that, when you can afford to live in a place, you have way fewer obstacles to starting/maintaining community.
If you have to move every 6 months, work second and third shift, and are constantly having vehicle problems and other emergencies, you are going to have a way harder time. Obviously. Let's not create a mythos of the working class that obfuscates reality.
I am describing my experience living in working class conditions in the rust belt, before moving to the coast.
Describing that as a "mythos of the working class that obfuscates reality" sounds detached from reality, honestly.
>What the original commenter is saying - and they are correct - is that, when you can afford to live in a place, you have way fewer obstacles to starting/maintaining community.
I really don't think that's as big of an issue as you - or the original commenter - are making them out to be.
> I am describing my experience living in working class conditions in the rust belt, before moving to the coast.
> Describing that as a "mythos of the working class that obfuscates reality" sounds detached from reality, honestly.
No, what is detached from reality is asserting lived experience as universal experience. In response to someone benignly acknowledging that their material conditions ease satisfying their social needs, you made an assumption, rather abrasively, that they don't wish to associate with poor people and that they think poor people are incapable of creating/maintaining community.
> I really don't think that's as big of an issue as you - or the original commenter - are making them out to be.
Of course not, your lived experience doesn't allow you to see it that way. But there are experiences other than yours, such as the person in the part of my comment which you didn't quote: they are often stuck building their safety and security in the hierarchy of needs. If your mythos of the working class only includes your experiences rather than a culmination of varying experiences, it obfuscates reality.
>But there are experiences other than yours, such as the person in the part of my comment which you didn't quote: they are often stuck building their safety and security in the hierarchy of needs.
If anything I would say it's the opposite - individuals in less affluent communities are more likely to need the help of their neighbors, and thus interact and form relationships
The format and delivery reminds me of Tree Raves: A Case Study in Social Protocols[1] - here's a series of behaviors you can implement if you'ld like to replicate this type of thing too.
I applaud the community building you've done, but the wealthy SF tech set is never beating the 'reinventing things that already exist' allegations. This is basically a block party only quiet.
This is a real cool thing (probs the best things I have seen this week!). It's great to see our society going back to fundamentals and seeing that hanging out together in simple settings make you feel good and included. Feels like a duh moment but a very needed reminder.
Seriously though, “we didn’t have to apply for permits” holds true until you blog about it and HN publishes it on Page 1 and someone contacts Public Health about your dumb electric griddle, or someone tries to monetize something and nearly succeeds.
Man, I'd like to do this. My suburb doesn't have much foot-traffic though. I do my best to greet the neighbors, and sometimes chat up people at the coffee shop. Time constraints are a factor when it comes to socializing, as a parent to toddlers.
This is amazing! A few folks on my block in the lower haight started doing something similar during Covid. We’ve met some long term neighbor friends this way that we otherwise may have never met.
Love to know that more of this was going on in the city.
This comment comes across a little dismissive, but this was my exact thought.
What if the people doing this were of another socioeconomic class and were drinking malt liquor? Or even if not imbibing, just smoking a black and mild.
Getting an outgoing dog has a similar impact. Suddenly on every walk our dog wants to meet their dog and we know neighbors we wouldn’t have otherwise. Even more so than our kids and their neighborhood playmates.
Sorry if it's been said already, but "stoop life" has been a thing in inner cities for... well, forever. It's more common with underprivileged communities in inner cities, so I can see how more affluent people would "suddenly discover" that hanging out on their stoop helps create community. In my experience, where the two intersect, it's usually the more affluent people pissed off that less-affluent (or perhaps "more culturally diverse"?) people are hanging out on the stoop. I've lived in DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and NYC, in multiple neighborhoods in each city, and I assure you, "stoop life" is everywhere, except on the wealthier stoops. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Another thing that helps create community is stoop gardens. People will stop and gather round a stoop garden to marvel at what's being grown. Neighbors will lean out their window to yell a hello at a stoop gardener. I can't recommend it enough.
I live in the suburbs on a busy road. The road is literally a dividing line between the village. One which means we only interact with the neighbors on the other side when there is a car accident.
Now, even better, allow any neighbor to open a legitimate (yet small-scale and cheap) coffee shop or wine bar by-right in the garage space under their SF home.
Yea, one of the problems of USA zoning laws is that very small scale retail/food service businesses are not allowed in the middle of a block. In other more walkable/urban density places businesses will pop up where you can get a coffee and it's not on a "business street". It's where people actually live and gather.
- Subscription model that gives you guides and connects you to vendors to open a 3k garage coffeeshop under a shared name. You can be your own boss and we collect beautiful / plentiful / gracious MRR.
It's not about monetizing friendship, it's about providing comfortable places where events like this can happen all over the city/country. People want this community but it kinda sucks to do (and mostly won't happen) if you're meeting up monthly on chairs in a city street. If small neighborhood pubs and coffee shops were legal to build...
I have heard about areas in rural Wisconsin where front porches have been converted into very small bars. Low overhead, serving primarily to your neighbors, and no doubt creating community.
My old neighborhood had "Front Porch Fridays" where neighbors would gather in front of someone's house and have a pot luck with cocktails. It was very popular.
I know this is offtopic but why are people pushing Whats App? They could have used Signal just as well. Privacy literacy seems to be neglected so so much.
I've been thinking about this throughout the day and I'm not sure that I agree that Signal is a good candidate for this kind of communal group.
Firstly, Signal doesn't have a way of separating topics. Sure, you can have multiple groups that are loosely linked together but it's not really seamless.
Secondly, Signal's permission controls are lacking. Let's say you have a Signal group dedicated to posting meet-up details. You'd only want to allow trusted participants to be able to post. This can be done in Signal by making it so that only admins can send messages. However, admins can strip other admins of their role which means one rogue user can ruin the group.
With that said, I completely agree that WhatsApp really isn't ideal from a privacy standpoint. I especially dislike the fact that any participant can find out the phone number of anyone else.
I'd personally prefer something like Matrix for this purpose but onboarding strangers onto Matrix just sounds like a real nightmare.
It's likely the path of least resistance. Many people have whatsapp and it's far preferable to sms. Significantly fewer people have heard of signal, let alone have it installed. And privacy literacy, for a neighbor group chat?
I grew up in a small village in the arse end of nowhere, in the 80s/90s. Even there and then it was a rarity for people to engage with their neighbours, beyond saying hello. Being the precocious child that I was, I invited myself to their homes for snacks. But I was alone in that. In some (many?) places, people just want to be left alone.
You don't choose your neighbours, much like you don't choose your family. Sometimes you luck out, and sometimes you're fucked.
I live in Wisconsin. Let me tell you, it's not so normal here.
I understand there's a lot going on with poverty, and opioid epidemics, and other menaces out here in flyover country. But man, it'd be nice if we could all at least make an attempt at being more neighborly.
Just think it's not a big city - small city thing anymore. I think there has been a collapse of neighborliness across society in the US. Vast majority of Americans live in neighborhoods without a 2 block stoop coffee event.
As many other people have said, I find big cities more neighborly. People you pass on the sidewalk won't say hi - too many people to do that - but neighbors know each other and can be friendly.
I'm the editor of Supernuclear, not Patty who wrote the post. I don't think Patty wants her address shared but some other commenters have triangulated the general neighborhood if you feel like reading through!
I read this article and was pleased not just with the community development, but with the spread of the word "stoop" all the way out to the West Coast.
It's a Dutch word brough over in the New Amsterdam era that was originally mostly confined to New York. It has the same etymology as English "step":
Jesus even reading this makes me uncomfortable. I am glad for city anonymity and solitude forever
Brrr this is horrible stuff of nightmares you guys advocate for. I want to escape my neighbours not having to meet them each time I go out
Ideally we would even push notify button before walking out in a way that we don’t meet each other at all. People are disgusting, terrible and not to be trusted. least you need is more of them
i'd love to participate in this where i live (not organize, just participate) but sadly it rains almost every single day and i doubt people would show up
Eh sorry for being curmudgeonly but the themes are just not attractive to me. Pancake party, dips party, coffee, all those task assignments are just not doing it for me. It doesn’t have an interesting edginess to it like the fraternities and their secret rituals or dedicated niche fanatics like stamp collectors or D&D. It’s all so pastel and milquetoast.
I just feel the need to point out how ridiculous the lack of socio-economic diversity appears to be in these images. California and the Bay Area specifically is suffering and this kind of privileged whimsical time-killing project comes off as insanely tone-deaf. To me at least. Just my opinion as someone born and raised in that city.
> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco.
This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
Still, a heartwarming story all the same. And yes, this is _exactly_ what city living should enable.
>just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
This is a bitter stereotype that is leveled against both city-dwellers and suburb-dwellers, and, like many stereotypes, has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity. Some people don't want to interact with their neighbors, regardless of whether they live in a city or a suburb. Others are sociable with their community, and express it just as well whether they live in a city or a suburb.
Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen. And even if you are sitting in front of your house, neighbors are more likely to be driving by instead of walking so not very likely to stop and chat.
In densely populated cities, you are often in close proximity with other humans you haven't met yet. But there can be social and cultural norms to keep walking and avoid eye contact because social interaction with all the countless people you pass is completely impractical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AoNuz1gjQo
So both environments have their challenges for impromptu social interactions.
This is the entire thesis of Jane Jacobs’ work: urban living works because of friction-by-design.
Inadvertent interactions between people you see every day build a sense of community over time — the “sidewalk ballet”.
I always wondered what she would have thought about her ideas in the context of COVID.
I think we're a long way off from the communities when Jane Jacobs lived. An except that I frequently think about, I can't even fathom in a large city in the current era, and not because technology has solved the key problem.
>Joe Cornacchia, who keeps the delicatessen, usually has a dozen or so keys at a time for handing out like this. He has a special drawer for them.
>Now why do I, and many others, select Joe as a logical custodian for keys? Because we trust him, first, to be a respon sible custodian, but equally important because we know that he combines a feeling of good will with a feeling of no personal responsibility about our private affairs. Joe considers it no con cern of his whom we choose to permit in our places and why. Around on the other side of our block, people leave their keys at a Spanish grocery. On the other side of Joe's block, people leave them at the candy store. Down a block they leave them at the coffee shop, and a few hundred feet around the corner from that, in a barber shop. Around one corner from two fashionable blocks of town houses and apartments in the Upper East Side, people leave their keys in a butcher shop and a bookshop; around another corner they leave them in a cleaner's and a drug store.
>In unfashionable East Harlem keys are left with at least one florist, in bakeries, in luncheonettes, in Spanish and Italian groceries.
This still happens in my experience, I've picked up keys from friends and Airbnb hosts via a local business in the past few years.
Same. Stayed at an Airbnb in Copenhagen and we picked up and dropped off keys from the pizza shop across the street.
And over the course of our 6 week stay, we definitely ate at that pizza shop a few times!
>This still happens in my experience, I've picked up keys from friends and Airbnb hosts via a local business in the past few years.
Seems strange to me, I've never done anything of the sort and wouldn't consider it. The closest is maybe leaving things at school for another parent to pickup because they left them with my kid.
But there is usually a code with some app and all of the social aspects have been removed. It’s not much different than being a higher scale realtor key box.
Well, if a guest gives off a dangerous vibe, the clerk can make judgement call.
Well, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't but the idea that a local store owner wouldn't give me if I were to give off a "dangerous vibe" would be somewhat concerning. But maybe I have ancestry etc. where I just don't give off that vibe. More generally, I guess I'm just pretty used to lodging where a delayed flight doesn't mean I can't get in.
> but the idea that a local store owner wouldn't give me if I were to give off a "dangerous vibe" would be somewhat concerning
If the person had a history at denying the keys at random for no good reason, people wouldn't trust them with the keys anymore.
Anyway, it's way more likely that they would call the home owner instead of just denying. People are mostly reasonable.
> People are mostly reasonable.
People recently voted Trump into office.
the quote discounts that read:
> with a feeling of no personal responsibility about our private affairs
I'm a paying customer, why tf should I care what the clerk thinks?
I paid the money, give me the key. Plus at no point did I pay them any money -- they're just, essentially, key escrow.
It's good marketing for them since being in and out of a pizza place means someone will likely buy a slice, but as a BnB customer IDGAF what they think outside of giving me that bloody key.
San Francisco, up until covid this still happened for me too. there was a bodega like store in the mission me and other people used.
where i live now differs so that phenomenon doesn’t exist here.
In the context of a lot of discussions here, Jacobs also seemed to believe in community driven development. Yes, she helped stop some highway development that many people here would (mostly rightly) hate. But a lot of people here would also consider her a NIMBY--even a fairly strong one--for supporting the right of communities to drive their own development whatever outsiders might desire.
The hostility to outsiders is usually also part of the community spirit...
I’m not sure it’s so much hostility to outsiders as such, as we like things mostly the way they are and we won’t appreciate if you come in and agitate for big change.
I live in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago (Oak Park) and stoop coffee would be much easier to do here than in San Francisco (where I lived many years ago).
This is what my suburb looks like:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9014246,-87.791197,3a,75y,17...
There's no official definition of what the "the suburbs" means, but when people say that they usually mean "areas that follow a post-war suburban style of development". Think culdesacs and no sidewalks. The area you linked looks to me more like an older "streetcar suburb", which I think most people would just call "the city".
Nobody I know would call that street the city. In my mind, "the city" is, minimally, houses that are a few feet apart, small yard in back/front, pretty much nothing on the side. Frequently, it's 2-3 story buildings, with whole floors rented out as an apartment. That's my "least dense" vision of a city. Anything less than that (ie, full yards) falls into my vision of suburb.
That street is basically identical to most of the city of Chicago. The only difference is fewer 2-flats.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9301849,-87.7195955,3a,75y,3...
Those houses are more densely packed than in what I'd call a suburb. And much more importantly, nothing in that area is more than a few blocks from some sort of commerce. Suburbia (at least in the US) isn't so much about the houses themselves, but what's around them. I'm in one of those "streetcar suburbs" and the nearest store is a mile away and the bus comes every 20 minutes. I could get by without a car but it would be very annoying. You might find a fairly similar set of houses in the nearby city, but they'll be near a lot of stuff and living without a car would be far more practical.
Nothing in Oak Park is more than a few blocks from a commercial zone either.
Yeah, I wouldn't call that a suburb either for practical purposes. It would be one by the definition of "small city near big city," but in terms of how it functions it looks like city to me.
>That street is basically identical to most of the city of Chicago. The only difference is fewer 2-flats.
The front yard space and number of driveways in the Oak Park link also stuck out to me.
This is the Chicago block I grew up on. It's less dense than Oak Park. It's easy find blocks like it elsewhere in Chicago. Jeff Park in Chicago and Oak Park are basically clones of each other.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7099143,-87.6801127,3a,75y,1...
This is really what most of Chicago looks like (modulo economic conditions in the different neighborhoods --- they're not all this upscale). It's a city of neighborhoods. Most of the streetscapes that jump to mind about Chicago, if you don't live here, are places people basically don't live.
Wow, you weren't kidding about the relative density between those areas. I'd consider Oak Park dense compared to most suburbs, just not as dense as some neighborhoods in Chicago. I'm most familiar with the north side neighborhoods and had those kind of lots in mind, with their near non-existent front yards, with front steps right off the sidewalk, and virtually no front driveways.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9405345,-87.6750174,3a,75y,2...
My old stomping grounds. I lived in Lakeview (incl. this block) for a long time.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9403868,-87.6590203,3a,75y,3...
Apartment building on Pine Grove in Lakeview for me and then a beautiful old two flat in Ravenswood. My rent in Pine Grove in 1999 was $400 I think for a two room apartment.
Haha my wife lived on Pine Grove and I lived a couple blocks from that spot in Lakeview. Small world.
To compare, a residential neighborhood a fifth the population of oak park, mostly pre-war and what a German would consider as "urban":
wiki, use translator: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichlinghausen-S%C3%BCd Maps overview with borders highlighted: https://maps.app.goo.gl/fvr34T8JbLEVQLAF8 Street view of a normal street there; though I recommend 3D view for a better understanding: https://maps.app.goo.gl/QXEGChFvHciAq8Va8?g_st=ac
This is btw. 2.9x as dense as Oak Park, IL.
Yes, I agree, Oak Park could be a lot denser; that's what I'm working on.
> Most of the streetscapes that jump to mind about Chicago, if you don't live here, are places people basically don't live.
Note that 41k live in the Loop and 27k live in Jefferson Park.
Maybe if you sample by area, places look more suburban than stereotypical cities, but by population, lots of people live in the dense parts.
100k in the Near North Side, which I think is basically a “downtown” streetscape.
And of course many in the in-between density neighborhoods (eg 71k in Logan Square).
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_areas_in_Chicago
Small world, my wife and I literally just moved to Beverly not far from there. This area is a bit of liminal space between city and suburbs (or at least my definition of them) and it can vary quite a bit block to block. I'm walking distance to a grocery store, the Metra, coffee shops, restaurants, parks, etc., which is unfortunately more than many areas of Chicago can say.
