Re: Re: Anti-Social Americans
From: Harry Pasternak (Harry_Pasternaktvo.org)
Date: 04 Aug 1995 03:13:00 GMT
On 8/3/95 at 2:52 PM, cohousing-l [at] uci.com wrote:
c> For me, the point is that neighborhood living for most Americans is
c> very limited, not much communication, few shared potlucks and
c> meals, almost never shared projects of any size.
c> 
c> Except during disasters. In times of extreme stress and disaster,
c> neghborhoods suddenly come together and people share everything and
c> express their thoughts and feelings clearly and passionately to
c> each other. Suddenly life becomes more soical, more real and for
c> most people, those share moments of disaster are high points in
c> their lives.
c> 
c> It seems to me that life in other times was more interactive (more
c> social), and that the modern industrial world has encouraged
c> isolation and dependency upon outside institudions, rather than
c> upon other people thru cooperation.
c> 
c> I'd like to see our lives become more social in this sense of
c> cooperation, shared communication, the tidbits of live, and of
c> greater projects like barn-raisings.


King

During my 1/2 century of kicking around this planet, I have lived in a
variety of neighborhoods; from middle class downtown homes with porches, the
porchless suburbs, highrise, in dairy country, in the mountains, small town
by the ocean etc. etc. and in two cohousing projects (one in 1978, and one in
1981). At the same time I have done a modest amount of vagabonding in the USA
and less so in Europe.

I have experienced a great deal supportive behaviour in most of the places I
have lived. The best "social networking" environments were in the two middle
class downtown neighborhoods that I lived in (followed by the two cohousing
neighborhoods). The first downtown was experienced as a child (it was
fantastic), the next major downtown neighborhood experience was as an adult,
where I returned from suburbia just after separating from my marriage partner
(you could not be divorced and live in suburbia at the time).

So my own personal experiences parallel the scientific research that has been
done in this field---I was a consult for the government in Ontario---my role
was to "improve the quality of life" for about 150,000 people living in the
new communities that were built all over Ontario (about 10 times the size of
Texas)--- it led me to do a lot of primary and secondary research into the
whole notion of supportive neighborhoods. I was amazed that the bureaucrats
actually wanted me to use the research and come up with solutions to
implement change---so I did.

In summary, there are certain elements in the design of the homes and the
neighborhoods that are required before natural "social networking" has the
potential of taking place ---that doesn't mean it will always happen---it
means it is more likely to happen than not. If these required elements are
missing, it is more likely that the social networking will not happen or
happen on a limited scale even when "social engineering" type of intervention
is used (social workers, recreation leaders etc. etc. )

Harry

- sent via an evaluation copy of BulkRate (unregistered).

Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.