A mountain of research has linked loneliness to an increased risk of dementia, depression, anxiety, heart disease, stroke and early death.
Loneliness is officially a health emergency in California’s San Mateo County, which is located in the San Francisco Bay Area and includes part of Silicon Valley.
The county’s Board of Supervisors passed a resolution on Tuesday that declared loneliness a public health crisis and pledged to explore measures that promote social connection in the community.
It’s the first county in the U.S. to make such a declaration.
I would argue it not the loss of Church’s by themselves, but their loss without a good replacement. You can’t go anywhere in America and gather without paying. There’s no place to just…exist. Even Churches usually required dues.
I’d argue the “not paying” part isn’t the problem. It would be nice not to have to pay, but most Americans could stomach a couple bucks to, say take up a barstool for a couple of hours.
The main issue IMO is that all the third spaces we do have are either dedicated to niche hobbies, or the consumption of drugs. Only people into really nerdy shit will actually go to a gaming store, people generally only go to coffee shops in the AM, and going to the bar every night is…we’ll be polite and say “unhealthy”.
Public parks would be cool, but I don’t think most people utilize them that way. I don’t know myself, because it is hot enough here going to a park is an exercise in self harm for most of the year.
I think the best idea I have is some kind if mall, where all of the stores have been replaced with activity spaces.
That’s very true. I get basically all that from my local kink community but I think less niche hobbies could really use our model of “let’s all go grab dinner one Saturday a month and just chat”. It could easily be applied to shit like people who like a genre of book or something like that. I think you definitely do need something to fall back on that you share in common and enjoy enough to leave the house though.
Really what we need are dedicated community centers. Libraries are trying but that’s not what they’re there for
Anybody who wants to get mad about this, look up the sociology concept of third place.
Here’s a great ~10 minute video from Not Just Bikes on YouTube about third places and how current city planing trends promote social isolation.
This concept and this video are so fantastic. Goes to show how broken N America is, I’ve been around the block a few times and never really had a chance to stop at a local…
this.