I moved from a denser part of Bridgeport, so it definitely has been an adjustment (particularly in variety). But even some areas of Bridgeport, which is much closer to downtown, had pockets that are equivalently walkable to where I'm at now, or maybe even less so. Anyone surprised to see SFHs and front yards in Chicago probably hasn't ventured far out of downtown/a handful of North Side neighborhoods.
Some US cities incorporated their lower-density "streetcar suburbs" over the years and other US cities didn't. This is why "Kansas City" proper has literal farmland [0] within its city limits, while "St. Louis" proper [1] on the other side of the state doesn't even include most of the skyscraper development that's occurred there within the last 40 years.
This is entirely arbitrary and knowing whether a particular place is technically part of "the city" doesn't really tell you anything about it. As you might expect, this causes a ton of unnecessary confusion.
[0] Part of Kansas City proper: https://maps.app.goo.gl/9B9rhVzAtSykLhUs5
[1] "St. Louis" but not part of St. Louis proper: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xXM7A2fQYY2Kh3vY6
They're pretty clearly not using "the city" to refer to city but instead to a certain density threshold, so pointing out that city limits are arbitrary doesn't really help anything.
What you're describing is called "agreement." I'm very plainly arguing that if the distinction between "city" and "suburb" is to mean anything at all, then it can't just be about what's within municipal boundaries and what isn't.
So you were agreeing with OP's comment, not disagreeing?
> Nobody I know would call that street the city. In my mind, "the city" is, minimally, houses that are a few feet apart, small yard in back/front, pretty much nothing on the side. Frequently, it's 2-3 story buildings, with whole floors rented out as an apartment. That's my "least dense" vision of a city. Anything less than that (ie, full yards) falls into my vision of suburb.
What this back-and-forth, and this thread more generally, demonstrates is that these words are not very useful.
They almost never clarify. What they do is produce silly arguments like this one.
That's why people have been using paragraphs to clarify what they mean. Paragraphs that you seem to have ignored in favor of critiquing the utility that specific words have when taken out of the context the author intentionally put them in.
I agree, but if only you could convince all the NIMBY asshats in Seattle who want to live on a half acre lot ten minutes from the center of downtown.
Good luck convincing someone who lives on a half acre 10 minutes from downtown to give that up.
Offering to make them multimillionaires in exchange for the land so you can build apartments should work
Apartments are banned in about 70% of seattle residential land. Here are the things you are allowed to build: https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDCI/Codes/Nei...
Except for the neighbors who will likely block that apartment build-out via any means possible.
Indeed, that’s the nimbys
Do they actually do that here, or are you just saying that?
It's baked in to the process as part of design review, after getting pass the first wall of zoning.
https://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/public-participation/e...
No clue about Seattle, but they definitely do in Northern VA where I live. Every new development that requires a change of permitted use goes through a lengthy review process with plenty of opportunity for locals to object.
Edit - sibling comment indicates Seattle has something similar.
They do that everywhere!
> but when people say that they usually mean "areas that follow a post-war suburban style of development". Think culdesacs and no sidewalks.
Define people?
When most people I know say suburb they mean this: You're far enough the urban core that you probably have to drive to get to shops and jobs, but close enough to the urban core that you don't pass through farmland to get there. Some suburbs are like what you describe, but most are exactly like what OP links to.
I'm not at all sure what the utility is of a using a definition of suburb that excludes most of the not-high-density but not-rural US and only counts the absolute worst-designed spaces. It just means we're all talking past each other, with some of us saying "not all suburbs are terrible" and others insisting that suburbs are by definition terrible and anything that isn't terrible isn't a suburb. It's a bit of a True Scotsman fallacy and doesn't make for very useful dialog.
I believe the colloquial definition has changed substantially over the last ~100 years in the US. As a concrete example, Travis Heights (part of Austin) was initially advertised as "Austin's first suburb", but is very much inside the city core today. In the UK, this is true of places like New Malden or even Wimbledon, which were as-built not part of London and were referred to as "suburbs", but are categorized that way by approximately no-one today.
You're right that people in practice use the word "suburb" to talk about all these different things, but that just reinforces that the word isn't very useful. Oak Park and Naperville are both "suburbs," but this reveals nothing to us. In fact, it mostly obfuscates.
A suburb is outside of the city in low density housing, typically not within walking distance of anything. That reveals plenty for a lot of purposes, and if you want to critique something more specific than that you should use a word that people will recognize as being more specific than that.
Clearly the author of TFA believed that this was the definition of suburb, because they were clearly thinking of a space where people could in fact just hang out in front of their houses and meet neighbors. So for the purpose of this conversation, this definition of suburb is the only one that makes sense.
There is nobody in Chicago who would describe Oak Park and Evanston as anything other than "suburbs". You'd get laughed at if you called them "the city".
Right. I'm not at all sure why some people on here think "suburb" is only meant to refer to a very specific type of housing development, rather than a description of a location's spatial and cultural relationship to "the city".
I mean, you’re making the same sort of NTS argument here, aren’t you?
> Some suburbs are like what you describe, but most are exactly like what OP links to.
Without defining what constitutes a suburb, how can you argue that most are good? Your argument hinges on your own definition of suburb IMHO.
I’m not sure what the right answer is, but in my experience most people mean post-war development patterns when they talk about suburbs, but in any case it probably doesn’t hurt to be more precise about what we are praising or criticizing.
No, I'm not, because I'm not saying that what you are identifying as a suburb isn't a suburb, I'm saying it's not representative of all suburbs. I provide a perfectly valid definition:
> You're far enough the urban core that you probably have to drive to get to shops and jobs, but close enough to the urban core that you don't pass through farmland to get there.
Since my definition is broader it's less susceptible to NTS fallacies. What you identify as a suburb is a suburb but it is not all suburbs.
> but in my experience most people mean post-war development patterns when they talk about suburbs
Even this is too broad to sweepingly say all suburbs are bad. I've lived in 5 different suburban neighborhoods as an adult, 4 of which were developed post-war, and all had sidewalks and plenty of walking around and neighborly interaction.
That is a definition you're making up to suit an argument you're making. It's not the actual definition of the term. Anybody can just look it up and see that! The Oxford Languages dataset that Google uses for the definition literally uses Chicago's suburbs as an example.
And, seriously, who cares? Why would you want your argument to die on this hill? What could it possibly matter?
I'm not sure why you're critiquing my definition, given that I'm trying to emphasize that your specific Chicago suburb very much does meet the typical way that people think of suburbs. So yes, I agree with Google: Chicago's suburbs are suburbs. Oak Park is not within walking distance of anything that most people I know would identify as "the city", which puts it squarely in the suburbs in my book.
Did you read me as disagreeing with you, or did I misunderstand and you were trying to say that Oak Park isn't a suburb? Or is Oak Park actually within walking distance of "the city" as Chicagoans would identify it?
Oh I may just be reading the thread backwards! Sorry. Yes, Oak Park is definitely a suburb. Oak Park is also extremely within walking distance of the city; it's across Austin Blvd from it.
Yes, both the parent and I agree that Oak Park is a suburb (and a lovely one by the way; I hit up Amerikas every time I visit)—I was pointing out that he was making an argument of the same style that he was criticizing (using his own definition of a suburb to advocate for his own definition of a suburb).
In any case, I think there are multiple valid definitions for suburb—one which talks about smaller towns on the periphery of large cities and another which emphasizes postwar design principles/philosophies. I don’t see the point in arguing for a single true definition; language doesn’t work that way.
Agree. Lots of US cities have neighborhoods like this outside of the downtown business districts. Even in NYC, famous for concrete-jungle apartment dwelling, you find this in Staten Island and in parts of Queens.
It's the same if you go west -- Hudson County, NJ, is mostly neighborhoods that were designed as streetcar suburbs if you measure by land area.
Yup. Sacramento has lots of this. LA county. Boise, Salt Lake City. List goes on.
we each can only rely on our own experiences, but mine don't agree with you. suburbs in the US northeast have sidewalks. most of LA looks like a suburb to a nor'easter. No sidewalk? rural.
Oak Park as "the suburbs" is of a bygone era. If all suburbs were like Oak Park, nobody would complain about the suburbs.
I agree, and outside of Fly.io the thing I work hardest on is advocating for more density here; we're slowly transforming into Winnetka (if you're not a Chicago person, Winnetka is the John Hughes suburb you have in your head when people say things like "suburbs are nothing like the city"). Thankfully, we have a board consensus that has us pointed in the general direction of eliminating single-family zoning, allowing as-of-right 3- and 4-flats everywhere in the Village.
Lol this is the most chicago looking chicago that has ever chicagoed. I clicked the link before really registering the comment, and was confused why I was looking at a random Chicago neighborhood. While I do like the way chicago neighborhoods are set up (especially the space between houses and general greenery) I think the compactness that SF has creates more opportunity for interaction.
That being said, we did have this sorta thing on my block during covid times (once ppl stopped caring abt the social distancing and mask nonsense) but then the main families that did this moved away to bigger houses (as their families grew) and now it’s basically dead as there wasn’t a lot of intention behind it like the OP clearly has.
I mean, morally, Oak Park should be a part of Chicago.
My wife and I, several years ago, stayed in an Oak Park hotel while visiting Chicago. There was a sort of food festival we happened upon and everyone was extremely friendly. As we rode the el train in, we were fascinated by the view of the closed Brachs factory.
hey neighbor :) we should totally do this in oak park. oak parkers already kinda do "stoop coffee", but usually only twice a year during a pre-planned block party. i could see this expanded to something a little more frequent, like maybe sunday mornings from memorial day to labor day.
I'm amused to see so many of my neighbors on here - we could do a Hacker News Stoop at one of the coffee shops (Whirlwind is my regular, but it's not like any of the ones in OP are hard to get to!)
'dhosek is also an Oak Parker.
My thing since I moved houses a couple years ago is just hanging out on the porch, and I'm probably just going to start telling people when I'm going to be out there and inviting everyone to just come over.
yes!
I live in a big city in central Illinois, and we have neighborhoods like that in the city. It's hard for people outside to understand that I have suburban style neighborhood but I could walk to the DMV.
When I lived in Canaryville (South Side neighborhood of Chicago) in the late 90s, people regularly sat on their porches and drank coffee.
If you haven't tried already, you need to try Sen Sushi, if you like sushi. That place is amazing.
Sen was a lifeline during the pandemic when going into the city for Japanese stopped being an option. One of the better Oak Park restaurants, in a suburb that is not exactly known for great restaurants.
(shh don't tell anybody i said that)
I'd like to argue with you, but yeah - as much as I love OP, the restaurants are usually just okay
Those aren't suburbs, this is a suburb: https://maps.app.goo.gl/iS3Zi4CT1vnWkD5P7?g_st=ac
Looking around the neighborhood, I'm seeing sidewalks on many of those streets, paved paths along public green spaces that run between the houses, multiple apartment buildings and a retirement center. Looking at the map, there also appear to be trails through the woods leading to a nearby sports center that's a 5 minute walk away, as well as a nearby bakery.
Oak Park is not what anyone thinks of as a suburb.
It's like pretending downtown Evanston is a suburb of Chicago.
Downtown Evanston is a suburb of Chicago.
> Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen.
This has not been my experience in the surburbs. A typical suburban home has both spaces: a front yard/patio and a back yard/patio. If anything the physical constraints are substantially more conducive to hanging out out front than what I'm seeing in these photos here—people in the suburbs have some amount of space that they actually own in front of their home, they don't have to occupy the sidewalk.
As OP said, which one people choose to use depends on the personality of the individual, not the layout of the space. For example: our last four homes, like every home in each neighborhood, have had both, and I always prefer to be out back while my wife loves being out front interacting with the neighbors as they walk by (which, yes, they have regularly done in all four neighborhoods!).
Apparently there's some idea that suburbs by definition don't have sidewalks and have half acre lots with oversized McMansions. If that's your definition of suburb, I take it back: I've never lived in a suburb. But I also strongly question the utility that definition for discourse like this.
If some people here think that a suburb has to be the absolute worst stereotype of NIMBY living to count as a suburb and others are talking about anything with detached single family homes and yards, we're having very very different conversations. It seems more useful to work with the definition of suburb that simply means "outside the urban core".
There's a spectrum of density, and perhaps the sweet spot for front-porch interactions is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. I live in a neighborhood with ample front porches and sidewalks -- and I've heard it referred to both as a suburb (by dense city dwellers) and "the city" (by people who live further out from the dense urban core). But it's easy to imagine both a dense city neighborhood and a semi-rural far-flung suburb with no front porches and no culture of interacting with neighbors.
Even the definition of "outside the urban core" is hard to pin down; I'm pretty sure you could get disagreement on whether where I live is within the urban core or not.
Suburbs have sidewalks but nowhere to walk to.
Yes, counterexamples exist. But the vast majority of American suburbia is quite like what you describe: isolated homes with very low density where the only way to get to anything you’d want to do is drive, even within the neighborhood!
I don’t have a front yard in my home in the city. But I do have a million things outside my front door. So I walk to them, and I see and meet neighbors along the way.
But you know what suburbs typically do have? Pleasant areas to walk in.
I walk my dog and meet neighbors who are sitting outside their houses. I also sit outside my house and meet neighbors who are out walking their dogs or just out for a stroll.
When I've spent time in big cities I simply don't see this, because there aren't good places to walk dogs and it's generally unpleasant to just be out in the street for the sake of it.
The idea that all suburbs are isolated nightmarish hellscapes of pavement and car accidents is some combination of a myth spread by city dwellers and a minority experience in a few types of McMansion housing developments.
I think this may vary massively depending on what suburbs in what country and even what city you are talking about. The "usable front yard" or "front patio" is an almost non-existent design feature in free standing homes in Australia, at least in the more moderate climates in the southern side of the eastern seaboard.
I'd heavily agree with the idea that my suburban experience is that I do not know my neighbours, and the only time I've known them has been for bad reasons (harassment, fencing disputes etc.). In the inner city, I may not know my neighbours, but you probably know and interact with your general community in public spaces a lot more than the suburbs, mainly because you don't get everywhere by car. The small coffee shop on every corner in the gentrified inner city where people wait on the path for their coffee is a bit reminiscent (to a lesser degree) of the "stoop coffee" idea. That experience in the suburbs only really exists through your children (i.e. via schools and sports clubs) and doesn't exist much for child-free people.
With growing high density development near train stations in the suburbs, there is a bit more of this experience further from the city center. However it is really limited to a few square kilometers of urbanism and apartment living that then gives way to endless free standing houses and car dependent suburbia.
It’s easier to sit out in the suburbs, but the layout and infrastructure don’t generally encourage walking around, so there are a lot fewer neighbors walking past.
Generally, surburbs are better at encouraging walking/cycling around (since there's very little traffic), but worse at encouraging people to walk to commercial areas (since they're usually far away and the path there is unpleasant).
In my experience, you're far more likely to see kids biking/wandering around neighborhoods in the suburbs than in the city. This is the reason why people want things like cul-de-sacs, because eliminating through traffic means that people are able to use the area much more freely without having to worry about cars.
> better at encouraging walking/cycling around
This doesn't match my personal experience, at all. Even the cutest and most pedestrian friendly suburbs have far less walking than typical cities, with faster more dangerous traffic, and less infrastructure for alternative modes of travel.
> far more likely to see kids biking/wandering around neighborhoods in the suburbs than in the city
This also doesn't come close to matching my personal experience (though it does match many people's inaccurate stereotypes, which I have heard repeatedly in conversations with people who don't live in cities). There are tons of kids and families around in cities.
> eliminating through traffic means that people are able to use the area much more freely
Quite the opposite. Cul-de-sacs cut places off from easy pedestrian access and make it usually significantly more difficult and dangerous to get anywhere by walking, because to get to destinations requires crossing massive (sometimes 6–10 lane) quasi-highways with high-speed traffic. Such places typically also come with separated residential and commercial zones and few useful destinations nearby: not as many schools, museums, libraries, parks, coffee shops, restaurants, retail stores, etc. within a reasonable distance, and lower population density with much more pavement per person. The predicable result is that in most places with many cul-de-sacs hardly any trips are made on foot or bike and people end up driving everywhere. Public transit also tends to suck in places with cul-de-sacs everywhere.
> (though it does match many people's inaccurate stereotypes, which I have heard repeatedly in conversations with people who don't live in cities)
I run into the opposite problem - people who grew up in the suburbs, move into gentrifying city neighborhoods as adults, and who carry idealized view of the city they moved to, will often accuse others - even people who have lived in the city there entire life - of being an outsider if they don't hold the same idealized view.
Judging by how shocked this type of person often gets when I tell them I was born and raised here ("You from here? 'Here' here? Wow, that's pretty rare!"), I get the impression that many of these people live in a bit of a gentrification bubble. Which is fine, but it would be nice if they were aware that there was much more to the city than the gentrification bubble (including people who have lived here far longer than them, sometimes for generations).
Anyway, you'll notice I never claimed there weren't "tons of kids and families around in cities," but rather that seeing kids roaming around neighborhoods on their own was more common in the suburbs than the city (at least based on my personal experience).
> Cul-de-sacs cut places off from easy pedestrian access and make it usually significantly more difficult and dangerous to get anywhere by walking, because to get to destinations requires crossing massive (sometimes 6–10 lane) quasi-highways with high-speed traffic.
