The Real User Interface: Recovering Our Neighborhoods

Although the technological forces driving us apart are powerful, the forces needed to hold us together are right in front of us.

Intro from Zach Rausch:

Today, we return to our series on the “first act” of The Anxious Generation: the loss of community. (The second act is the loss of the play-based childhood. The third act is the rise of the phone-based childhood.) In our first post, we discussed Robert Putnam’s critical work on the decline of social capital and trust, driven partly by new individualizing technologies (such as television) and dwindling participation in local and communal activities. As communities weakened and trust eroded, so did the play-based childhood.

In the second post, we featured an essay by Seth Kaplan, author and lecturer at Johns Hopkins who studies fragile states. In it, he argued rebuilding strong, in-person local communities is a prerequisite to restoring a play-based childhood. In a follow-up post, Seth provocatively contended that the upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is this very loss of community.

In this third post, Seth examines four factors—beyond technological change—that help explain the erosion of neighborhood communities, and crucially, how we can revive them. These include: changes in the physical landscape, decline in local institutions, individualization of religion, and shifts in our education and aspirations.

As we work to roll-back the phone-based childhood (and better understand the impacts of technology on children and society), Seth’s analysis highlights what must be preserved and restored to create something better in its place.

– Zach

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The Real User Interface: Recovering Our Neighborhoods

While a relatively small number of place-based communities continue to build the trusting social bonds essential to play-based childhoods—and thus offer important safeguards against the deleterious use of smartphones and social media—most places have seen relationships weaken. In earlier posts, I argued that kids need community to thrive, and that the breakdown of neighborhood communities has contributed not only to the decline in unsupervised play but also to many of the other problems facing youth today—ranging from screen addiction and declining mental health to growing loneliness and suicide. In this post, we will examine the larger drivers of that breakdown and what we can do to reverse it. Whereas the Anxious Generation mostly focuses on how we can limit the negative effects of technology, here we look at how we can bolster the strength of place-based communities so that youth can better withstand the stresses new technology produces.

Let’s start with the real user interface: our neighborhood and city. The degree to which our “place” fosters in-person relationships indelibly shapes outcomes for children and youth. If we want to revitalize our neighborhood communities, we should ask: which factors explain why so many have declined in the face of technological change? I see four: changes in the physical landscape, decline in local institutions, individualization of religion, and shifts in our education and aspirations. Where these four factors have changed the least, community remains the strongest.

There is wide agreement regarding the marked decline in local associational life and neighborhood bonds since the mid-1960s, and that technology has played a leading role in this evolution. In his initial 1995 academic essay on the decline of social capital (the basis for his later book Bowling Alone), Robert Putnam highlights several factors for this decline, including the movement of women into the labor force, the weakening of the American family, and “technological transformation of leisure,” most notably the rise of the television. Jean Twenge, writing later, also identifies technology as a driver of change, but on a broader scale. As she explains, there are primary effects, such as when teens move their socialization from in-person to online. But there are also huge impacts on generational culture “via secondary forces, including increasing individualism (more focus on the self and less on others) and a slower life (taking longer to grow up and longer to grow old).” Both scholars are correct in their assessments, though they overlook important elements that we have more control over than we might think.

If we assume that many forthcoming technological advances will weaken social bonds—think AI and robots—and thus deepen the problems caused by our growing social poverty, we need to consider how government policies and organizational decisions might strengthen, rather than weaken, our relationships. While some areas still have the high trust and close bonds that allow kids to play freely, most places do not. In my day job working on conflict prevention and depolarization, I compare the strength of social bonds across many countries. The social changes that have affected neighborhood communities here in the U.S. are significant but not insurmountable.

How did we get here?

The four factors that we can control—the physical landscape, the strength of local institutions, the nature of religion, and our education and aspirations—have a compounding history that make our society especially vulnerable to the downsides stemming from technological change.

