It doesn't help that we're mostly limited to single-family sprawl rather than density, limiting the ability to live in a walkable neighborhood with the third places where one can go to meet with current friends or make new ones - parks, cafés, bars, etc....
Once you get past the foreign hordes, out-of-control crime, and *gasp* Democrats, you'll find lots of "third places" to meet new folks to hang out with.
You gotta be around people if you want to meet people.
And in CA, for that to work the cities must be affordable - and that means that they have to allow for dense housing to built. We currently don't, and the NIMBYs don't want to allow it either.
(This problem is not unique to California, just happens to be where I live)
Not illogical, but I still think your take is borne from confirmation bias. Historically, rural, exurbs and suburbs were full of people with solid friendships. Anecdotally, that remains the case from my experience. I’d counter your take that while you may have fewer potential friends in less populated areas, the likelihood of hitting it off given those opportunities is higher. Maybe just my own confirmation bias.
Regardless, lower density is not the cause of Steve’s described friendship drought, imo.
It's more that if we're talking about a majority of people then we're talking about people living in urban and suburban areas - and even in rural areas you had some centralized area where you were most likely to encounter your neighbors.
Density provides more options than lower density, and makes it easier because you don't have to travel as far to do so. It's not all or nothing.
And still, it's where forbidding the building of dense housing is nuts.
It doesn't help that we're mostly limited to single-family sprawl rather than density, limiting the ability to live in a walkable neighborhood with the third places where one can go to meet with current friends or make new ones - parks, cafés, bars, etc....
Move to a large city.
Once you get past the foreign hordes, out-of-control crime, and *gasp* Democrats, you'll find lots of "third places" to meet new folks to hang out with.
You gotta be around people if you want to meet people.
And in CA, for that to work the cities must be affordable - and that means that they have to allow for dense housing to built. We currently don't, and the NIMBYs don't want to allow it either.
(This problem is not unique to California, just happens to be where I live)
Not illogical, but I still think your take is borne from confirmation bias. Historically, rural, exurbs and suburbs were full of people with solid friendships. Anecdotally, that remains the case from my experience. I’d counter your take that while you may have fewer potential friends in less populated areas, the likelihood of hitting it off given those opportunities is higher. Maybe just my own confirmation bias.
Regardless, lower density is not the cause of Steve’s described friendship drought, imo.
It's more that if we're talking about a majority of people then we're talking about people living in urban and suburban areas - and even in rural areas you had some centralized area where you were most likely to encounter your neighbors.
Density provides more options than lower density, and makes it easier because you don't have to travel as far to do so. It's not all or nothing.
And still, it's where forbidding the building of dense housing is nuts.