This is a non-sequitur. I already mentioned in my post that in the suburbs it's more difficult to get to commercial destinations. That doesn't change the fact that a cul-de-sac is an area with little traffic, that most suburban developments/neighborhoods have pretty light traffic, and that you're typically going to encounter very little traffic inside these developments/neighborhoods.
> Generally, surburbs are better at encouraging walking/cycling around
Having lived in both, this is just categorically untrue.
Cities are filled with pedestrians and cyclists. Both recreationally and for practical purposes. In a given hour I might see over a hundred pedestrians outside my window and perhaps twenty cyclists. This would be an order of magnitude higher if I was on a commercial corridor or actually busy street.
In contrast you might see ten pedestrians a day in most parts of the suburbs. And maybe one or two cyclists, unless you leave your neighborhood.
Suburbs also have far worse traffic. City streets have small roads and slow-moving vehicles. Suburbs have giant thoroughfares and fast-moving vehicles. As a pedestrian and cyclists, I know which of the two I’d rather be in.
Contrary to apartment buildings where you have to go inside to your unit and there's not a great place to hang out and meet people
Good ones will have a cafe, bar, etc on the bottom
Really? My experience in the suburbs is that there are a lot of people "going on walks" with dogs and kids in the evening. People aren't walking TO places, but there is a lot of just walking around.
Fewer, sure, but not none. 5-10 people per evening isn't bad, and that's pretty typical for a nice evening in each of those neighborhoods.
Suburbs can also be hostile to pedestrians. In many designs, neighbors only see each other when one or both is inside of a car.
Suburbs are not hostile to pedestrians. They are hostile to getting anyplace on foot so cars are common. However they are great places to walk for exercise and many people who live there do that. (see the sibling comment about walking the dog)
My experience with suburbs is different from yours. I have lived in places where walking is downright dangerous because the architecture is oriented around cars and the drivers are not accustomed to yielding to pedestrians.
Many homes are designed such that the inhabitants rarely use the front door, using only the garage.
That doesn't sound like suburbs I know. The streets are so empty you can safely walk down the middle of them most of the time. People don't, but you could. (kids used to play baseball/basketball in the streets, stopping play when cars come). Of course to get anywhere you need to leave and so it is never far for a major road that is dangerous to be near.
I am sure that you have seen some pedestrian friendly suburbs. So have I. I never said that they are all hostile to pedestrians. Some are designed for people instead of cars. It is rare.
It also depends on the suburb. I was sad when I lived in Mountain View, heading in sight unseen, but there were a lot of sidewalks and a little main drag with some bars and shops.
A lot of "suburbs" in the Midwest lack sidewalks -- you can have the cops roll on you if you try to walk anywhere.
Where I am in the suburbs, all the dogs know each other, because most of them are on invisible fence lots and they all visit every other dog when on a walk. And it's common for the owner to come out and say hi, too. That being said, I know some of my neighbors by their dog's name ("That's Taj's dad").
When I lived in Ann Arbor, after going to work with a very green sky, I came home to a very weird sound.
Quickly figured out that power was out and the weird sound was neighbors sitting on their front stoop talking.
>Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything.
Sure, but they are a lot more setup for walking dogs and casual walks and bike rides with your family and friends. The version of stoop coffee in my neighborhood is people walking their dogs and then stopping to chat. That and leaning on their fence talking to their neighbors.
Suburbia houses are usually right next to each other. Densely populated cities stack housing so you have to go down to get out. I've found that its much easier to meeting people in single family homes than five level flats. In any case, the US even in cities, is not set up for gatherings like it is in Europe where there are large spaces people go to socialize.
San Francisco is a great city for that, because it is very walkable (if you have the energy to manage its steep hills).
There is a close connection between urban architecture and whether or not community building can take place, and sadly, many places are not like it.
Kunstler's TED talk is a fantastic way to become more aware of that topic: https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_the_ghastly_...
His thesis is some of the US must be torn down to rebuild it in a friendlier community-enabling way.
Curiously, to the OP's "stoop coffee" topic, he already recognized the communicative potential/value of the space in front of houses, and he points out that old European cities "got that right" (and having a central market square, too).
In my city, the only places I see neighbours gathering on their front porches is in prewar neighbourhoods with single family style homes (many actually split into apartments).
These houses have narrow lots, a porch right up to the sidewalk, and are on narrow streets. Newer neighbourhoods don't have that magic combination - even when the lots are narrow and there is no garage in the front, there is always a setback, a useless front yard, and more often than not no porch (or a "vestigial" porch that's too shallow to use comfortably).
Editing to add: The old neighborhoods are nearly always on a grid of streets, where every street has passers by. Newer neighbourhoods will have hierarchical streets that include crescents and cul de sacs, which connect to nothing and have nobody just passing through (although that does seem to be changing in the newest neighbourhoods).
I live in the burbs and I feel like almost everyone in the neighborhood has a dog. No matter what time I'm leaving my house, there's always someone walking their dog. Of course some times are busier than others, but I feel like dog walking itself can become a pretty good sense community.
I don't have a dog though.
> to avoid being seen
well, there's also security, physical containment of your pet/children.
I think of Frost's "Good fences make good neighbors"
I agree with your points about the challenges in both suburban and urban environments. I think the design of public spaces also plays a significant role. Intentional design can help overcome some of these challenges and foster more impromptu social interactions.
Haha, when I finished that paragraph of yours, before clicking on the link, I thought of exactly the scene you linked :-)
In my experiences of living in suburbs for 30 years, I’ve seen the default is to ignore neighbors.
I don’t really get this. Our communities have so much in common and so much overlap, we shop at the same stores, go to the same parks, get stuck in the same traffic, our kids are at the same schools,our neighbors care for us medically, teach our kids, maintain our dwellings, work on our cars, and contribute to our local municipalities through property tax. We vacation at the same places.
We have so much in common but we put our heads down and duck into our homes ignoring our neighbors. To be honest it makes me really sick to think about. Like the internet has allowed us to live these parallel lives, highly dependent on our neighbors but completely isolated from them. We smile and nod then go to the ballots and kick our spite up to the federal level (in the US).
To me, we have the majority of our lives in common.
Social media and the political engines preys on our differences making them the focus of our interactions ignoring the fact that 90% of our day-to-day lives are overlapping and our concerns are similar: health, wealth, prosperity, safety, education and recreation.
It’s not much, but as I get older I’m making a point to slow down and talk to my neighbors, have real conversations with them, many of them fly political flags that are contrary to my political beliefs but I find out we have so much In common because we have such similar day-to-day lives and experiences.
> we shop at the same stores, go to the same parks, get stuck in the same traffic, our kids are at the same schools,our neighbors care for us medically, teach our kids, maintain our dwellings, work on our cars, and contribute to our local municipalities through property tax. We vacation at the same places
I think this is only true if it's true. If you have a neighbor who doesn't have kids, doesn't shop at the same places you do, doesn't vacation at the same places you do, and doesn't work on their car, how do you think they feel about you characterizing the neighborhood that way?
After growing up in a small town, I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life explaining that no, I don't have kids (and hearing them say, "oh, I'm so sorry,") no, I'm not fascinated by how my car works, no, I don't want my lawn to be a perfect uniform shade of unnatural green. I feel much more comfortable in the city, but I'm aware that it's only because I fit my liberal city neighbors' assumptions much better than I fit the assumptions in the small town I came from.
To me, being on good terms with my neighbors is work. It's sometimes pleasant and almost always worth the effort, but it's work, and I'm always aware that I'm participating in the same game that felt so alienating and excluding when I was a kid in my hometown. The only differences are that the gap is a lot narrower and I've become more pragmatic about it. I skip past questions that uncover differences. I help guide the conversation towards commonalities. I try not to think about how it feels for people who have to paper over bigger differences than I do.
This experience fits me as well. I'm older, no kids, don't spend a lot of time outside. The neighbor on one side is nice and friendly and he gets to have all the apples and plums off of my trees as he wishes. The neighbor two houses down gets red in the face angry at me if I wave at him as I drive by. Apparently, just keeping my lawn mowed regularly but not perfect is enough for him to hate my guts with a surprising amount of passion. The neighbor who shares a line of property with me (but lives on the street behind me) I've talked to twice the summer I moved in in '99. Both times he berated me about my lawn while I tried to just say "hey, I'm your new neighbor, nice to meet you!" He put up a fence high enough so he couldn't see my lawn before I managed to tame it back to the "not perfect, but not crazy" state it's normally in now.
It's amazing to me that not keeping my lawn looking like it's part of a fancy golf course is my biggest hurdle in making friends with my neighbors.
You would be surprised how little in common you can have with your neighbors. You likely don’t shop at the same places, don’t frequent the same restaurants, bars, parks, etc.
It’s not even politics related, people just don’t like the same activities. Some people cook, some people eat out, some people buy in bulk, some people hit farmers markets.
Easy transportation, internet shopping, etc make it trivial to have zero overlap with your neighbor’s day to day, regardless of city or suburb.
> In my experiences of living in suburbs for 30 years, I’ve seen the default is to ignore neighbors.
This rings really true for me.
My last house was in a small gated set of 16 townhouses.
I knew everybody's cat or dog's name, but only on of the human's names.
Most people I knew by descriptive tags. There was saxophone lady, federal drug cop, potsmoking couple who lived on the other side of federal drug cop and who's pot smoke I could smell if I opened my back doors, there was ski boat guy, Harley riding girl, there was shouty dad and annoying child.
I still live nearby, and I passed an older couple from there in the street a while back and greeted their dog by name, and they said "No, this isn't Oscar, he died a few years back, this is (new dog name that I've already forgotten)."
Part of it is politics. Totally correct about everything in common, and yet in the multicultural fabric we call society, politics could be vastly different:
Neighbour 1 cares about Trump, neighbour 2 about Ukraine, neighbour 3 is focused on Palestine, neighbour 5 about public transit, while I might not care about any of those. All of them are going to seek like-minded people who are unlikely to be their next door neighbours. It wasn't like this in the past, where economic mobility was relatively limited.
Multiculturalism coupled with economic mobility means often neighbours and you don't really have much in common. As an example my next door neighbour: He's a major, I'm in the sciences. We travel in different circles. I have a dog, he doesn't like pets. We both have kids but they are of different ages, don't go to the same schools and basically don't know each other. We met a few times then realized that we have very little in common and stopped interacting. There's nothing binding us beyond a shared geography.
That's okay. You may still benefit from knowing each other when you run out of milk and shops are closed, or whatever favor neighbors can provide via the valuable indirect social graph connections (need a reference for a job or to enter a good uni, ask a neighbor who is a Harvard alum; or just let a kid interview a Republican neighbor for a school essay, or...), so it's good you sounded each other out.
Not everybody has to be best buddies with their direct neighbors, but in my experience in a one-mile radius from you, whereever most of us are, there are some interesting folks nearby that are worth knowing, and they would say the same about you.
Because of TV, social media, computer games and gadgets, we forgot how to socialize well, but if we (enough of us) care enough, we can re-learn it.
> but in my experience in a one-mile radius from you
I mean, that's a circle with a diameter of two miles - it's basically "entire city" for many cities.
knowing them =/= agreeing with them.
only the most onerous of neighbors are going to launch into tirades about politics before getting to know them anyway. these people will already have their giant TRUMP flag on the lawn.
I don't discount anything you have said. But my experience is different.
One of my neighbors I lived next to for over thirty years, was so nosy, passive aggressive, and judgmental, I avoided them like the plague. They finally moved and the new people called the city on us because my dog barked for more then ten minutes during the daytime, on the second day after they moved in! (She was only outside for an hour.) On the other side of us is a car on jacks and 'stuff' in the front and back yards.
I've learned to keep my head down and not worry about them.
My neighbors are fucking assholes. We don't shop at the same stores, or see each other at the park, we don't have kids, or work on cars. One neighbor doesn't like me because they don't like dogs and I have a dog. The other is just a mean, bitter, old lady. Not everyone is nice and friendly dude.
I suppose the trick is that these people won't come out and drink coffee with you! The people who do come out will be more fun and social, and these two you mention would just stay home like usual.
It's wild how much we depend on and live alongside each other without actually knowing one another
It really really isn't.
I installed nextdoor and now I actively avoid interacting with my neighbors
i think most of the types of people you'd want to hang out with aren't posting on nextdoor
Underrated insight of the week.
"I want to make cypherpunk friends, but none of them are on Facebook!"
Yeah -- my partner and I moved to a small island in WA and this is so intensely true that I feel it to my core. Nextdoor attracts mostly vain self-promotion where we're at. Where we move to after this, I'm going to get on their Nextdoor and make a list of names of people who post there regularly, and when I meet them in real life I'm going to avoid them as much as possible.
When they started mentioning WhatsApp, I did have the briefest thought that this could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
There's certainly opportunity. NextDoor comments here are of mixed quality. And the NextDoor feed seems to have the ad saturation cranked up unpleasantly high.
> Thus, the WhatsApp group was born. At first this was just a place to announce when we’d be out having stoop coffee, but we soon realized people wanted to connect over more things than just coffee. So we ended up converting the group into a WhatsApp Community where we could have chats dedicated to certain topics or groups and plan other types of events together.
> This could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
This is kinda funny from my perspective. In most of the world WhatsApp reigns supreme to such a degree, that advertising for it would have the same pointlessness of a Coca Cola ad. In LATAM every neighborhood, department building, workplace and school has a multitude of Whatsapp groups.
The good and functioning ones are: work related, have people that organically have become dang or are too small to receive "manual" spam / random petty fights. The "manual" spam is people sending MLM scams, annoyingly advertising their side hustles, political or religious message chains. People also will fight publicly because someone may or not have flirted with someone else's husband. Forums are eternal.
The only thing like NextDoor here is SoSafe, a community safety app, which quarantines the crazy people that see an "undesirable" taking a walk and wants to call the cops.
> the same pointlessness of a Coca Cola ad
I agree that this would be a pointless exercise in advertising WhatsApp, but this is a kinda funny comparison. Coca-Cola is advertised like crazy. Unlike WhatsApp, advertising is an essential part of how they maintain their dominance. They don't have the network effects of WhatsApp.
BTW, good comments, and sorry for the meta aside, but please be careful when quoting. I said:
> When they started mentioning WhatsApp, I did have the briefest thought that this could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
But the quote of a fragment of that, without ellipses, and somehow capitalized, looks like a verbatim quote of an entire sentence, which changes the meaning substantially:
> This could be marketing to try to replace NextDoor.
The difference in meaning is irrelevant to your comments, but, in general, others who come along will see and respond to quotes, so quotes take on a life of their own, while remaining attributed to a person (who didn't necessarily say that).
"Meaning is irrelevant." ~neilv
;-)
Fair point, I'll be more careful.
> NextDoor comments here are of mixed quality.
You're lucky, sounds like your local NextDoor community has above average (for NextDoor) comment quality...
Even before we had some unelected mentally ill person making Nazi salutes at a US Presidential inauguration, and then still handed them unprecedented powers to disassemble our government... and a whole lot of people seeming fine with that...
The signs of a populace with wildly conflicting values, a lot of anger, a lot of mental illness, and a lot of cognitive problems and knowledge deficit... has been apparent in online comments for a couple decades.
One thing with NextDoor might be that it's developed a reputation. So that many people expect that the typical post will be some alarmed retiree posting a doorbell cam photo of a "suspicious person" going to doors on their street, who was obviously delivering packages while being nonwhite. In real life, most people would minimize interaction with the alarmed person, not install an app to get more of it.
Another thing with NextDoor is that some aspects of the experience are really user hostile. Besides the ad saturation-bombing, and the user interface that could use some cleanup and straigtening-out, there's things like 2FA (for Nextdoor!). I'd love to see numbers on how many users that 2FA alone cost them, and what they got in return. A UI cleanup is possible only if it's not overruled by the people doing the ad saturation, where user confusion just means more opportunity to show ads (until those users dont' come back, and don't bring their friends, but that's someone else's KPI this quarter).
In the rest of the world (London, at least), WhatsApp is used for communities/building developments. It's the exact same NextDoor hell, but just with more instant messaging.
I mean, I know you're kind of kidding, but there's also a lot of truth in it. When I was last on Nextdoor, a woman had posted asking for any information about a car that hit her as she was riding her bike and sent her to the hospital. She was trying to find people who might have witnessed the incident. People were answering that it was her fault for being on a bike. I uninstalled the app right then and there.
On the way home from the subway one snowy Boston evening, I joked with my wife that what the world needs is yelp, but for snow shoveling. People could get out all their passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive crap about their neighbors by complaining about the quality of the snow shoveling in the sidewalks in town.
It seems Nextdoor has fulfilled that need and more.
Pretty sure it was a conversation just like this that led to the creation of Nextdoor.
Why's that? Never used the app. Is it just a lot of negativity and you get negative vibes from them?
It exposes you to the mental illness of some people, like the kind of person who will make a thread asking if anybody knows this new runner they saw jog by their place because it's very suspicious and it's making them very angry that someone would jog down their street.