Factor 1: Changes in the physical landscape

First, our planners and engineers have built a physical landscape optimized for cars but minimized for relationships. Historically, humanity’s habitat evolved incrementally, centered on the need to move around by foot and satisfy a wide range of needs (work, shop, pray, gather) locally. As Emily Talen reminds us, “neighborhoods are a ubiquitous condition of human settlement, found in all time periods, in all cultures, and in both rural and urban contexts. Even ancient cities have been described as clusters of neighborhoods.” Whether urban, suburban, or rural, neighborhoods have, since time immemorial, anchored our relationships, and provided the sense of security, belonging, and meaning that everyone needs to thrive.

Since World War II, however, urban planning has completely reshaped the physical landscape in which we live. While many countries have been affected by this development, those—like America and Canada—that built out many cities during this era are particularly impacted. With this historical lens, I’d suggest that the automobile is arguably the technology that has made the biggest impact on our associational life; indeed, social capital began its marked decline in the mid-1960s, just as changes in transportation were starting to transform our social habitats. The resulting sprawl isolates and divides, weakening the bonds that tie us together. This is especially problematic for children, whose opportunities for spontaneous free play—and the constructive friction that self-organized activities create—are further limited when the physical landscape discourages exploration.

Factor 2: Decline in local institutions

Second, we have weakened the myriad local institutions that once brought us together in countless ways. Whereas schools, local shops, nonprofits, churches, and a host of associations used to center life in our neighborhoods, today many of us live in what I call “institutional deserts” (borrowing from the term “food desert”)—places with no social, civic, religious, or economic organizations unique to them. Zoning often leaves neighborhoods monofunctional and segregated by class in a way they rarely were before. Many locales offer few opportunities for people to meet, gather, or collaborate.

The nonprofit world has been transformed—from one centered on local solidarity and problem-solving to single-issue campaigning and professional service delivery, as Theda Skocpol argued in Diminished Democracy. Instead of regularly reaching out to help neighbors we know (without even calling it volunteering), we either sporadically show up as formal volunteers for strangers we don’t know, or engage in online advocacy to stir up a feeling that we are making a difference. As a result, “the average citizen’s interest in public or community affairs has been aptly described as ‘diluted’ and ‘superficial,’” observes sociologist Ray Oldenburg, who coined the term “third place”—a place separate from work and home in which people gather.

Even those local institutions that remain have been transformed by changes in focus and geographical reach. The decline of human-scaled neighborhood schools with strong ties to the surrounding community has been especially impactful. Neighborhood schools incubate relationships between kids and families while providing ample opportunities for the kids to explore the neighborhood as they walk to and from their classrooms and spend time with classmates. Kids today too often attend large schools far from home, limiting their freedom to explore organically and reducing intimacy with neighbors. Parents, in turn, rarely engage in school governance and have fewer opportunities to meet one another through school activities.

Contrast this with the school my kids go to, which has about 350 students. Although it is private (it’s Jewish), it promotes relationships in some of the same ways as the local public elementary school I grew up with. Roughly three-quarters of my kids’ classmates live within walking distance, meaning my oldest knows many of the families and regularly visits several other homes (as I once did). Many teachers and principals are neighbors, which changes our relationship to them. Parents know most of the other parents, often from the time their kids were small—and regularly coordinate carpools, and sometimes asking for help at the last moment on a shared WhatsApp group (This is a good example of how technology can strengthen bonds when they already exist IRL). Trust lubricates all of this … while also being a product of it.

Factor 3: individualization of religion

Third, while religion has been shown to foster more prosocial behavior, community, and play-based childhoods—and although the U.S. is more religious than other developed countries—the religious landscape often hampers community building. As Ross Douthat notes, many churches promote the “prosperity gospel” and cults of self-esteem, thereby “encourag[ing] our worst impulses.” Houses of worship compete for consumers in ways that debase doctrine and diminish any allegiance to a particular place.

While some religious competition is good, in recent decades it has led to an emphasis on services offered and a diminishment of the demands on congregants. The result is a growth of larger churches with congregants coming from farther distances and a series of religious networks operating more as “functional assists” for a particular need or given phase of life. If a house of worship asks too much, Americans will go to church or parish hopping. This is a thin vision of faith in daily life, in person.

