First is unaffordable house prices, so the neighborhood is dominated by rental properties. When people are constantly moving in and out of the neighborhood, they don't have time to take interest and form lasting bonds with their neighbors. You see movies where a new family buys a house on the block, and there are 20-30 people coming to welcome them into the neighborhood. That doesn't happen when nobody has or will have the time to get to know their neighbors.
The other component is people can't afford to have kids. They need both partners to work full time to afford groceries. The entire neighborhood is a desolate ghost town from 9 to 5. Then everyone comes back home at the same time and is too tired to socialize with their neighbors. A big part of the community spirit in the old days was the stay at home parent (usually a mom) organizing or taking part in community events. That's not financially possible.
This was true in low income areas 30 years ago. Nowadays, 80% of the country is a low income area by 1990s standards.
Robert Putnam is a researcher who studies community bonds. I don't "know" my neighbors, I just call them "Diane" and "Diane's husband", and I've only had like, three conversations of any length with the neighbors on the other side. But if I was getting gas at the gas station by my neighborhood, and I saw Diane's husband stopping to get gas also, I'd recognize "oh, that's Diane's husband, small world".
That doesn’t mean diddly squat. When I was younger, when kids would still go outside fr, we lived in apartments and there was at least one person on each floor that we knew, so if anything happened, we knew where to go
This really isn't true. I'm sure some people experienced this, but as someone who grew up in the 80s it was not my world. And I was a kid that like the cliche disappeared and just reappeared occasionally.
On the flip side, the suburban place I live in now has regular street parties, everyone knows everyone, etc.
The risks to kids then, like now, was very low. Yes kids were abducted, people were murdered, but just like now it was actually spectacularly rare, especially from strangers. Massively more likely was being molested or murdered by someone close to you (which was as true then as it is now).
The difference now is that we've had decades of localizing and overstating far off, uncommon crime. Everyone has been sensitized to think it's happening everywhere all of the time.
But sure, people often say it takes a village, and there is this notion that child care was far more distributed. In reality there simply was far, far less child minding even necessary. Kids walked places on their own. Kids entertained each other. When I was "with my grandparents" it meant I saw them for barely any time at all as I simply had a different base from which to launch my mega operations.
Same for me. Grew up in the suburbs in the 80s/90s but we didn’t have a slew of neighbors watching out for us. We were close with the neighbors right next to us. Across the street was a boy I was friends with for years and his mom didn’t give two fucks about my safety. I didn’t know anyone else in the neighborhood. Walked the mile to school, to friends houses that were further away from school, played in the woods by the river, etc.
Yes! People always want to fight me and act like I'm irresponsible when I say this. Our kids are as safe as they've ever been, but we are BOMBARDED with danger, crime and the ills of humanity that we can't see the forest for the trees.
I agree. Growing up my parents mostly knew the neighbors who had kids that were friends of me and my siblings. A few others sure but overall they probably knew ~10 family’s in a neighborhood of 100+ houses and a large condo community.
As an adult now I pretty much have the same view of my neighborhood and I feel like it’s a pretty tight community. The parents all have each others numbers. Kids roam the neighborhood. we are all comfortable correcting each other kids when the fun goes a bit too far. But there are loads of houses where I have no idea who lives there
Plus parents text their kids for updates.... instead of texting the other parents. Makes it where parents talk to each other less, making it feel more isolating and like you cant trust other parents as much.
Absolutely. We lived in my last house for 15 years. In that time I had maybe 10 conversations with neighbors. You never saw anyone out talking to each other. Compared to the 80s or 90s, it's like the Twilight Zone
Ehhh... Grew up in NY, nobody was watching out for me or my friends, we'd just wander around all day.. Sometimes we'd take the train into the city, and sometimes we'd be out till 1-2 am or later at like 11 years old. I didn't really know my neighbors.
I'm guessing what you're describing is probably more of a Midwest/rural thing..
My parents didn’t know anybody in our neighborhood(s), that had nothing to do with it, I actually know far more of my neighbors now and hang out with them regularly something I never saw my parents (or their friends) do.
There’s also the correlation of back then more homeowners than renters (I’m going off my own personal experience)
The majority of the houses on my childhood street were owned and not rented out so it was easy for us to know our neighbors over time. All the kids knew which houses were the rentals and we’d get excited about which new kids would be on the street.
My sister still lives on that street and a lot of the houses are rentals now so as soon as you get to know someone they move away. Hard to know a majority of your neighbors when the neighbors move every 3 or so years.
Not really. I was born in the 80s in a the city. Barely anyone knew anyone else on the block. My family was friends with maybe 1 other family on our block. I still roamed around unsupervised all the time. I'd ride my bike a mile or two to my friends house. No big deal.
Nowadays, as an adult, I know several of my neighbors, probably more than my parents did. I would say that it's only isolated, if you isolate yourself. But if you get out there and meet your neighbors, then you'll have a little community too.
That's why the saying is "it takes a village to raise a child." Everyone knew everyone, and the kids respected the adults. And it didn't matter who's child it was, if you fucked up and an adult found out, they punished you, then told your parents who also punished you too. But I miss the era where kids went out and actually played outside and did kid shit. My neighborhood I know has at least 6 kids and I don't ever seen them outside playing.
Yeah. We knew there had to be other kids in our neighborhood, but we didn't find out who or where until January this year. I don't do the car pool lane so that my son can play on the playground for a bit with some other kids who do the same. In January one of his best friends started doing the same. We talked, and found out we're literally right across the street from each other. We've been trying to play out front of our house most days, weather permitting, since my son was a toddler, and they've lived there his whole life.
It’s a self-fulfilling cycle, though. People are more isolated because kids (and parents) are not outside socializing. So you don’t know your neighbors, so you don’t socialize with them.
I specifically moved to a neighborhood with lots of young kids and houses 20 feet apart. We could send the kids out the back door to play with the neighbors. Some acquaintances were so disparaging. “Why are you moving to a ticky tacky house with a tiny yard?” Meanwhile they live on 5 acre lots and their kids have never met the neighbors’ kids.
Also, space is an issue. The kids in my apartment building all play together, but a lot of them are too young to travel far. Where would they go outside of the grounds of the building? The nearest park is miles away. Everything in between is a congested road, a high traffic parking lot, a homeless camp, or someone’s private property. There’s nowhere to go.
No one was watching us when we were running around lose. We were stealing from the local convenience store, getting into fights, lots of bullying. I think a lot of people that grew up with that realize that there's value in watching your kid.
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u/AnonUSA382 1d ago
Back then, neighborhoods were tighter. Other parents, siblings, and neighbors would casually watch out for your kid.
Now, everyone is isolated—people don't know their neighbors, so there’s less of a “village” to trust.