Or bicker about street parking. Or people who post on social media in general, like to talk about politics or fake outrage over nothing or the weird boasting people like to do like post a news article about some family freezing to death in the Yukon and how disappointing it is that the husband didn't keep his SUV prepped for such an occasion like I do here in Houston—you know, I don't even leave my house without <LARP armor>.
It can get in the way of a foundational part of the social fabric: being able to assume your neighbors are normal, nice people.
Social Media in general (not just Nextdoor) has outed so many angry, belligerent, mentally-unwell, terrible people who, for a really long time, have successfully pretended to be normal and nice. Not just neighbors, but friends and even family. It's like the movie They Live, but where we all suddenly got the ability to see who the antagonists are, and realized there are so many more than we thought there were...
Even worse they get to talk to and encourage each other. At least they used to think they were odd, now they think they are normal.
>> the kind of person who will make a thread asking if anybody knows this new runner they saw jog by their place
That's what the urbanologist Jane Jacobs, in her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" called "eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street".
As she said, "The first thing to understand is that the public peace - the sidewalk and street peace - of cities is not kept primarily by the police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves".
To many people, of course, this is disgusting behavior.
>To many people, of course, this is disgusting behavior.
Well in my experience when I lived in a neighborhood like this in practice this meant a lot of really bored soccer moms in the local facebook group posting pictures of every new van on the street because they were now convinced their kids were in mortal danger. The million ring doorbells probably didn't help either.
I think P.K. Dick was much more accurate and prescient than Jacobs when it came to the paranoid character of local neighborhoods in particular in an age where that is amplified by technology
> It can get in the way of a foundational part of the social fabric: being able to assume your neighbors are normal, nice people.
if my neighbors are weirdos I'd like to know, and in what sort of ways
That monkey paw gambit might make sense at first.
But you aren't learning that they're pedophiles or violent or that they'll harm you or that you can't trust them to watch your kids or make moves on your wife or poison your dog or burgle your house or can't be a good friend or reliable neighbor.
You're learning things that really have no impact except to make you dislike them.
It might not seem like it since we love to forage for this kind of info on social media, but you only lose from that transaction.
It is exactly that. A lot of "saw a black guy walking down the street...should I call police?"
NextDoor used to be bad about that, but they are now much more careful to remove it quickly if anyone does post racist crap. Now it seems to be 50% paid ads, 30% lost/found pets, 10% unpaid ads, and 10% everything else. Worth checking to find the owner of a stray dog or cat, but not much else.
I deleted the app a few years ago because it was a drag. Glad (and honestly surprised) to hear you say they remove the racist stuff quickly, and not surprised it's mostly ads these days.
The problem is people say the same thing without saying race. “Did anyone see this suspicious character?” with a picture from a doorbell cam of a black guy.
It’s still obviously racist to everyone but it’s not reportable or treated as such.
I don't use it, but some family members do... From what they describe, it sounds like an app to complain/snitch on people.
It attracts the same kinds of people who love homeowners associations, yes.
Social media tends to bring out the worst in people.
Many Americans still think of cities as modernist concrete, interstate exits and parking lots. In this imagination, social trust is eroded by homelessness, drug addicts and variety of crimes endemic to inner cities. Unfortunately, cities that were razed for cars fit some of these stereotypes.
In fact, parts of SF match the description too. This story would have unfolded differently in SOMA. Even in safe neighborhoods, (eg: Mission Bay, Rincon Hill) large towers, 5 lane roads and 35+ mph thru-traffic discourage neighborhood vibes.
> has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity
I disagree. This isn't a case of 'both sides'.
Cars destroyed American cities. Then Americans moved to gated suburbs that did everything in their power to limit through traffic and therefore the destructive onslaught of cars. Suburban residents demand easy access to the city by car, but reject the car in their own neighborhood. Suburbs want to have their cake and eat it too, at the expense of city residents. In contrast, cities do not impose their wants or needs onto suburbs. The resentment by city dwellers towards suburbanites is justified.
Fortunately some cities escaped razing. Boston, NYC, DC & SF have many neighborhoods that enable wonderful stories such as this.
That said, I think it's worth acknowledging that not everyone in the suburbs actively chose that setup
Having lived most of my life in cities, I moved from London to the suburb of a smallish town about 4 years ago. Since that move, I've got to know maybe 20x more of my neighbours here than I managed in two decades in London. However, I also got a dog and I think 90% of this is down to that.
Very similar story to mine. Moving from Amsterdam to the “suburbs” of a smaller city in the Netherlands AND getting a dog was the only way I’ve found to meet new people and befriend neighbors.
The dog part is definitely key. We moved a few blocks — so within the same neighbourhood — shortly after getting our dog, and it was amazing how much more quickly we got to know our new neighbours with our (extremely extroverted) then-puppy compared to the previous place. (And, on the flip side, I'm on a first name basis with every dog on my block, which usually implies also being on a first name basis with at least one of their humans.)
I can recognize and name more dogs on our block than people.
Ha, me too. I have a terrible mental block with human names but for some reason I can hold the names of 100 dogs in my head.
are you me? Maybe we should pretend people are dogs so we can remember their names
Very much so.
For a very different example, I live in a small village of about 250 people in rural New Mexico. Of the 250, there are between 50 and 75 people who are sociable and interested in forming, maintaining and enjoying community. Of the remaining 200 or so, about 1/3 of them are friendly and social, but generally do not want to participate in community activities. The remaining 2/3 live here because it offers them (amongst other things) a chance for privacy.
I should have said that about 50 of them live here because their families have been here since the early 1600s, too.
The thing is that whether you click with your neighbours or not is pure luck and it's no one's fault. That's why you read many opposing anecdotes in this thread. When there are more local third places, there is a higher chance you will find a nice community to hang out with.
Pro tip. Being a good neighbor helps you click with your neighbors, and that can be the difference between life and death in an emergency, or your house burning down or not if a neighbor catches something and calls you because you’re chill, friendly and helpful.
It is worth extreme efforts to cultivate good relationships with your neighbors.
Every house has a front yard, and many have large front porches. And no one uses them. I'd say "anymore" but I've rarely seen them used for socializing in my lifetime. They're almost vestigial.
I remember one beautiful June Saturday afternoon cutting through a gorgeous neighborhood on my bike and amazed it was like a ghost town. All the houses with their beautiful yards on a quiet street, and literally no one outside. It was so weird.
Air conditioning and TVs are the answer to this unfortunate problem.
Yes, but the geographic scale of suburbs just puts limits on this type of thing.
“Everyone with a five minute walking me” is a very different number of people in Brooklyn vs the suburbs. Let’s say 50 vs 500?
I think it’s way easier to end up on an anti-social block than in a city, where the law of large numbers draws blocks toward the average.
You only have room for a few hundred friends in your life. Sure there might be 500 people who live in 5 minutes walk - but that is too many and so you will learn to take steps to limit the number of people who will accept an open invite.
If you are a Hindu living in a small US city you will find and becomes friends with every other Hindu in the city - there are not very many and you stick together. If you move to a slightly larger small city you will discover that there are too many Hindus and it is hard to make friends with them because their friend groups are already full. (This is a real example from someone I work with, names and exact cities not given for obvious reasons)
I guess my comment wasn’t clear, but I’m saying if on average half the people are not social, then in a city that leaves 250, which as you point out is plenty. In a suburb, because the total population of a block is smaller, the variance in the percentage of anti-social people is going to be much higher, even if averaged across all blocks you still get 50% (or whatever the population average is). If the number drops to 20, for example, my experience is this is less likely to form into a “community.” Twenty is a lot of people but you need more because any given person isn’t available much of the time.
This matches my own experience of living in the suburbs where some streets are way more interconnected than others.
To be clear I’m not claiming this is rigorous social science. Just sharing my intuitions based on experience.
It's all down to the design of suburbs. Many cities have bylaws and zoning regulations that prohibit human-centric suburbs from being built [1]. Older neighbourhoods (prior to these ill-advised laws) are incredibly livable and naturally produce a sense of community. They also feature mixed-use zoning with quaint little corner cafes, restaurants, and small shops. These are incredibly important as third places [2] which have largely disappeared from our society.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
I don't think it's "just" a stereotype. There's a lot of literature around how American suburbs are designed to be isolationist. The most obvious example is how much more difficult it is to meet your neighbors when you have to get into your car for every slight errand (FWIW, I've lived in all densities--I'm not some urban chauvinist).
In reality, many criticisms of suburbia are simply criticisms of HOAs
As usual, the people you fill the space with make all the difference. The stereotype gets reinforced by the kind of suburbs HN people tend to live in and to have been raised in.
Wealthy white collar suburbs almost universally suck because people don't really miss out on much by not interacting with each other and people have no real problems so they tend to make each other their problems and not like what their neighbors do.
You go down the economic ladder and things get a lot better because people have enough real problems they don't give a shit about whether their other neighbor pulled permits or what the setbacks are or how long their project car/boat has sat on blocks, and they interact with each other because being friends with your neighbors well enough to share tools and trade favors is worth it.
Another bitter stereotype contributing to the US cultural divide. I live in an economically diverse but mostly well-off white collar suburb (not in CA), and we have a strong sense of community. We walk to each other's houses on a whim, we help each other get things done, we shovel the snow for the older folks, we watch out for each other and text each other, we organize community get-togethers. I realize this is an anecdote - I am not saying the correlation you're describing isn't statistically real, just that it's pointlessly negative.
How can you label as pointlessly negative something that, in your own words, is statistically real?
Reality is what removes the bias more than anecdote, and statistics is what tracks these facts.
It would negatively biased if it was more of corner cases than not.
Exact opposite experience for me. When people have nothing, they have no buy-in, and give no craps about what their neighborhood is like. They’re too busy dealing with their “real problems” to care if someone is robbing a house right in front of them.
Wealthier neighborhoods tend to have massive buy-in from the residents, because who wants to lose something that nice?
Point being: the experience is best when avoiding extremes. Poverty and incredible wealth both lead to issues in a neighborhood.
FWIW, this has been my experience as well. When I lived in poor neighborhoods, yeah, we had more property crime. We also had a tremendous sense of community; I knew everyone, they knew me, food & favors were traded happily. The block parties we had during the summer were tremendous amounts of fun.
Meanwhile, the more wealthy neighborhoods are full of busybodies sniffing around for the slightest HOA infraction, and high-anxiety individuals reflecting and amplifying each other's tensions. Each home is a fortress unto itself. I feel pretty lucky to be in the middle, where we don't have as much crime as the poorer areas, but we still know one another, and still trade food on the holidays.
Same, but I think it really depends on the design on the neighborhood, regardless of if it's a city or a suburb.
When I lived in "Brownstone Brooklyn" I had a stoop and would often hang out on it, as is common in neighborhoods with this feature. I knew tons of my neighbors, people would stop and talk to each other, etc. When I moved to Williamsburg years ago, that stopped. There are stairs that lead to my apartment, but it's not like a stoop that you'd find in other parts of Brooklyn -- they're steeper than you'd get on a brownstone and don't really encourage sitting at street level. I'd hang out on them sometimes, but then a few years back all the street lights and building lights switched to bright LEDs, making it gross to sit under them at night. But if you go to other parts of this neighborhood just a 5 minute walk away the building design is more conducive for gathering and chatting on stoops at street level, and I notice that that happens in that part of the neighborhood.
Anyway, I wish we'd consider these things when building our environment.
I think another part of neighborhood design that influences this feeling is how walkable a neighborhood is — anecdotally, I feel like I've had way more run-ins and conversations with neighbors when I've lived in places that had grocery stores and coffee shops within walking distance, as opposed to when I've been in neighborhoods that required driving 10-15 mins to get to anything.
For sure, walkability is an important factor. Although I think even with that it depends on what sort of shops are within walking distance.
Years ago my current neighborhood of Williamsburg had mostly local shops -- a locally owned grocery store or two, cafes, bagel shops, bookstores, pharmacies, bodegas, etc. Now it's mainly a corporate wasteland -- Whole Foods, Apple, Sephora, Hermes, Chanel, North Face, Trader Joes, etc etc. By all measures I live in one of the most walkable parts of the most walkable city in the country, but as this corporate takeover has happened the small third spaces are dying or have fully died out (depending on the block). And I find that the feeling of community really has evaporated as that process has unfolded over the past 15-20 years.
Yes, my experience in the suburbs is that most residents hop in their cars and take off somewhere with their tinted windows rolled up, and there are no "third places" around to casually encounter your neighbours. Sometimes there will be yard sales, BBQs, or birthday parties though.
But my experience in an urban apartment building is not very different. You might encounter someone in the elevator but it's polite to keep quiet. A lot of dense townhouse neighbourhoods are built without any corner stores, cafes, or bakeries mixed in at the ground floor.
I like that this family found a way to make do without any third place at all, just occupying the sidewalk and roadside. But I'm sure it would be a lot more comfortable if they had at least a shady patch of grass!
> I like that this family found a way to make do without any third place at all, just occupying the sidewalk and roadside. But I'm sure it would be a lot more comfortable if they had at least a shady patch of grass!
Exactly. This is a story about intentionality, which is required regardless of whether you're living in the suburb or the city. In the US, neither culture prioritizes spontaneous interaction by default, they're only different in the manner in which the isolation manifests.
I used to live in a suburb. I met people the same way you meet people anywhere: common interests.
A dozen or so people with dogs met at the park every day. We knew each other, watched each other's houses/pets on vacation, and sometimes did dinner or BBQs.
A few people organized a DnD group after advertising on nextdoor (which is a cesspool but only 70%).
Of course those with kids the same age often knew each other because of school or activities.
The neighborhood park had a system of "pea patches" where you could grow some stuff next to your neighbors.
There's nothing that unique all in all about this space other than there was a "third place" we all had built and took care of (the park was originally supposed to be a school that never got built so the community got it to become a park but at least half the work came from the community. The county provided some matching work).
The weird thing is people are people no matter where they are, mostly. And if you are lonely, you can go fix it.
Lots of people move from somewhere they hate so somewhere they think will solve all their problems. And they are right. Or they move from somewhere they love to somewhere that they know will be terrible. And they are right. It seems like whether you think your neighborhood is great or terrible, you're not right.
My suburban neighborhood is great. They have a voluntary group that you can join with a donation, and all that group really does is organize parties and events. It's not a HOA and doesn't have rules. We have a full community get-together event every two months or so, with volunteers who host at their houses. We also have once-a-year events like a community-wide garage sale event, and a car show.
I've also lived in neighborhoods where nobody knew each other. I think all we can get out of this HN thread is: "Not all suburban neighborhoods are the same."
Out of curiosity, did you know the neighborhood was like that before moving in? Or was it luck?
I agree there's a huge variety in neighborhoods in the suburban umbrella, which is unfortunately ignored in urban/suburb discussions. We're house shopping and want to find a "good" neighborhood, but short of knowing someone in the neighborhood already or spending significant time in the neighborhood it's hard to get a good indication of vibes.
> This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
This post and the comments here are genuinely interesting to me, because it shows how much people have different experiences in "suburban" and "urban" living. That, in turn, puts a whole new spin on everything I read about NIMBYism and urban development and whatnot. People don't even have a shared basis for what a city or suburb is and totally different experiences in each, so it calls into question how well we can even agree on or communicate what we want!
Personally, having lived over (urban: Manhattan, Boston, suburban: Houston-ish, Chicago-ish, rural: California, Missouri), I tend to agree that suburbs are the sweet spot for knowing your neighbors to some degree. In my Manhattan apartment, I lived in a tiny studio crammed into a building with tons of other people who I never met. In my rural living, people were mostly too far apart to mingle. In my suburbs, we were "friendly" with people about 6-7 houses in either direction, and front or back.
I live now in what I'd call a suburb (along this street: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7VfBtjzq3fMJRGXL9), and there's lots of people frequently "going for walks". There's not that much to walk _to_ but people are generally pretty active when the weather is nice, and so you run into your neighbors a fair bit. I'd say I know by name the families (so, multiple people) of about 10 houses in my near vicinity, and have the cell phone numbers of a handful.
I love this stoop coffee idea, and am going to have to try it here with my wife and kids.
I think that part of the issue is “suburbs” means different things. Suburbs can be pre-war streetcar suburbs or villages, often pretty walkable and dense. It could mean a housing development which can be large with hundreds of houses or town homes or small. My development has 13 houses on two culdesaca and everyone knows everyone, gives a great neighborly vibe. But ive lived in a town home development with 200 houses and most people didnt know anyone. Urban environments and apartments I didnt really know my neighbors.
Small villages, street car suburbs that have individual houses but walkable, and small developments seem best.
The biggest differentiator I have found is: do the majority of people consider this place their long term home or a temporary home? an apartment or town home people know they will only live 2-4 years or so, makes different behavior with a house that everyone plans to spend the next 20 years in.
I think suburbs with porches and stoops help as well, too much garage/car focus means people dont spend time in the front of their house.
Dunno, I've found suburbs more friendly than the city. Someone's more likely to say hi when you're grilling, mowing your lawn or just walking around.
Urban settings have more 3rd spaces which can be good places to socialise, but your immediate neighbours are less likely to speak with you in my experience.
And having a toddler amplifies the experience since most families move to the suburbs when they have kids, urban spaces are far more likely to have young people without families.
