Urban Alienation Is A Myth
Living alone is a good thing -- for me, anyway. I'm annoying (all people are) and much more fun in small doses. And while I'm very social, I also like being by myself. It seems to work for a lot of people, too, especially in an environment like New York City.
I never though about how many people that I knew lived alone in Manhattan, and without it being "sad," or anything. But, Jennifer Senior, in her New York Magazine piece, points out that it's an astonishing one out of every two. An excerpt:
"Every 20 or 30 years, we have a lament about the decline of community, and it's usually due to cities and urbanization," says Robert Sampson, the criminologist who chairs Harvard's sociology department, when I visit him one sunny morning this fall. He mentions one of the classics of the genre, Louis Wirth's Urbanism As a Way of Life. "It's all about the impersonal way of life in the city--how it almost deranged people, led to this sort of schizoid personality, to psychosis and loneliness." He smiles. "It's a fun piece, actually. There's some great quotes in it." He leans back in his chair. "But this idea that cities are bastions of lonely, despairing people is a myth," he says.In American lore, the small town is the archetypal community, a state of grace from which city dwellers have fallen (thus capitulating to all sorts of political ills like, say, socialism). Even among die-hard New Yorkers, those who could hardly imagine a life anywhere else, you'll find people who secretly harbor nostalgia for the small village they've never known.
Yet the picture of cities--and New York in particular--that has been emerging from the work of social scientists is that the people living in them are actually less lonely. Rather than driving people apart, large population centers pull them together, and as a rule tend to possess greater community virtues than smaller ones. This, even though cities are consistently, overwhelmingly, places where people are more likely to live on their own.
...Cities, in other words, are the ultimate expression of our humanity, the ultimate habitat in which to be ourselves (which may explain why half the planet's population currently lives in them). And in their present American incarnations--safe, family-friendly, pulsing with life on the street--they're working at their optimum peak. In Cacioppo's data, today's city dwellers consistently rate as less lonely than their country cousins. "There's a new sense of community in cities, an increase in social capital, an increase in trust," he says. "It all leads to less alienation."
And so, contrary to popular belief, does the Internet.
I lived alone and hated it, but it was at a time when I had no social net-new at college, newly divorced, no job. On the whole I prefer to live with someone, but have my own space and time alone. NOthing wrong with being alone.
momof3 at December 31, 2008 8:22 AM
Having had small doses of sociology over the years, I've often wondered how much the results of a sociological study reflect the prejudices of the researcher rather than an actual, measurable sociological phenomenon. I suppose if you've decided ahead of time that cities (or suburbs, or whatever) breed alienation (or stifling conformity, or whatever), you could probably cobble together a study to support it.
My guess (supported by absolutely no data) is that people find their communities in lots of different ways, based on their location, interests, religion, etc. Lonely or alienated people might be that way regardless of where they live, or might become less alienated or lonely as time passes. Identifying how people find community, or how loneliness or alienation are alleviated, would be an interesting study (and probably has been done). I wonder how you'd design a study like that, though.
old rpm daddy at December 31, 2008 8:28 AM
I think that's wise, old rpm. People do make their own communities based on their connections with other people (hobby, work, etc.) My friends out here are largely writers, editors, people in research, and friends of both. It takes more effort in California to get together, but people make the effort. I go once a month to a dinner of journalists and screenwriters and some others. It's one of the highlights of my month. I also try to get my own friends together, to meet each other. And I know numerous people and have made friends from cafes I go to. Yet, people hear I live alone and they make all sorts of judgments about it -- negative judgments. Some also decide, independent of any information about my relationship, that I don't really have a very good relationship because I'm not 1., married, and 2., living with my partner.
Amy Alkon at December 31, 2008 8:37 AM
Some also decide, independent of any information about my relationship, that I don't really have a very good relationship because I'm not 1., married, and 2., living with my partner.
They probably assume you have at least 11 pet cats, too.
old rpm daddy at December 31, 2008 8:44 AM
>> ...Cities, in other words, are the ultimate expression of our humanity, the ultimate habitat in which to be ourselves.
Not for me baby! Idaho's getting too crowded for my tastes.
Eric at December 31, 2008 9:02 AM
"Cities, in other words, are the ultimate expression of our humanity, the ultimate habitat in which to be ourselves."
Which explains the crime rate. Obviously.
This article smells of predetermined outcome.
Radwaste at December 31, 2008 9:41 AM
I live in a small city (pop. ~52K), and love to travel to the Big City (New York) via train, a couple, three times a year, maybe more if there's something particularly interesting going on. That said, I like living in my small city, where I know a fairly large amount of people, and where getting together with friends locally for music, wine tastings, dinnes, sports, and such like is more or less the norm. The Big City, to me, is for special occasions like "big-name" concerts or dinners with out-of-town friends when they come to the City for business, etc.
While I know a lot of people, my circle of friends is rather small; only those who know me well (and have for a long time) are close. Those that I know socially are not necessarily people that I let into my everyday life, though, and so would not expect to have a sense of community with them, as opposed to people that I volunteer with, or that I regularly get together with. I have what I think is a healthy skeptisism of most people, at least until I get to know them fairly well. Even then, there have been times when I thought I knew someone, only to find out they are most definitely NOT the kind of person I had expected them to be. YMMV o.O
Flynne at December 31, 2008 10:24 AM
I think the ultimate expression of our humanity is whatever an individual chooses it to be. There's nothing wrong with wanting to live alone in the city. But there's nothing wrong, if you're like me, in wanting to have the suburban or rural life with the significant other and kids. These kinds of articles, which reek of bias, tend to annoy me more than anything else.
Charles at December 31, 2008 10:53 AM
I am a Social Darwinist. I think that if something is embraced widely by a large segment of the population, it is because something in it works for them. I live in a city with a large transport system and a subway station five minutes away from my doorstep. I have access to a large array of goods and resources I couldn't have in a small town. Finding like-minded people (or the complete opposite) is easy. For this, I find the life in a city worth living.
Toubrouk at December 31, 2008 12:19 PM
So big cities are alienating, and the suburbs are alienating, and small towns are full of baby-raping hypocrites, and rural areas are full of sister-marrying hicks--is there no place on earth for me?
LA's a big city, but it's not. People don't congregate on mass transit, don't walk city streets, and only engage when trying to get the same parking spot.
Kate at December 31, 2008 1:15 PM
"With ... small-town life ... there are hundreds of thousands ... who are not content. The more intelligent young people ... flee to the cities ... and ... stay there, seldom returning even for holidays. The reason, Carol insisted ... is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment ... the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is the slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God. A savorless people, gulping tasteless food and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world."
From Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street."
Kim at January 2, 2009 8:12 AM
"Which explains the crime rate. Obviously."
Well, yeah, Rad - the more human, the more criminal. It's called Original Sin. But I remember a time back in the 50's when the county with the highest murder rate in the entire country was McCracken County, KY, county seat Paducah. And it was by no definition urban. Density wasn't the issue, ethnicity was - 100% Scotch-Irish, too poor even for black people -born fighting and meaner than snakes to each other, when they weren't being gentle and loving to my parents who had moved in from far away.
Jim at January 2, 2009 9:50 AM
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