The Case for Community

“Honey, he’s writing about city design again. Just tune in next week.”

Hear me out. This one is good, too. I promise.

Let’s open our imagination workbooks, shall we? Imagine that five of your best friends live within a 5-minute walk of your front door, maybe a couple within earshot of a good shout; a sonic beacon, if you will. Imagine there are a couple of bars nearby, and a gym, and a lot of restaurants, and a park, and maybe even a grocery store. And, almost every weekend, you gather in large numbers for organized social events. It sounds nice, right? To me, it sounds like a typical* college experience.

I often hear people reminisce on college as the most fun years of their lives. Ignoring the rather pessimistic view that that is, the general consensus seems to be that college is lovely because most people aren’t working full-time jobs yet, no one has a mortgage or a child to worry about, and, finally, there are no chaperones to hinder you from partying like an asteroid is headed for Earth. But, I think a very much overlooked set of reasons is that we simply existed in a well-functioning community. We could get around easily. Friends lived nearby. There were plenty of opportunities for social outings. Sure, finishing class at 2:00 PM made for a good Thursday, and not having a child to pick up from school certainly makes it easier to meet your buddy for frisbee on the lawn. But, like I said, those aren’t the benefits I’m talking about. The no-job, low-responsibility life is nice, sure, but that has nothing to do with life in a well-functioning community that many also enjoyed. After graduation, many never see such community again.

Instead, we spread out. We drive 20 minutes down a 6-lane artery just to meet a friend for dinner. We settle for “communities” that often act more life sprawl… just big houses and bigger highways. We live far apart, so we buy one car, two cars, three cars. We complain about traffic. We want a starter home, then we want more space, then we want even more. Friends become a Saturday thing. All other days are primarily focused on work, so you can keep buying the “more” that society seems so keen to tell you is the goal. But, it isn’t the goal. Happiness is, right? Well, thanks to our ancient, animalistic scarcity-complex, we falsely equate “more” with “happy,” so we forgo community in favor of those things that reliably bring more. Or, put more eloquently by writer/LinkedIn Disruptor Extraordinaire, Jack Raines, “in the absence of strong convictions about what you want from life, you will always default to wanting more money.”

My contention is that we’ve forgotten how happiness is truly achieved: good relationships... and fostering relationships is next to impossible in the absence of community. This isn’t simply my opinion. It’s the finding from one of the great scientific undertakings of our time.

A helpful way to approach this is to imagine the city you live in as a larger version of a college campus. The classroom becomes the workplace. The annual pirate party becomes the Christmas party at that one family’s townhouse (or it can be a pirate party… carpe diem). The parks become… the parks. This is more realistic, as I understand we can’t all live within 5 minutes walk of each other, and still conveniently get to the places of work in the variety of industries in which an adult friend group is sure to work. However, take a city that prioritizes pedestrian experience and public transportation over the interest of car manufacturers, coupled with zoning laws that don’t suppress multi-family housing, small business, or shared community space, and you have a serious shot at living in a true community. I don’t mean to push my ideas for a better life experience on everyone else. I simply think that such a strikingly obvious attribute to a good life should be mentioned.

No, you’ll probably never go back to the three-day parties, the near-zero responsibilities, or the metabolic prowess of your 20s, but that doesn’t mean you can’t live in a place where friends are quickly accessible, the next big social gathering is never far off, or that treasured “third place” is a daily stop. You can have the community you once had. Only this time around, maybe you just have to remember to take your reading glasses.

-John

_{*I understand that not everyone had this sort of college experience. Some people went to college in a big city without much of its own campus. Others didn’t have the luxury of forgoing full-time employment. And some might’ve struggled with depression or anxiety brought on by such high-stakes education, affecting their ability to enjoy the extracurriculars. I don’t mean to exclude. I only mean to highlight that the oft-mentioned perks of college seem to overlook the obvious benefits of good community.}