>This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
I've lived in both settings, and my own experience has been a mix. In the (walkable) suburbs I've lived in, I've connected with my immediate neighbors, strength of connection rapidly dissipates with distance. We are friendly, occasionally have a BBQ or meal together, and lots of random chats while going for a walk or doing yard work.
When I've lived in cities, it's been a much larger and more active community where the connection is less about proximity of our homes, and more about being in the same place at the same time since our daily errands and living were generally on foot. For those and the simple reason of small homes, we were more likely to meet somewhere or do an activity. I was also FAR more likely to run into someone I knew in my city than I was in my suburbs.
It depends on the suburb. Some suburbs are effectively just city neighborhoods in a different school district, and they have blocks and block parties. Other suburbs are nests of culs-de-sac, where you'll say "hi" to your next door neighbors but not know anybody else.
This is very true; I've experienced both extremes.
In one neighborhood there was a yearly block party where we closed the street and cooked out, kids played together in the street consistently and visited each others' houses, neighbors babysat, etc. Everyone on the street knew everyone else's name. Whether this was a suburb is maybe up for debate, I don't know, but it was at least all single family homes.
I moved directly from that to a more rural suburb. Homes were still pretty close to each other - nobody had much land - but there were no sidewalks and the neighborhood was a network of cul de sacs. I knew the last names of my two next door neighbors but only talked to them maybe three times in about ten years. I knew of some people ("a fire chief for a nearby town lives in that house, that one has a family") but that's really it.
My assumption is that this is getting worse over time as entertainment gets more and more individually catered. Basically _Bowling Alone_ but moreso and as the most civically-minded people die off. Not sure if there's anything individuals can really do about it other than be friendlier with your neighbors
Lol exactly. I 100% cannot imagine this happening where my parents live, in a typical US suburban subdivision. On the flip side, I can absolutely see something like this taking off on my block in Brooklyn and would just be another addition to the already established community
Where I currently live, in a medium-density area of town-houses (actually, pretty high-density for town-houses), seems to be the perfect density for community. I see my neighbours all of the time, just doing our things, and you say hi and chat because that's what humans do. Any more dense and you have apartments, where strangely people are more distant (even though closer) (unless effort has gone into the apartment design to get people interacting), less dense and you have a suburbia with its fortresses.
We had block parties like this in Brooklyn while I was growing up. People would make or buy food and we'd just occupy half of the block with loud music, running around for the kids and drinking for the adults. Cars could still pass by, but they were careful and people would move out of the way. It was fun!
Pretty sure in Brooklyn, and other NYC boroughs, that is more of a cultural thing rather than a "try to create a sense of neighborliness" thing.
As a cultural thing, that type of community behavior has likely been going on for most of the past century in NYC.
But the person in the article tries to create that in a place where there is no cultural proclivity to that kind of behavior. That's actually a far more difficult thing to do.
Still, it is awesome to have it just as a cultural practice. No question.
There are definitely places now within Brooklyn that do it with an intent of creating a sense of neighborliness and community, as well as many that still do it just because that's what people have always done on their block.
My block and many of the surrounding ones in the neighborhood have block associations that organize events like block parties, clean ups, stoop sales, holiday events, backyard garden tours, workshops etc, as well as being able to advocate for the block's collective interest as a legal entity.
Definitely not knocking stoop coffee. Super cool that they built that from scratch.
I live in suburbia and one of the neighbors periodically hosts coffee and pastries in their front yard. I also do happy hour at different houses. I never got this community feel living in SF for 10 years.
Suburbs are typically more socially homogenous, with more institutional connections between residents (kids go to the same school, people work for the same local employer, same church, etc) with a physical environment less conducive to connectivity. City neighborhoods (again, typically) have better physical presence with neighbors that are less likely to have things in common. I think that's what the author is trying to say.
> more socially homogenous
An old rationalization of prejudice. Everyone seems homogenous to me and what was heterogeneous yesterday (e.g., Italians and Irish) is homogenous today. Just stop worrying about it. People with different backgrounds are much more interesting, all else being equal. All are Homo sapiens.
Also, kids in city neighborhoods also go to the same schools. In suburbs I've seen people don't generally share an employer and church - that's a small town.
It depends on the definition of suburb (some are pretty urban), but my experience in cul-de-sacs is neighbors rarely interact. Lots of places don't even have sidewalks.
Those were generalizations covering 100M+ people in each category, just in America, and my guess at what the original author meant by the statement that GP was surprised by.
I've lived in suburbs where I had a good idea of who lived in each house, talked to some of them semi-regularly, and kids ran around the neighborhood together every day, and I've lived in neighborhoods where everyone stays inside and nobody interacts with each other and even the few group things explicity set up (neighborhood street potluck, chili cookoff at the attached park) couldn't be sustained. I moved directly from the former to the latter, so the difference was stark.
I think it has much more to do with demographics and type of people that happen to be living there, and whether there's an existing community. The more lively neighborhood in my case was in a "worse" neighborhood with cheaper houses, while the new neighborhood was all newly build housing. We were all starting from scratch with each other, with some people maybe having a year or so more history than others (as they staged builds 5-10 houses at a time). Community is a frail thing, and needs to be tended or it will wither, and sometimes it dies before it even has a chance to flourish.
> This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other.
I've found the opposite. My neighbors and I (apartment, in the city) rarely speak to each other in the city, but when I lived in the suburbs I knew LOTS of my neighbors
Not all suburbs are built the same. My dad grew up in suburban Cleveland in the 50s, which has a bunch of some of the very earliest style of suburbs. When I have been there, and from what I remember my dad telling me, there was actually a pretty decent community there despite it being a suburb.
Personally having been there, and also many suburbs in the rest of the US, I think it's more complex than just "typical suburban problems are inherent to the suburban environment". That is to say, very early-style suburbs like Eastern Cleveland, suburbs of major cities like NYC, suburbs of smaller cities like Cincinnati, cities that are almost entirely suburban like LA or San Jose, and very old/organic suburbs like the gold coast of Connecticut are all completely different from each other.
Even within places like Cleveland or New York, the time period in which the suburb formed (50s-60s suburbs are completely different from 2000-2010's suburbs) and the circumstances of how it formed (it could be completely organic and decentralized, totally centralized in a big development project, organized as a purely residential community with hoa fees and gates and community pools/golf clubs, or organized as a natural extension to the city and include spaces for business and schools) make it so that two places can both be suburban but have very different problems.
And then of course you have demographics as a major confounding variable. In suburban Cleveland in the 50s and 60s almost every house was occupied by a nuclear family with school-aged kids, most men were actively employed (mostly unionized blue collar workers in eg steel). But the rust belt happened, people started living longer and stopped having so many kids, upper middle class people started preferring bigger houses, etc. so now that community is significantly more elderly, fragmented, and not really upper-middle-class any more despite the suburb itself not changing much. Similarly, Palo Alto is not really built that differently from many nice parts of Florida, but the culture is completely different from the physically-similar communities in Florida, because one place has lots of upwardly mobile people in tech/finance/affiliated with Stanford, and the other is a retirement destination.
I guess my point is that "suburban problems" are oftentimes just "problems in suburbs" or "a problem in that suburb" or "a problem with that kind of suburb", not "problems with suburbs in general". Suburbs can have a sense of community but their residents need to want that and make it happen.
And just as true: being a city does not by itself make for good communities. Residents need to want to make that happen—as in this story in TFA. If they don't want it, most cities are just as poorly designed for more-than-cursory spontaneous interaction as most suburbs.
Just not so.
My neighborhood has a tradition of summer “wine walks” even though homes are widely spaced. It’s not about place, it’s about attitude.
So I live in a big city in the beltline area around the core and the problem is it's a car culture and we all have detached garages. This means a big majority never use their front door, they enter their garage via the alley and go in the back. The suburbs typically have garages at the front and people who are driving to work are likely to leave and return at the same time so this increases the odds of bumping into your neighbor.
The equalizers: dogs and younger kids. Dog walkers seem to fall into 2 camps: friendly and most definitely not friendly; the former give you lots of chances to have a casual conversation. Young kids are likely to be playing out front too.
I'm sure other cities have this too, but we have an annual neighbor day that only takes a little bit of effort and bravery to kick start this sort of community: https://www.calgary.ca/events/neighbour-day.html?redirect=/n...
I live in a big suburb outside downtown Denver with the alley situation you describe but we have a thriving community with monthly or bi-monthly events. Previously lived in the Bay Area for 15 years.
Factors that help:
-Every house is within two small blocks of a park.
-We don’t have individual mailboxes so most people walk to the park daily as part of the USPS CBU initiative
-Every park has a different theme and two different age appropriate activities
-Walking trails around the suburb
-Amazing community pools
-Very well run HOA with transparent communication, minimal intervention, low ($50) monthly dues.
-High number of families with young children
-Walkable grocery store and bike paths
I know all my immediate neighbors, and am great friends with one, and amiable with all the others. You just have to not be shy, I have a type A personality so not afraid to walk over and say howdy. Most people are good with small talk if you open. Not everyone wants to be your best friend and I keep that in mind, but would rather say hello than a total stranger.
It really depends on the suburb. American ones are mostly garbage for social interaction, but I just moved to one (Houten, NL) that is really good for this.
The key, of course, is to get cars away from people so that the streets (or bike paths and gardens in my case) are a place for humans, where it's comfortable to chat, let your kids run around, etc.
I now live in a suburb and it’s plenty social. We baked cookies and took them to every house up and down the block when we moved in and we greet new neighbors with treats when there’s turnover. We also exchange holiday cards and cookies every year. We either know or recognize most people within a few blocks and we have become friends with a few families that also have kids the age of ours whom we met at the neighborhood park. Suburbs can be great!
Is that your lived experience of the suburbs, or just what you've been led to believe on online forums filled with both a) city dwellers, b) angsty teens?
As someone who lives in the suburbs it threw me because it's so rare for anyone to acknowledge any positive of the suburbs. The suburbs are always some lifeless dystopia where we all drink away our days and wish we could visit the bodega and get a fresh baguette or something.
Here in suburbia in an exurb, everyone knows each other. We have regular street parties. All of the kids play games together frequently.
My suburban neighborhood here in the bay area is mostly cul-de-sacs, and on the 4th of July about half of them close off the entrance to non-residents/family, and have a collective BBQ in the middle of the circle. Several of our neighbors are musicians, so we get live music from people we know, and we all know how to cook up good stuff for the party. It's genuinely a lot of fun, and I look forward to it every year.
I see a fair amount of that here in Sacramento. People having block parties, chairs out in the driveways, etc. One of the newer neighborhoods in the area seems like it was designed with this in mine as well. '
It's been a lot of fun. We know our neighbors, people are frequently out walking, talking to each other, and so on.
yup, they probably mean small town/village life as opposed to suburbs, which is what this community has come to resemble, which is what they wanted so a great success, even if the terminology was off.
I believe it's both/and.
Cities are that too dense (Manhattan) don't have the space to do "stoop coffee" or equivalent. Everybody is in a tall apartment.
The cookie-cutter suburb is too spread out and too car-dependent. You could have "stoop coffee" but your neighbors are in their cars, so don't stop to talk.
An older bedroom community, or smaller city with single family dwellings (row homes or tightly-packed detached) hits the balance - enough people on foot, enough space to spread out and not block the sidewalk.
I live in Chicago, in a denser part, and we have all the things you mention.
I think this idea that a “city” is like Manhattan just doesn’t hold up in the US. Manhattan is approaching unique here and there are places in Manhattan that could be described by your ideal.
Yeah that was kinda the point. :shrug:
> in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this
I think you had a bad experience. The center of activity isn't the street in the suburbs - its schools, churches, events, etc...
The running joke is that nobody in NYC knows their neighbors.
In a sense, you no longer need to since you now have thousands of people within about a dozen-suburban-house's distance away.
Hard agree. Especially in widely spaced suburban/exurban neighborhoods that mysteriously lack sidewalks and have suspiciously wide roads.
my cynical take on this is that the suburban gentrifiers appear to have replicated behaviors of the people they displaced....
It's not like communal behaviors or venues in SF/Oakland/Berkeley did not exist prior to 2025...
Would still benefit from eventually moving the initial meetup group to a green space, especially if there can be a community garden to work on (yes I realize we are re-inventing the wheel of a village)
I think it's a classic "grass is greener" story. If they haven't lived in the suburbs, they might think it's got elements it doesn't actually have.
It's not just about where you live, but how you choose to show up in that space
Depends on your burb but yes in general this seems to be the case these days.
Little boxes on a hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on a hillside
And they all look just the same.
Ya, came here to say the same thing and I'm glad others are similarly surprised.
I do think that people who live in the most downtown of downtown areas are more similar to cul-de-sac style suburb dwellers, because there's often a similar kind of implied distance to third-spaces that people want to be in, as if taking the elevator down is equivalent to getting in the car and driving somewhere, and being elevated is like having your fenced off yard in a way, but there's so much more to urban spaces that include skyscrapers than there is in suburbs that include cul-de-sac car centric hellscapes, imo.
If you move to the city from a particularly isolated suburb, please leave the social isolation where you came from, and do what you can to just be present and open to conversation, it's amazing how it feels to be connected to people that you can by on the street because you're both going to the train stop or cafe, and it's this sense of connectedness that makes the thought of moving back to my hometown quite repulsive, despite the individuals who live there otherwise being alright
Community is as community does.
100% same here!
I came here to say the same. Sense of community in the suburbs? That has not been my experience and tends to be one of the main complaints about the suburbs.
I'm the co-author of Supernuclear and editor of this post. We've been writing the blog for almost five years now, you never know what will go viral!
I've spent my adult life living in Istanbul, New York, San Francisco, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In Istanbul it sometimes felt like my neighbors knew too much about me - they would comment on who slept over (I had a lot of friends visit!) and once when I went out of town for a week my landlady said she nearly let herself into my home to make sure I hadn't died because no one had seen me in a few days. That being said, it was also comforting to know, 5000 miles from my home and my family, that people around me cared about my wellbeing and my whereabouts.
And this is the thing those of us who live in the US sometimes forget: knowing your neighbors isn't just about being able to borrow cup of sugar when you're out. It's about knowing someone will share their generator when a hurricane has knocked your power out. It's about someone noticing when something looks off and coming over to knock and make sure you're ok. We aren't just happier when we get to know our neighbors better, we're safer.
Greetings from Istanbul. Unfortunately what you describe in your blog post sounds impossible to me in (at least many districts of) Istanbul. The only place to "socialize" in a neighborhood is to sit at coffee shops.
I lived on a street in Cihangir for three years. In the walk to and from work I'd pass several shops and cafes, and got to know all of the owners and regulars.
Cihangir is kinda an exception though, where most expats live. I also lived there!
Happy reader for a while. For HN readers, if you want to have a setup where you live near friends and/or family, check their posts: https://supernuclear.substack.com/archive?sort=top
> they would comment on who slept over
> landlady said she nearly let herself into my home to make sure I hadn't died because no one had seen me in a few days.
You sound way less bothered by that than I would be. I'm annoyed just reading it.
I’ve lived in scenarios where people saying either of these things would be a huge violation, and I’ve lived in scenarios where people saying either of these things would be natural.
Living in the latter scenario is a far better place, and nothing like, the former scenario.
100% agree! We had moved to a smaller community in New England and was eating an early dinner when we got a single knock on the door. Before we could get up, the UPS driver opened our door to place the packages inside (and out of the snow). He waved and welcomed us and then off we went. It was a bit odd, but then we realized this was a special place that we would come to love and we did.
I think it's a genuine concern as a landlord. Do you want to have a rotting corpse in your house/neighborhood just sitting there?
Well, you should be able to leave for a week without having to tell your neighbors all about it. It may be different for old weak people who are unlikely to just go to vacation all of a sudden.
While that might be the case, a 'landlord' can't just enter a house or apartment.
>isn't just about being able to borrow cup of sugar
this in particular is interesting to me because you used it to illustrate the minimum level of neighborly engagement, but I think many of us don't even reach that level. I for one would never think of asking my neighbor for cooking ingredients; in fact the idea of going over and knocking on their door for any purpose is almost inconceivable to me unless there was a medical emergency.
Not saying my mindset is right or even healthy, but that's how it is. There's a lot of work to be done.
Thanks for your work - too bad I started reading the article and as a popup appeared over it, I had to close it.
Really heart warming story. My 2 cents:
The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.
No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat.
Eventually, newer members will feel too far behind the current discussions, and too socially exhausting to show up to meetups. I've seen these eventually get to 400+ members, many of whom don't live in the city anymore.
The best group I've ever been part of had a simple rule that worked amazingly: If you don't show up to an event at least once a month, you were removed from the whatsapp group. It keeps the group small, and comfortable, and it never felt intrusive to send a quick "Whats everyone up to today?" into the group chat.
>while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board
It sounded to me like that’s been the intention since it was started. The in person meetings are the point and the whatsapp group exists to facilitate that.
> The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.
The way to minimize this fear is by encouraging members to send welcoming messages to those new to the community. Celebrate the growth instead of fearing the unknown.
> No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat.
If new members are made aware that sending a message to the group is perfectly acceptable, then there will be trepidation.
Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.
> Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.
This is not a group, we’re not all receiving a notification because of your message.
The context of what I said is important, even though I now realize I did not include the important determiner "less" (which I will add below).
>> If new members are made aware that sending a message to the group is perfectly acceptable, then there will be [less] trepidation.
>> Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.
> This is not a group, we’re not all receiving a notification because of your message.
My point was taking the risk of putting oneself "out there" for a group to see, not notification policies.
> Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.
Under an anonymous account to people you don’t have to see in person.
>> Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.
> Under an anonymous account to people you don’t have to see in person.
Does this lessen the fear of being rebuked when sharing thoughts in a public forum one values?
Perhaps it would for people whom enjoy trolling. I do not and have no reason to think you do either.
So we are left to stand on what we post here, with no other connection, no other commonality, only to accept each other for the thoughts we exchange.
> Does this lessen the fear of being rebuked when sharing thoughts in a public forum one values?
Absolutely. There is no threat of permanent harm. You just lose your karma count and make a new account
> Perhaps it would for people whom enjoy trolling. I do not and have no reason to think you do either.
Not related to trolling at all. It’s about being able to express opinions you genuinely believe without fear of effectively permanent retribution.
The protection that offers this is abused by trolls, but it doesn’t mean you don’t benefit from it when you are not a troll.
Think about something as basic as a gay man publishing about being gay while living in a country where that is illegal.
> So we are left to stand on what we post here, with no other connection, no other commonality, only to accept each other for the thoughts we exchange
We’re comparing to WhatsApp with your neighbors where everything you have said can be used against you in real life, reported to your employer, church, etc. It’s nothing like posting on an anonymous forum only attached to real life voluntarily and without verification
>> Does this lessen the fear of being rebuked when sharing thoughts in a public forum one values?
> Absolutely. There is no threat of permanent harm. You just lose your karma count and make a new account
This is a myopic definition of harm and one whose identified remedy is trivialization.
>> So we are left to stand on what we post here, with no other connection, no other commonality, only to accept each other for the thoughts we exchange
I was referring to interaction in this forum.
> We’re comparing to WhatsApp with your neighbors where everything you have said can be used against you in real life, reported to your employer, church, etc. It’s nothing like posting on an anonymous forum only attached to real life voluntarily and without verification
Everything a person SMS's, email, and/or speaks with neighbors "can be used against you in real life, reported to your employer, church, etc."
The medium used does not negate the possibility of treachery.
Finally:
To which I retort; think about something as basic as an introvert making public their thoughts for unknown people to analyze, dissect, and formulate whatever response they like.Maybe the severity of risks are specific to those who undertake them?
An introvert engaging in a conversation is not the same level of harm as someone’s life being destroyed because they are outed to a government.
> Maybe the severity of risks are specific to those who undertake them?
No. Your feelings getting hurt because someone said something mean about something you said that isn’t even attributable to your real identity is extremely low risk.
Often noted in other contexts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
The WhatsApp group isn't the point though, seems largely secondary. This would continue to exist with or without the group.
> The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.
I'd like to see an analysis of how and when group chats get so big they start to die.
This seems unnecessarily harsh toward people who like to travel.
I doubt you'd have much of an issue rejoining the group.
Yeah should've mentioned that, super easy to rejoin, just trying to prevent bloat
It’s harsh to be removed from a group chat around an event that you don’t attend monthly?
What would be your personal threshold for non-harsh?
I'm saying that I would generally avoid such a paradigm if I'm trying to make real, lasting friends and build a strong local community, given that I might disappear or travel for a month at a time.
It's great if other people are finding enjoyment in such a process, but it doesn't fulfill my personal goals, and it does indeed come across as harsh and unwelcoming toward non-hyperlocal or family-oriented people.
What would be your personal threshold for non-harsh?
That's a good question, I think it would have to be tuned around the size of the community and scale/frequency of activities, so it's hard to give a single number as a "persona" threshold.
I've been involved in creating local meetup groups before, I've found good people but I've also had these groups explode and turn into cliquey nightmares with people vying for soft power. I've personally had a relationship destroyed and have seen other relationships be destroyed because of these kinds of people. I've also started several online communities over the years since I was a child.
These experiences have made me think deeply about the role of moderation in communities, as well as the balance between preserving old institutions and allowing new ones to take root without alienating parts of the community.
So, to your point, I think it depends. Would the community suffer more from old-timers being cycled out too easily, or is it the kind of community where current participation matters most?
A primarily activity-based club might be ready to cut people more quickly, as they have a solid foundation for the group, perhaps even a charter, typically have specific leadership structure, and members can be interchangeable.
Whereas a certain kind of social group might value seniority and preservation of long-time members, and wouldn't want to cut them out of the conversation during periods of inactivity.
Maybe OP's group's limit of 1 month works well. Personally, for a social group, I'd consider 6-12 months to be on the short end of the scale.
I think things could also 'creep' in the other direction where the group communication becomes overwhelming. The article mentions that someone actually sold an item through the WhatsApp group. My worry would be that the WhatsApp group becomes and meetings turn into Craigslist, where it's people looking for dogsitters and Buy Nothing posts.
The point, if I have one, is that editing and saying no, especially with the technology, will help the group stay together. In person, obviously, neighbors can talk about whatever they like.
In my opinion a broadcast/newsletter would be the better fit for group communication.
Not coincidentally about the size of a US infantry company...
This rules. I want to do it, but I know I can't personally, because I'm not awake at the hour people normally want coffee. Maybe I can figure out stoop whiskey.
Another thing that works for meeting and talking to your neighbors, and has the benefit of attaching you to people who live blocks away from you and not just the people you see getting into the car every morning, is local politics. I've met more people being engaged in local politics than I have through any other activity, including work.
My guess is that civic engagement across the United States works pretty much the way it does where I live in Chicagoland, which is that somewhere there is a message board, Facebook group, or mailing list, and you get engaged by joining it, getting the vibe, and then participating in the discussion --- it's very much (alarmingly much) like getting comfortable on Hacker News. Except you do it well and you can change laws.
The real magic seems to be less about the coffee and more about just showing up consistently and being visible
Your neighbours are likely absolutely game for stoop whisky.
My neighbours do this from time time, a tradition started during the pandemic.
Use some cones to block off a parking spot. Set up some chairs and a table. Hang out and have some drinks in the evening and catch up on the neighbourhood gossip.
> Maybe I can figure out stoop whiskey.
You can figure it out. You’ll also figure out how much you actually want to do it vs. how much you like the idea of doing it.
You 100% can do stoop whiskey! Or simply hanging outside with whatever beverage. My block in Brooklyn has a lot more stoop whiskey than coffee but also has a really strong neighborhood feel (and whatsapp chat). I feel lucky to have moved into an already vibrant community but also believe anyone can create this anywhere.
If you figure out stoop whiskey, let me know. I'm all in for sure on the idea.
What is there to figure out?!
It’s just an excuse to let themselves off the hook when they don’t take any action.
Haha. I really like your observational cynicism, Paul.
when/where I should start drinking whiskey
My uncle does thirsty Thursday every week on his porch in his small town. People bring beer from all around.
It definitely works.
I saw this and did a double-take - I live in the neighborhood and am fortunate enough to be a part of this community. Patty, Tyler, and Luke have done a tremendous job of creating a communal bond that makes everyone feel valued & welcome.
I now know 50+ people who live within ~2 blocks from me, who've gone from "random strangers" to "friendly neighbors" that I run into semi-randomly.
Just curious, what neighborhood is this?
Its roughly a 2x2 block area of The Mission (not a hard boundary to participating, but almost everyone lives in it). I won't get more specific than that in case the author doesn't feel comfortable since it wasn't mentioned in her post.
Cool! I live close to Valencia/17th. Was just wondering if it was somewhere in my area: the houses looked Missiony but I couldn’t immediately place them.
I'm so envious! I love browsing the books at Community Thrift, but most days I don't have time to walk that far.
That shop is great! I've found a variety of treasures there over the last few years, including a mint-condition red leather recliner for $150 and a 60's era Soviet toy house. My favorite was a beautifully executed, life-sized oil painting of a nude; it started at $1200 and went down to $200 over the course of a few weeks, at which point I just had to buy it despite not really having the wall space to hang it up. I wanted to find out more about the subject, so I Googled the artist's signature, found the painting on his website, and reached out to chat. Turns out the painting had been stolen from his friend's house decades ago and he'd been looking for it ever since! We met up after he told me his story and I "sold" the painting back to him for the listing price; he left me a very generous tip and an art book. (See "The Platonic Friend" at https://www.kevinkearney.org/portfolio/figures.)
hi neighbor! i had the same thought.. looks so familiar. must be nearby
aha! i geoguessed it. i live only 2 blocks away. would love if someone could email me the whatsapp link. usmann@usmannkhan.com
From the pictures it looks like it could be NoPa
It’s Mission Dolores
A lot of the people participating probably had some cliche in mind like Burning Man or Bay to Breakers that takes away from the authenticity of it.
They could have started having a group meeting up at Dolores Park. It would have just been one of many.
These are nice though.
Are you basing this off any concrete evidence, or just your assumptions about what people who live in the Mission must be like?
When people say "you can just do things" this is what they mean. Fun article, I hope everyone reading this who wishes they had something like it in their neighborhood starts this weekend by inviting their nearest friend for coffee on the stoop.
These people are anarchists! No really, they are. The stoop coffee to "It takes the hood to save the hood" pipeline is real.
"anarchism is when you talk to your neighbors and do things that don't require permission in the first place"
Haha, I came here to post this and I was beaten! This is one of the clearest expressions of anarchist praxis I've seen in a while. (Of course, people will not understand this, because anarchism is seen as a weird, deviant, punk subculture.)
Phil, editor of the Supernuclear Substack here. I wasn't expecting "hanging out on stoops" to boot AI out of the #1 slot on Hacker News :) Glad this resonated for folks
A great way of kick-starting stoop culture is having a friend or family member live right next door.
We started a company called Live Near Friends (https://livenearfriends.com) to help people do this.
could I please just browse live near friends without logging in? signing-in/signing-up feels like too much effort to just browse
try this: https://app.livenearfriends.com/hfc/home?dfm=Bay+Area
pff wish i knew abt this last year!
what happened last year?
bought a house, not as cool as these!
During COVID, the block I live on in San Francisco started doing outdoor happy hours every Saturday afternoon. People weren't traveling much then, so we had near 100% attendance of every person on the block for almost a year. I went from knowing none of my neighbors to knowing all of them quite well, and it has surprised me how much it has improved my day-to-day happiness.
Since then, we've hosted a "progressive" Thanksgiving dinner, which moves from house-to-house on the block for different courses. We shut down the street one day each year and set up bounce houses for the kids. I've made pint glasses with the name our street engraved in them, and given them to my neighbors. It's shown me that there really can be something valuable outside of your immediate family and circle of friends.
Getting to know your neighbors is an essential part of building a safety net, too. It makes us healthier and happier!
I’m from a small town in Spain, about 800 people small, and this is what everyone would do every night during the summer, each group hanging out in different spots with different gangs, lol. It was just a way to chat with your neighbors.
Sadly, this has mostly disappeared, but I think it’s a good example of how the sense of community in Spain differs from that in the U.S. And this feeling isn’t limited to small towns, you can find it in big cities too somehow.
Without knowing for sure, I’m almost certain that people in southern Italy and Greece do the exact same thing.
Also used to be very common in Hungarian villages, basically houses would have benches in front of the fences facing the street and people would hang out there in the afternoon. As a kid I remember watching the cows get herded back from the field while sitting there, people biking and saying hi, on the way to and from the store etc.
Nowadays this is mostly dead even in villages. Old grannies watch daytime TV Turkish soap operas, younger folks are on their phones, they anyway work in the nearby towns etc.
>Sadly, this has mostly disappeared, but I think it’s a good example of how the sense of community in Spain differs from that in the U.S.
The first part of your sentence disagrees with the second
I remember seeing a documentary or a video clip of this being followed. I don't recall whether or not it was in Spain, but it was definitely a Spanish-speaking village. That clip came to my mind when I read this post.
I’m also from a small town in Spain, ~600 people.
And while it’s not as popular as before it’s still going strong in summer.
I’m Catalan so we call it “la fresca”, translates to “to the fresh air”.
In my street, ~5-10 people, my mother and some neighbours still do it.
The way towns are build in spain facilitate that, single houses but no garden. We live door by door.
So if you want to be outside you are by definition accesible.
Before TV people used to also be a lot in the balcony just chilling and chatting with people passing by.
This is my street in google mapa in case someone is interested:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps/@4...
My town is also in Catalunya, 60 miles north of yours :)
This is random, but I’m wondering why if you’re both Spanish why use miles and not km?
This is such a wholesome post. It also shows how much agency we can have in our local community. It reminded me of the Derek Sivers story[0] about the dancing man and the first follower when I read the part about the first person (Luke) joining them.
[0] - https://sive.rs/ff
Yes! Awesome Sivers post.
Ah nice, you've invented southern Europe!
Seriously though, great concept and keep it going :)
Was just about to write.
My 69-year old neighbour just knocks on my door at random interval and asks if I want a coffee.
* I had an 80 year old neighbour as well, but she got sick and moved in with her daughter.
> My 69-year old neighbour just knocks on my door at random interval and asks if I want a coffee.
That is a dream of mine that I have yet to make happen.
Don't let your dreams be dreams! Go knock on their door and ask them if they want a coffee.
In my situation they would probably not respond, and then submit a complaint through the HOA
Maybe your neighbor is scared of the same thing happening if they knock on your door... so neither makes the first move :(
What have we done to the human experience. smh
I know. I do more and more initiate conversation but knocking on a door of someone I don’t know yet even a bit is a bit scary honestly.
I am Indian. Not sure if this is because there are too many of us but except for part of cities these days, social connections like these are normal.
I have at least a dozen neighbours, I can walk in (uninvited), have tea and gossip. And not all of them are necessarily my friends. Some are.
Pretty much everyone I know has their little neighbourhood circle like this.
Yeah I'm like, you know who's good at hanging out on the stoop, poor people (Southern US). It's a little funny that's all.
I love these stories. My adult home city feels off compared to where I grew up in terms of neighborly-ness. So while I'm not a coffee drinker, I have been doing the pancake breakfast thing monthly in my front lawn/driveway for a decade, also an annual crawfish boil that is a big draw for the surrounding neighborhood (probably 300 people show up, free beer never hurts attendance)
FWIW, I live in a mid-century suburb that's now part of the urban core but also still very low density and single family housing oriented. The challenge is that there is a huge disparity of the census in a neighborhood like this. You have 90 year old people who raised their kids long ago and you have newly married folks who bought their first home. You even have some people who are just renting houses and don't really care about getting to know their neighbors. Unlike in the the newer exurb/suburbs where most people are raising family and all going through similar life phases, or in the denser part of the city where most people are single or DINKs. It's also varies alot by when you moved here, because it started out as a very affordable middle class neighborhood and is now extremely affluent with people building new construction multimillion dollar McMansions, etc. Anywho, it's been a good way to get people into a super casual setting and let them get to know each other. It certainly feels more like 'home' to me now.
I'm glad to hear a story of someone constructing a community they enjoy. And this approach does have the virtue of drawing in the kinds of people who are enthusiastically interested, rather than those who aren't.
In general, I and most people I know have largely found more fun and more sense of community in groups whose membership arises from intentional joining through some common interest, rather than groups whose membership arises from happenstance. Or, in short: you choose your friends, but you don't choose your neighbors.
This is so endearing. I've been at odds with my HOA [board] since I moved in and its a decades long tale of my community where everyone is treated poorly by our HOA.
I've asked the board for block parties annually, and events semi annually and theyve rejected it over and over again. Meanwhile I miss this type of community that I had in every building I lived in around NYC before moving to the mountains
If everyone is treated poorly by the HOA, you should be able to get them together and dissolve the HOA. Read the documents, there should be a procedure for dissolution.
Depending on the location, the way to dissolve an HOA is nearly impossible. You need to find out what to do with community assets (in a condo situation, this is not possible), and you also usually need somewhere between 75-100% of all members voting 'yes' (not just present voting). If it's 100% of all members, just a single uncooperative board member could prevent dissolution.
Are you an owner? the hoa is not the board - it’s the entirety of the home owners who can vote and amend any rules at any time with enough momentum and support.
Yea totally. I am an owner and I've been fighting with the board for 3 years over failure to hold elections, and inconsistent treatment of members / rules.
I have a lawyer, have won my first battle already but it cost me $6k out of pocket (and the HOA $25k) for something that should have never happened.
Next step is to expose the board and get people to turn out to vote, sadly there are unelected members on the board since 1995, and not enough turn out for a quorum so I am a bit hamstrung
For the non-native ESL speakers like me, a 'stoop' is apparently the steps or porch leading up to a building entrance. The lack of an actual stoop further added to my initial confusion with this new word.
Very cool! So often we complain about a lack of community. These guys really show the whole 'be the change you want to see in this world'. I also loved the concept of let's just bring a few extra chairs as an ice breaker.
Anarchism in action, baby! (Not "the purge" style anarchism, anarchism in the "self organizing to build nice things" style.)