While these trends have a long history–Charles Taylor traces their roots back centuries–they have accelerated since the 1960s (the modern megachurch appeared in the 1970s). Faith is now more often than not reflecting societal trends than acting as a countercultural force. For example, whereas houses of worship used to bridge political divides, today the politicization that has affected so many institutions has also affected many churches and synagogues. They have deep divides within congregations, even when members are all on the left or right. The ultimate “winners” in this environment are placeless megachurches, which serve thousands of members with a wide array of programs but provide only pockets of community.

Factor 4: Shifts in our education and aspirations

Fourth, the American Dream has been transformed to prioritize the material. Originally, the Dream celebrated a social order in which every person’s potential could be fulfilled. James Truslow Adams, who popularized the American Dream concept in his 1931 book The Epic of America, emphasized a “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” This, he clarified, meant that “[i]t is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and recognized by others for what they are.”

In its modern guise, however, the American Dream emphasizes individual success, material gain, and social mobility—securing a more lucrative career, a bigger house, greater personal freedoms. Highly educated Americans often devote their passion to abstract or national advocacy rather than the more frustrating, labor-intensive work of sustaining community relationships and local institutions. Americans are also busier than ever, leaving fewer spare hours to invest in neighborhoods, churches, associations, and volunteer efforts. Indeed, we may view our fellow citizens as obstacles to material success rather than essential contributors to our well-being. As Sara Horowitz, founder of Freelancers Union, writes, “The way to secure your future, suddenly, was not to turn to your neighbor and extend your hand, but rather to step over him in the rush to be on top.” Historian Christopher Lasch called the contemporary idea of the American Dream a “sadly impoverished understanding …its ascendancy, in our time, measures the recession of the dream and not its fulfillment.”

Place is key—although relationships are increasingly mediated virtually, intimacy and trust still depend on in-person engagement, repeated contact, and day-to-day interactions. Government officials, planners, philanthropies, nonprofits, and small businesses should think more carefully about whether their decisions make it easier—or harder—to build neighborhood relationships. We do not need to invent entirely “new” programs; rather, we should adapt existing activities so that they create enabling conditions in which place-based communities are more likely to emerge. In doing so, we can help neighborhoods nurture communal ties, thicken interfamily bonds, and foster the trust necessary to enable kids to spend more embodied, synchronous time with each other.

The four factors described above—the physical landscape, the strength of local institutions, the nature of religion, and the makeup of our education and aspirations—are a good place to begin. They represent spheres where we have the agency to make meaningful change. Below are a few ideas on how this might work in practice.

What Can We Do?

At the street level, urban planners could focus on creating a physical landscape that nurtures social cohesion as a core priority, rather than treating it as an afterthought. This would mean more densely built, multiclass, multifunction neighborhoods that encourage social interaction, civic-mindedness, and loyalty to one’s neighbors and community. Fountains, churches, local associations, commercial streets, libraries, parks, public buildings, and community centers serve as “third places” where people from the same zip code can meaningfully connect. In such environments, children will not only have more places to wander, but parents will be more intimate with and trusting of their neighbors. The New Urbanism movement, which started in the 1980s in response to the isolating suburban sprawl that became popular among planners after the rise of the automobile, promotes many of these elements. Strong Towns catalyzes people around the country to organize to promote these ideas at the local level. Across the country, activists are revitalizing neighborhoods by establishing more third places and community hubs, and revitalizing main streets.

Local governments could encourage the development of human-scaled neighborhood schools that are closely tied to their surrounding communities, offering numerous opportunities for kids to play and socialize, unsupervised, and for parents to congregate. They might likewise provide incentives for establishing more “third places” — coffee shops, restaurants, hair salons, children’s activities, block parties and community centers — to bring people together neighborhood by neighborhood. Areas with an abundance of place-unique economic, social, religious, and civic institutions are more likely to cultivate the relationships necessary to build trust and strong social bonds. Currently, many neighborhoods lack such amenities, making it harder to nurture local relationships. This may require changes to zoning laws and other regulations that now hinder community-building.