Turns out that this is the fundamental nature of people. People want to feel connected. People want do to nice things for one another. Bonding and socialization is the natural state for people.
Organizing doesn't have to be hard, and often, the best organizing is just doing something visible and inviting anyone who is coming by to participate.
We live in a mid sized city in the midwest, typical city block with single family homes. Folks keep to themselves a bit - not everyone, but enough that you have to make an effort to connect with neighbors.
My son and I had the idea that we should just organize a block party. I think this was in early 2021 after covid was letting up a bit. He was 7 years old and said we should get a food truck to come.
So that's what we did. Made homemade invitations and handed them out to a couple blocks around us and sent out emails to friends.
I think we had like 75 people show up to the first one! It was great. Had a taco truck come, and the local fire station rolled the engine by for the kids.
Blocked off the street so everyone could sit together and the kids could run around without worrying about traffic.
We've been trying to do this every 6 months or so since then. Great way to meet tons of folks in the immediate vicinity and strike up some new friendships - highly recommend it.
A spreadsheet is not very "community". And most definitely, demanding you to suddenly allow extreme surveillence against you, and to also own a smartphone, and to also install things on the smartphone and be physically able to do so as well, is most DEFINITELY not a "community". By this definition of talking to your immediate neighbors and knowing the whole neighborhood and whatnot.
It's interesting how different people can be, and what energizes us. The coffee on the stoop seems incredibly nice, and I love that they acknowledge that the simplest events are some of the best ones. Once they start taking about "watch parties" and potlucks I personally check out completely, that's way too much for me. The less official stuff sound really great though, just sitting down for one cup of coffees time, or just a beer or two at the end of the week.
You say the 'watch parties' are too much, but these are actually the events that are the best. They are at 8p, people come over when their kids are in bed, we have 4-10 people show up, everyone's in their sweat pants, and we watch a TV episode. We discuss it for 10-15m afterwards, and we generally part ways.
It's such a low-effort and small event, and it allows people to get into other people's homes in a low-judgement way. It's been one of the more successful events at getting neighbors to become friends with each other.
> We discuss it for 10-15m afterwards
Yeah, that sounds awful. That's the great part though, everyone can participate on their own terms. Do the stoop coffee, do the watch parties, whatever they feel energizes them and brings joy.
It's such a great initiative.
Surely it's just very individual? Watch party of that kind sounds like something I'd never wish to do, but I'd gladly hang out outside for a beer or two.
I think the key is to keep things as low-effort as possible for both the organizers and the guests. One good way is to have some sort of recurring event, say movie night or drinks or whatever, happen every X day, with no coordination or input needed, just show up. Another is to live close enough together that people bump into each other and just start doing things. Even the smallest amount of planning/coordinating/etc is friction, and friction will eventually stop anything.
When you start to look at the bigger picture - relationships, aging, childcare, morals, help for the needy, etc - you realize you just want to reconstruct a mildly religious community from the pre-industrial age.
Not that it would ever be enforced against these people (and not like I agree with the ordinance existing at all) but the “typical weekend stoop hang” seems like it would definitely be illegal by a strict reading of San Francisco Police Code §168 a.k.a the “sit/lie law”: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/san_francisco/latest/s...
=======
> Present laws that prohibit the intentional, willful or malicious obstruction of pedestrians do not adequately address the safety hazards, disruption and deterrence to pedestrian traffic caused by persons sitting or lying on sidewalks.
> (b) Prohibition. In the City and County of San Francisco, during the hours between seven (7:00) a.m. and eleven (11:00) p.m., it is unlawful to sit or lie down upon a public sidewalk, or any object placed upon a public sidewalk.
> (c) Exceptions. The prohibitions in Subsection (b) shall not apply to any person:
> 1. Sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk due to a medical emergency;
> 2. Using a wheelchair, walker, or similar device as the result of a disability;
> 3. Operating or patronizing a commercial establishment conducted on the public sidewalk pursuant to a sidewalk use permit;
> 4. Participating in or attending a parade, festival, performance, rally, demonstration, meeting, or similar event conducted on the public sidewalk pursuant to and in compliance with a street use or other applicable permit;
> 5. Sitting on a fixed chair or bench located on the public sidewalk supplied by a public agency or by the abutting private property owner;
> 6. Sitting in line for goods or services unless the person or person's possessions impede the ability of pedestrians to travel along the length of the sidewalk or enter a doorway or other entrance alongside the sidewalk;
> 7. Who is a child seated in a stroller; or
> 8. Who is in an area designated as a Pavement to Parks project.
Classic example of the hidden costs of well intentioned regulation.
Well-intentioned? This is I’m just anti-homeless legislation.
Does this get covered in the post, "in front of neighbours drive" then one is covered by 5, no?
or by the abutting private property owner;
Those are all folding/portable chairs, not fixed chairs. There are a few fixed benches built into the sidewalk in front of a few houses in my neighborhood, and 5 would apply to them. I'm also curious how this could be interpreted for someone who is merely a renter and not the private property owner.
edit: LOL they edited it out in response to my comment. There was a photo of a circle of folding chairs between the first selfie and the pancake party photo: https://i.imgur.com/Ygd8Of6.png
> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco.
That is not my experience at all! Growing up in Brooklyn, hanging out on the stoop was a major social scene. (Also a factor: no AC indoors, which meant going outside for cool air) Now, in the suburbs, the homes are too far apart to have adhoc convos. Also, in many places the absence of sidewalks makes walking over to others' homes prohibitive.
THIS. To paraphrase Napoleon: For having a real community, the people are to the housing geometry as three to one.
This is great!
As a renter that is priced out of the market where I want to live/work, the greatest obstacle I've seen to long term communities are "transplants" or those who live for a few years and move. It is difficult living in a community where the overwhelming majority of your neighbors are all cycled in 5 years. We've found "transplants" are effectively anonymous :/
You can create a community in a neighbourhood like this. Five years is a pretty long time. People will come and go but if you spend even an hour per month with neighbours and other people reciprocate, it will build a community that transcends individuals coming & going. Think of a university campus: community forms there in far fewer than 5 years through regular casual interactions.
Super amused that something so "deep Spain" (specifically from my region) arises in other places too:
https://es-euronews-com.translate.goog/2022/07/12/salir-al-f...
I think this is something very general, houses in Romanian villages have benches in front of them where people used to gather like this, in the summer this was somehow the norm, less now, but it's still happening. One of the other options was either the bar or probably church.
Luke reminds me of the First Follower phenomenon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ).
Yeah was going to see, he's the real MVP.
This is cool, it reminds me of some events in my home state.
One is called Porch fest, and it is city-wide event: https://www.carmelporchfest.org/faq
Another is a community event in South Bend, IN where people collectively organized a big art/music event in backyards, that spread and covered a fairly large area. I think it was originally back yards, then someone with a large wooded property moved the event there, as it grew too large? https://www.instagram.com/yart_southbend
Also reminded of porch hangouts that happened by necessity during covid to allow socializing while masked/outdoors to reduce risk of larger groups of people gathering indoors.
I love this and I'm not trying to be a downer, but I do think it's funny that 'go outside and talk to your neighbors' is an innovative idea in 20xx
This seems so foreign for someone living in Norway. The "what kind of weirdo are you" - vibe would be so real if someone did this.
Germany as well.
Rented a house with friends in sf in 2016. We created a facebook group for our neighborhood, put up signs, and very quickly had a similar experience. A few neighbors over for drinks one night, hosted a weekend bbq a few weeks later. Quickly got to know a lot of people on my immediate block. One guy fixed my bike. An older woman called me when her fire alarm was intermittently beepting, to see if I could fix it. Had a few other events through the group, they were a highlight of the year. Made it clear to me how much latent desire there is for connection / friends from your neighbors.
I've been organizing a weekly morning coffee session in Astoria, Queens for the last 2 (or 3?) years. The morning coffees are connected to our local tech community's series of meetups, but they aren't hyper-focused on tech and they don't have an agenda. Just a chance to meet neighbors.
It's really been beneficial for me and my family, who aren't from here, to get to know more people in the neighborhood. These days I feel like it's a rarity to go outside without bumping into someone we know.
It's also been awesome to see friendships and even collaborations form among people in the group.
I recommend people give it a shot wherever they live. And if you're in NYC, come visit!
Your community is what you make of it. Both suburbs I have lived in were tight knit. With kids now, in my current home, I know most of the parents with kids and we have a WhatsApp group. We host occasional BBQ and play dates and when the community pool is open we schedule time to hang out and swim. That's just scratching the surface at what I see. Other suburban community Diwali, Christmas light drive through etc.
For those who have had a poor experience in the suburbs, unfortunately that is on you. The author here created stoops and you could have organized something too.
For the political side of this, a good next step is to have a few peoples assemblies anyone can attend, where issues are voted on.
In my ideal world, these votes would be the "law" of the land. But currently, you'd have to send the results to whatever government is in power. What is and isn't allowed in a particular area should be decided by the local community.
If you do it too often, you won't get a representative picture of the entire community just those who have both time on their hands and either an ax to grind or are somehow very invested. This is a very typical failure mode. The people who are extremely active in such matters don't have an average personality profile. You know what I mean if you've ever used Nextdoor. Also if there are constant meetings and votes, regular people won't know when something important is being decided. It's a typical trick to hide important stuff among lots of other minor things to overwhelm the regular working person and make it impossible to track what's going on. Make the votes frequent enough to be able to course correct if people are dissatisfied, but rare enough so that people can know when they really need to focus on this topic. Maybe choosing a mayor and local representatives every 4 years is too rare, but I also wouldn't want my neighborhood decisions to be captured by some small clique of "in-crowd" who invest hours and hours into getting things there way and obscuring what's happening.
If you look at buildings from before WW2 in NYC vs buildings from the last few decades, one thing that stands out is the balconies. Older suburban houses are similar, with large porches prewar and no porches or enclosed porches in the last few decades. Our architecture has simply evolved out of having spaces where we can sit around and chat with our neighbors.
I admire the tenacity of the OP. If you look at the pictures, they're occupying a space that is clearly unfriendly to their goals.
In cities, I think a lot of the motivation for this change is anti-homeless sentiment: good places to hang out and chat with your neighbors are also good places for homeless people to sleep. But this contributes to increasingly isolating residents as well. It's one of the subtle ways in which the war on the homeless has negatively impacted those in homes as well.
You can just do things
The "New World" is re-discovering what the Balkans / Southern Europe have been doing for decades.
Ha, never knew the Dutch word 'stoep' had an English equivalent in 'stoop'!
Introduced into English most likely through Nieuw Amsterdam / New York.
I think it's sort of sad that this simple act of trust in your community (having coffee and exposing yourself to others) has to be over-analysed and dissected into a blog. Broadening and Deepening events, just dividing the whole act as events it feels like i'm reading a post-mortem on adobe workfront. When the true meaning of that awesome initiative remains the human need for social interaction and the need to be part of something bigger (like a community!). I feel this is poseur-ish and project-managerial to a degree even detailed oriented people will find unauthentic.
I was reading this and thought to myself that I would have stopped at hanging out on the stoop and getting to know my neighbors that walk by. I don't want to yuck their yum, but as an observation, it does seem highly performative and overly organized. Almost like they are trying to proof this out to sell to other communities and eventually make money off of: "buy our community building platform for $20 a month".
My father was born in a small village in Guadalajara, Spain. I remember in the village my grandma and other neighbours tool their chair outside their homes to talk at the end of the day. It is great to see good things coming again. Do it... MORE.
Not everyone wants to hang with everyone. The more charisma you have, the more popular you will be. I question how much this is due to people's charisma versus the norm.
Popularity is a factor of charisma and maybe looks. Not much else.
Great idea, but (as indicated in the article) there are no stoops pictured. A stoop is a series of steps that go to a second level, which makes for way better hang dynamics. Living on a block with stoops is superior to one without because people are far more likely to hang around outside when they can get some height and survey the whole block.
https://www.brownstoner.com/brooklyn-life/brooklyn-stoop-sit...
I went to school in Richmond Va. Our flats had big covered porches. Summers there were brutal. The buildings were brick. While sturdy, bricks are excellent. Storing heat and releasing it slowly. None of us had AC. Porch life dominated. Everyone would sit out. Some folk had gliders. I once sat on porch as Dave Brockie strummed away on guitar working out some of his songs
It struck me that no one really did that in San Francisco. For one there are few if any big front porches. For two the damn cold evening fog chases the women inside. It took me a minute to realize the social life was at the corner boozer.
Based on other comments in this thread it sounds like this takes place in SF’s Mission neighborhood — among other things, the warmest and least foggy area in the city!
I wonder about how to do this in my own, much chillier neighborhood… guess getting started in the summer is a big key (the author hits on the broadening/deepening event split re: weather)
Careful though - remember what George Carlin has to say about forming groups https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m6TSv2vtvQ
I love this concept. I live by a popular head trail, and when I do work in the garage (on my bikes or other projects), I usually keep the door open. That simple thing led to meeting many people from around the neighborhood.
In countries where people are free (almost everywhere except the USA) you can simply open a coffee shop in a "residential district". You have these ridiculous zoning laws so at most you can drive to a Starbucks.
Funny, in countries where people are free (everywhere except your city in Poland) you can use an electric leaf blower to clear your stoop of leaves so neighbors can sit with their coffee.
I'll mention a thing that I learned recently about apartment building design. We were in a building where all the unit entrances faced outward, and after several years only recognized two and knew one other neighbor's name, the guy with mgmt duties.
Then we moved to another building on the same street. This one, all the units face inward towards a courtyard. We know almost everyone by name in this building (a few from the first week!) and often share tips about what is going on nearby, or facilities, send holiday cards, etc. There's an imessage group as well.
The Outershell brand in San Francisco does this on bikes, where a group bikes across the GGB, sets up coffee, drinks coffee, in a beautiful spot in nature. Love this concept though, very accessible!
This is amazing. I am (regretfully) the introverted one in the community that watches as my wife and kids make the most of it. This is something I would love to stumble on. Great read!
We need more of this. People are isolated, afraid, not willing to make the first move. Do it! The worst thing that can happen is you just enjoy your coffee outside, the best - read the article.
oh my god.
I literally walked past this group of people a few weeks ago and thought to myself "I should walk up and introduce myself because they seem like they're having a great time".
But I had to rush past.
Next time!
At the start of Covid lockdown my group at work started having a daily "drinking alone together" afternoon Google Meet.
When that job ended, our household started drinking on our front porch in the afternoons. Soon a few neighbors started doing the same, and we got close enough (15-20 feet) to trade cell numbers. After that we would text back and forth to communicate during "distanced happy hour".
The friendships we made drinking _not_ together have lasted, and we still count those neighbors as friends...
> The First Convert
> We met Luke a month or two after we’d been “stooping” on a regular basis. He came by to introduce himself and asked to exchange numbers so we could let him know if we’d be out there in the future, he’d love to join. At the time we didn’t realize how important this moment was for us. We’d been meeting many neighbors in passing but Luke was the first person to offer to sit with us and he wanted to know how to coordinate. In retrospect we should have been trying to get peoples’ numbers all along but hey, we were new to this!
I feel like the last sentence is a mistake. I think it works way better that they let the first person come up to them first of their own accord. If they'd been pushing for numbers from the get-go, the stoop coffee definitely would have a different feel to it. I think it's important that the first people who want to be there are people who _really_ want to be there, and thus take the initiative to initiate contact. That way you (potentially) start your group with a set of strong connections.
i've walked past y'all on many occasions and thought how cool it was! I had no idea there was such a large group of you :) I'll have to swing by and say hi sometime
California people discover hanging out outside with people.
Yeah that’s actually illegal in the Netherlands. “Hanging”
In Dutch: https://www.politie.nl/informatie/mag-ik-met-mijn-vrienden-r...
Legally it’s still the exception, the municipality has to make it illegal (although I imagine it happens far too often). But hanging in front of one’s house is legal and actually quite common, at least in Amsterdam, much more so than in for ex. Belgium.
Like you see people put benches or even picknick tables in front of their house, which has no garden or clear separation with the pavement. The houses in this street have a back yard, so if you sit down in the front it’s also to be able to hang out in a social space, do people watching and say hi to your neighbours:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.351001,5.0003965,3a,57.6y,52...
i think there's a really valuable app/site to be made that involves discovering people or handling communications literally on your block (i.e hyper local neighborhood). nextdoor is the 1.0 of this that introduced the concept but poorly, and i'm still waiting for a 2.0
i guess it doesn't have to be an app, since whatsapp can handle most of this, but there's a discovery piece that would be missing that this app can somehow handle.
I could not disagree more strongly. I would be appalled at using an app for something better accomplished by a flyer or drinking coffee in front of my house. People live in physical space. "How do I talk to my next-door neighbor?" is not a problem that the internet should be helping with
I wouldn't be so quick to admonish the idea. Neighbours aren't always within talking distance. Even the writers of this article needed to create a WhatApp group, and you can already see the trouble in that. People want to receive messages about things in their neighbourhood, but groups chats cover fixed areas so some people might be on the "edge" of multiple groups. The logical solution here is a digital version of the old church notice boards you see in many towns, allowing people to place and view digital flyers in a certain range of their location.
Sure, if you have a house.
I live in a neighborhood of apartment buildings. I'm always wishing I had a dog (I have cats so it's not an option) or that there was a small neighborhood park to use as a common space. It's hard to get a sense of and connect with people on different floors, or the other end of the hallway, let alone next-door neighbors, just because it's harder to see the same people repeatedly.
I think the point of the article is that you can make this happen even without an app. And I believe the previous poster is trying to make the point that an app will create an low effort impersonal engagement that brings out the worst in people (essentially all these apps will end up as nextdoor). Why not invite the next neighbour you meet for a coffee, or do what the guys in the article have been doing and take a camping chair and sit in front of the building with a coffee on Saturday morning?
I think the point of the article is that you can do this without an app and the previous posters point is that app encourage low effort impersonal interactions instead of the personal community you want. So every app just quickly desolves into another nextdoor. Why don't you try asking the next neighbour you see to have a coffee, or do the same as the people in the article and take a camping chair and a coffee one Saturday morning and sit in front of your building?
From the article itself:
> After a while, we realized it was starting to become unwieldy texting everyone when we were going to be outside. Thus, the WhatsApp group was born.
Tech itself is not _inherently_ dehumanizing or isolating - only when it is used to _replace_ human interaction. When used to enable those high-quality social interactions, it is virtuous.
I agree with you. I like that they mentioned people came by to their larger event by way of the paper invitation. There's something about a paper invitation that signals thoughtfulness and care. You have to print out these things and actually go walk door to door to drop them off. It's not a huge amount of work, but way more than just tapping a button.
I actually have gotten paper invitations from a neighbor on my street for a holiday party at their house and ended up going without having met them before just because it felt good to see it on my door step. Somebody actually took the time (actually, it was their kids) to drop it off.
clearly this isn't working given that this post is highly upvoted as some kind of feat that people sat outside and talked to their neighbors. no one talks to each other, and either way you look at it, certain apps get people out there. love them or hate them, dating apps have made for plenty of encounters possible that otherwise wouldn't be. you can make the argument that they've made society worse, and I might agree with that, but we're already here. we're in the internet/device era where people rely so much on them that we might as well make better versions of the bad ones. i think there could be ways to do it well without making another nextdoor. just needs optimism and imagination
Insert joke that every app eventually evolves into an email (or chat) client?
More seriously, what differentiates your idea (or hope of execution) from NextDoor, and how would the app improve upon WhatsApp or other messaging clients that might already be ubiquitous? (I'm in the U.S. and sadly WhatsApp is not even close to Ubiquitous - but SMS/MMS is.)
Overall how would having to install an app, create an account, sign up, find contacts, etc. improve upon the connections the original article formed through in person meetings in shared space, and the communications they did with an existing communications app?
These days, replace “email client” with “social network.”
Social networks could just be email clients. They're not, because those are hard to put a moat around.
I really don't. Every attempt at an online local community just ends up gathering gigakarens, racists, and complainers.
It seems so obvious now that social media as an entire concept is rotten and that the best way to connect with your community is to actually go outside and talk to people face to face.
The most important part, no matter if it's email, Nextdoor, WhatsApp, is that we can use it to disperse information quickly, and then get off the platform and meet up in person. Our stoop coffees are broadcasted via WhatsApp, and then some people tell their immediate neighbors via text, and then people show up.
Vermont has something sort of like this called Front Porch Forum. It's something I would like to see tried elsewhere.
I love how people rediscovers the concept of "third place" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place). Maybe it is because we got so into technology and COVID that we have started to miss face-to-face human connections.
Amusingly, we live in a high-rise in SF and it's like what people talk about neighbourhood living. We have a Whatsapp group and people meet for ethnic festivals, borrow an egg, or sugar, or flour, or a jump start kit, or an iron. It's honestly quite nice.
It helps that you self-select for the audience by who can afford the building, just like they've done the same with their neighbourhood.
Why is that easier with affluent people?
Perhaps it’s not. Perhaps the people in my building are just particularly pro-social. But that seems self-aggrandizing.
While I was able to find nice things to do and my neighbors have done nice things for me in the Excelsior, the Mission, Glen Park, and the Sunset none of those places had the frequency and scale of this civil interaction.
And certainly my life in the TL was characterized by gladness for lack of negative interaction than by constant positive interactions.
My experience in SF is that some neighborhoods experience greater pro-social behavior than others.
That's my experience in cities, but I don't see it tied to affluence.
I do see a tie to perceived threat - people who feel they are in danger don't want to risk interactions. First, a rule of the street is, 'don't get involved'. Second, you don't know if the person next to you is crazy.
But few places are that dangerous; if you do get to interact, the only varient seems to be the seemingly arbitrary subculture of that particular neighborhood.
>It helps that you self-select for the audience by who can afford the building, just like they've done the same with their neighbourhood.
Heavens forbid we have to break bread with one of the poors.
Did you mean to imply that you only prefer to associate with people that have around as much money as you?
>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
What do you think would be a stronger interpretation of that?
I believe you missed the OPs point. I believe he's suggesting that this couple has it on "easy mode" because of the affluence of the area they already live in. If they tried this same technique in a more working class neighborhood they would likely have a harder time creating and maintaining this group.
>I believe he's suggesting that this couple has it on "easy mode" because of the affluence of the area they already live in.
That's actually even worse than I thought.
Working class neighborhoods already have stuff like this happening. Cookouts and block parties are pretty common! I'm not sure why it would be more difficult if the people were poor.
You're getting dangerously close to describing labor aristocracy when you use established working class communities to suggest that affluent people don't have an easier time starting and maintaining communities. What the original commenter is saying - and they are correct - is that, when you can afford to live in a place, you have way fewer obstacles to starting/maintaining community.
If you have to move every 6 months, work second and third shift, and are constantly having vehicle problems and other emergencies, you are going to have a way harder time. Obviously. Let's not create a mythos of the working class that obfuscates reality.
I am describing my experience living in working class conditions in the rust belt, before moving to the coast.
Describing that as a "mythos of the working class that obfuscates reality" sounds detached from reality, honestly.
>What the original commenter is saying - and they are correct - is that, when you can afford to live in a place, you have way fewer obstacles to starting/maintaining community.
I really don't think that's as big of an issue as you - or the original commenter - are making them out to be.
> I am describing my experience living in working class conditions in the rust belt, before moving to the coast.
> Describing that as a "mythos of the working class that obfuscates reality" sounds detached from reality, honestly.
No, what is detached from reality is asserting lived experience as universal experience. In response to someone benignly acknowledging that their material conditions ease satisfying their social needs, you made an assumption, rather abrasively, that they don't wish to associate with poor people and that they think poor people are incapable of creating/maintaining community.
> I really don't think that's as big of an issue as you - or the original commenter - are making them out to be.
Of course not, your lived experience doesn't allow you to see it that way. But there are experiences other than yours, such as the person in the part of my comment which you didn't quote: they are often stuck building their safety and security in the hierarchy of needs. If your mythos of the working class only includes your experiences rather than a culmination of varying experiences, it obfuscates reality.
>But there are experiences other than yours, such as the person in the part of my comment which you didn't quote: they are often stuck building their safety and security in the hierarchy of needs.
How do you think they do that?
It isn't through rugged individualism, lol
If anything I would say it's the opposite - individuals in less affluent communities are more likely to need the help of their neighbors, and thus interact and form relationships
Correct! I've never been to a crab boil in an affluent neighborhood.
But boy howdy have I been to a lot of them in working class areas.
The format and delivery reminds me of Tree Raves: A Case Study in Social Protocols[1] - here's a series of behaviors you can implement if you'ld like to replicate this type of thing too.
1. https://prigoose.substack.com/p/tree-raves-a-case-study-in-s...
I applaud the community building you've done, but the wealthy SF tech set is never beating the 'reinventing things that already exist' allegations. This is basically a block party only quiet.
This is a real cool thing (probs the best things I have seen this week!). It's great to see our society going back to fundamentals and seeing that hanging out together in simple settings make you feel good and included. Feels like a duh moment but a very needed reminder.
MC Frontalot would approve
Seriously though, “we didn’t have to apply for permits” holds true until you blog about it and HN publishes it on Page 1 and someone contacts Public Health about your dumb electric griddle, or someone tries to monetize something and nearly succeeds.
I love this. I will bookmark / see what I can do once it stops raining everyday in Vancouver
Man, I'd like to do this. My suburb doesn't have much foot-traffic though. I do my best to greet the neighbors, and sometimes chat up people at the coffee shop. Time constraints are a factor when it comes to socializing, as a parent to toddlers.
This is amazing! A few folks on my block in the lower haight started doing something similar during Covid. We’ve met some long term neighbor friends this way that we otherwise may have never met.
Love to know that more of this was going on in the city.
There were towns and cities BEFORE cars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMJaMy-0ChA
You can also wave to your neighbours passing by in their cars.
Porch monkeys? :D
This comment comes across a little dismissive, but this was my exact thought.
What if the people doing this were of another socioeconomic class and were drinking malt liquor? Or even if not imbibing, just smoking a black and mild.
Very interesting thought experiment.
Not a thought experiment. Black people do this or something similar all the time. It’s called loitering or “making the neighborhood look bad”
Getting an outgoing dog has a similar impact. Suddenly on every walk our dog wants to meet their dog and we know neighbors we wouldn’t have otherwise. Even more so than our kids and their neighborhood playmates.
Sorry if it's been said already, but "stoop life" has been a thing in inner cities for... well, forever. It's more common with underprivileged communities in inner cities, so I can see how more affluent people would "suddenly discover" that hanging out on their stoop helps create community. In my experience, where the two intersect, it's usually the more affluent people pissed off that less-affluent (or perhaps "more culturally diverse"?) people are hanging out on the stoop. I've lived in DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and NYC, in multiple neighborhoods in each city, and I assure you, "stoop life" is everywhere, except on the wealthier stoops. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Another thing that helps create community is stoop gardens. People will stop and gather round a stoop garden to marvel at what's being grown. Neighbors will lean out their window to yell a hello at a stoop gardener. I can't recommend it enough.
I live in the suburbs on a busy road. The road is literally a dividing line between the village. One which means we only interact with the neighbors on the other side when there is a car accident.
Now, even better, allow any neighbor to open a legitimate (yet small-scale and cheap) coffee shop or wine bar by-right in the garage space under their SF home.
Yea, one of the problems of USA zoning laws is that very small scale retail/food service businesses are not allowed in the middle of a block. In other more walkable/urban density places businesses will pop up where you can get a coffee and it's not on a "business street". It's where people actually live and gather.
I assume your being facetious?
No? Small businesses like that are what make cities great.
I hope this commenter is being facetious.
How do you read that post and have the first thing in your head be, "Hmm? How can I monetize this?"
If you think “garage coffeeshop” is a fast track to wealth, boy do I have news!
Am I not going to make it in the next YC class with that pitch? Guess it's time to start from square 1
- Subscription model that gives you guides and connects you to vendors to open a 3k garage coffeeshop under a shared name. You can be your own boss and we collect beautiful / plentiful / gracious MRR.
Coffee, reimagined with Ai crypto. Cryoffii.
It's not about monetizing friendship, it's about providing comfortable places where events like this can happen all over the city/country. People want this community but it kinda sucks to do (and mostly won't happen) if you're meeting up monthly on chairs in a city street. If small neighborhood pubs and coffee shops were legal to build...
I have heard about areas in rural Wisconsin where front porches have been converted into very small bars. Low overhead, serving primarily to your neighbors, and no doubt creating community.
My old neighborhood had "Front Porch Fridays" where neighbors would gather in front of someone's house and have a pot luck with cocktails. It was very popular.
I know this is offtopic but why are people pushing Whats App? They could have used Signal just as well. Privacy literacy seems to be neglected so so much.
I've been thinking about this throughout the day and I'm not sure that I agree that Signal is a good candidate for this kind of communal group.
Firstly, Signal doesn't have a way of separating topics. Sure, you can have multiple groups that are loosely linked together but it's not really seamless.
Secondly, Signal's permission controls are lacking. Let's say you have a Signal group dedicated to posting meet-up details. You'd only want to allow trusted participants to be able to post. This can be done in Signal by making it so that only admins can send messages. However, admins can strip other admins of their role which means one rogue user can ruin the group.
With that said, I completely agree that WhatsApp really isn't ideal from a privacy standpoint. I especially dislike the fact that any participant can find out the phone number of anyone else.
I'd personally prefer something like Matrix for this purpose but onboarding strangers onto Matrix just sounds like a real nightmare.
It's likely the path of least resistance. Many people have whatsapp and it's far preferable to sms. Significantly fewer people have heard of signal, let alone have it installed. And privacy literacy, for a neighbor group chat?
This used to be completely normal. It was caled being neighborly.
I grew up in a small village in the arse end of nowhere, in the 80s/90s. Even there and then it was a rarity for people to engage with their neighbours, beyond saying hello. Being the precocious child that I was, I invited myself to their homes for snacks. But I was alone in that. In some (many?) places, people just want to be left alone.
You don't choose your neighbours, much like you don't choose your family. Sometimes you luck out, and sometimes you're fucked.
Still normal in a lot of places that are not big cities.
I live in Wisconsin. Let me tell you, it's not so normal here.
I understand there's a lot going on with poverty, and opioid epidemics, and other menaces out here in flyover country. But man, it'd be nice if we could all at least make an attempt at being more neighborly.
Just think it's not a big city - small city thing anymore. I think there has been a collapse of neighborliness across society in the US. Vast majority of Americans live in neighborhoods without a 2 block stoop coffee event.
As many other people have said, I find big cities more neighborly. People you pass on the sidewalk won't say hi - too many people to do that - but neighbors know each other and can be friendly.
If anyone is interested in this, visit (or move to) Spain. Valencia and Madrid is full of experiences like this, even for foreigners/expats.
Awesome article. Inspires me to try to form better relationships with my neighbors.
nit: the header "Where We Today" seems like it's omitting an "Are"
good catch, fixed! thanks :)
no problem :) just curious, what neighborhood of SF are you in?
I'm the editor of Supernuclear, not Patty who wrote the post. I don't think Patty wants her address shared but some other commenters have triangulated the general neighborhood if you feel like reading through!
If you can change a neighborhood, you can change a city.
Small world. I’ve run by the stoop coffee and their pancake parties in SF many weekends.
Love seeing the details behind this intentional community building (:
This is so cool. I just moved to the Bay Area, and I know that if someone invited me to such an event I would be thrilled!
Burning Man morning vibes, walking to a neighborhood camp for good coffee and meeting some new friends. Love it.
When you travel to most other countries this kind of community is present. Warms my heart that it’s finding its way to you.
Sitting on the street of SF, for the whole day just like that? How many times have these people been mugged?
the Arizona version of this is the snowbirds who use their garage as their outdoor living room and social area
This is so Scottsdale.
How do ppl do this if they have a 9-5?
At 6pm? At 7pm? At 8 am?
I love this and you're inspiring me to copycat on our little street in twin peaks.
Nice. By the way what’s a stoop?
I read this article and was pleased not just with the community development, but with the spread of the word "stoop" all the way out to the West Coast.
It's a Dutch word brough over in the New Amsterdam era that was originally mostly confined to New York. It has the same etymology as English "step":
https://www.etymonline.com/word/stoop
"A small porch, platform, or staircase leading to the entrance of a house or building."
- Google
Jesus even reading this makes me uncomfortable. I am glad for city anonymity and solitude forever
Brrr this is horrible stuff of nightmares you guys advocate for. I want to escape my neighbours not having to meet them each time I go out
Ideally we would even push notify button before walking out in a way that we don’t meet each other at all. People are disgusting, terrible and not to be trusted. least you need is more of them
Connection doesn't need to be complicated to be meaningful
i'd love to participate in this where i live (not organize, just participate) but sadly it rains almost every single day and i doubt people would show up
They do this at UCSF in mission Bay too, such a great idea
Douglas Rushkoff would certainly approve. Go Team Human!
The whitest thing I've ever seen
Are you white?
They discovered sipping espresso with friends and neighbors. Weird. But Substack gained some clicks I guess.
Eh sorry for being curmudgeonly but the themes are just not attractive to me. Pancake party, dips party, coffee, all those task assignments are just not doing it for me. It doesn’t have an interesting edginess to it like the fraternities and their secret rituals or dedicated niche fanatics like stamp collectors or D&D. It’s all so pastel and milquetoast.
TIL what a stoop is.
So hanging on the sidewalk is cool if non-homeless people do it?
this is very common in my city, Catania (Sicily)!
this is peak vietnamese culture
I can't help but feel we've failed as a society, that we seem to focus more on money than things like this. So much misery in the world.
I just feel the need to point out how ridiculous the lack of socio-economic diversity appears to be in these images. California and the Bay Area specifically is suffering and this kind of privileged whimsical time-killing project comes off as insanely tone-deaf. To me at least. Just my opinion as someone born and raised in that city.
It's people gathering for coffee. We can't talk about the apocalypse at the dinner table every night.
What a shame to fit all those people in a space that could have been better left for one person to park their SUV. /s