A variety of organizations across sectors have recognized the importance of bolstering local institutions and the relationships they spawn. For example, there is renewed interest in community schools across the education sector because “good schools depend on strong communities, and strong communities require good schools.” More libraries are becoming “vital hubs for their local communities… critical social infrastructure,” filling key gaps. Governments and civic leaders increasingly ensure their cities, towns, and neighborhoods have attractive third places to gather because—as an Urban Institute article concludes—“third places contribute to thriving communities” and without these “people have fewer opportunities to feel valued in their communities, participate in civic engagement, and access or engage in other activities strongly linked with long-term prosperity.”

Philanthropies and nonprofits could shift more of their resources to neighborhood-focused initiatives, especially in the region where they are located and likely to have intimate knowledge. They might establish small grant programs to encourage neighbors to cooperate on improving their blocks, empower neighborhood leaders to oversee community-based projects, and invest in programs aimed at strengthening place-based relationships and institutions. The goal is to foster closer cooperation among residents, build greater confidence in a neighborhood, and develop the relationships, institutions, and norms that can transform it over time. In Oswego, New York, for instance, the Oswego Renaissance Association provides small matching grants (up to $1,000 per home) and other resources to blocks of individuals who want to improve the look of their street. A variety of organizations—from Baltimore to Fort Wayne—are also investing in developing neighborhood leaders.

Universities are uniquely positioned to become training grounds for developing community leaders and stewards of a more embodied, place-based society. They could emphasize the importance of relationship-building and communal leadership in the curricula and coursework of disciplines such as sociology, urban development, architecture, and economics. They could offer course credit for student efforts that strengthen community institutions and play-based activities, and offer programs for mid-career professionals looking to focus on more meaningful work. Universities could also hire (and train) more staff and employees from the surrounding area (rather than recruiting and relocating talent from elsewhere), invest more in their local economies (and those of nearby neighborhoods), and build more bridges with the larger community (even if it means leaving the campus bubble). As I described in Fragile Neighborhoods, Berea College’s embrace of this role in eastern Kentucky has been critical to efforts to turn the region around. It centers recruitment efforts on the region, incorporates local culture into the curriculum, gives students credit for working locally, and encourages graduates to stay in the region. In Chicago, Trinity Christian College has established a Center for Transformative Neighborhoods as part of its effort to “do college differently.” By leaning into neighborhood work, it hopes to transform the college’s relationship with its surroundings, with great implications for recruitment, curriculum, and outside partnerships.

Churches and other houses of worship could weave place-based community building more thoroughly into their vision of the good life. This might mean creating hyperlocal groups for larger congregations, establishing deep ties to one or two specific neighborhoods, and offering more programming on relationships—covering topics such as marriage, friendship, mentoring, parenting, and stewardship. It would certainly require being countercultural and freeing oneself from politics and consumerism as much as is possible in this age of polarization and materialism. Reclaiming the Sabbath as a day spent together—over shared meals and conversation, with some groups opting for phone-free days or evenings—is another approach. In short, churches could adopt more place-based practices that complement idea-based teachings. The rising interest in traditional religion—evident in the growing Orthodox Jewish communities as well as Christian participation in Orthodox churches, classical education schools, and ancient rites—shows the appeal of a more demanding, communal vision of faith. Initiatives such as The After Party seek to depolarize churches.

Lastly, families could lean more into their neighborhoods, trading some of their and their kids’ time spent seeking the next big achievement for more socializing with neighbors and classmates and more cooperation with others to better their streets, institutions, and places. This could be anything from a block party or neighborhood holiday event to joining a local association or cleanup. Cooperating with neighbors on a Free Play Friday would get the ball rolling.

Conclusion

These kinds of creative and constructive responses are all within our grasp. America’s social decline has garnered more and more attention. Kids are now in the spotlight, but their troubles affect all of us in some way—as rising drug deaths, depression, mental illness, and loneliness attest. The adjustments we make for kids—to create the kind of places where they can engage in free play and resist device addiction—will have follow-on effects that strengthen all of us.

With the technological forces driving us apart growing ever more powerful, we must be much more proactive in nurturing the strong bonds that bring us together. Whereas community emerged organically in the past it must now be nurtured intentionally—locale by locale.