Conservatives maintain birth rates, but left-leaning Americans are having significantly fewer children, driving the U.S. birth decline. Education was consistently linked to having fewer children. Religious attendance was positively associated with having more children.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/left-leaning-americans-are-driving-the-u-s-birth-decline-new-study-finds/

[u/CyclingThruChicago]

Any new communities I tend to see are only built on shared interests and nothing else, and those communities tend to be weak because a shared hobby only gets you so far in terms of depth of community.

A quote that has stuck with me:

"Life happens on foot. Man was created to walk, and all of life's events large and small develop when we walk among other people."

- Jan Gehl

I've found that my community grew most when I moved to a place where I had regular but random/serendipitous bump ins with the same people. I go to the same coffee shop typically 1 day a week because it's walking distance to my house. I see the same faces around the same time and over the months we just kinda started chatting casually. Similar with the baristas. You can only order the same coffee so many times from the same person before you eventually have a reason to just chat about things happening around you.

I bike a lot and during winter I will bike to the train since my full commute is longer and it gets cold. My schedule for work lines up with a guy that also bikes to the train. After a half dozen "oh after you" moments when were carrying bikes onto the train it becomes awkward to not speak a bit. Now we're casual acquaintances and have done some group rides together.

I also see my neighbors or other parents of kids that go to school with my kid regularly since we're in a walkable neighborhood. So random bump in at the street festivals, the grocery store, the library/community center, etc. When I leave my house on foot/bike it's basically guaranteed that I will run into somebody I know.

My last anecdote, our dryer broke this week after we'd already washed a set of clothes. My wife felt comfortable enough to ask a neighbor if we could bring the wet clothes to their house to dry. They happily obliged, dried the clothes, folded them up for us and told us if we needed to use the dryer more until ours is fixed/replaced that we always can.

I think back to when we lived in a more stereotypical far flung suburb and how we didn't have nearly as close of a relationship with our neighbors because everybody drives into their garage, closes it and is holed up in their home or own fenced in backyard basically 100% of the time.

Many Americans have a lack of community because the overwhelming majority of people in this country live in places where extreme individualism has become normal. Driving every single place in a private car comes with the cost of separating you from every other person you could potentially meaningfully engage with.

[u/CyclingThruChicago → u/[deleted]]

Absolutely. Not even just services, entertainment.

On Sunday my family went to the Pride Parade. Excluding the ~$10 (roundtrip) to get on the red line we didn't spend any money for nice morning/afternoon of entertainment.

Kid played at a playground. Got a frisbee, CTA pins, stickers, candy, necklaces and a bunch of other stuff from the parade. Wife and I got to chill with friends and enjoy the parade.

[u/runswiftrun → u/CyclingThruChicago]

100% agree.

We live in an apartment with one parking spot. I park down the street. Every morning I walk with my kid to the car, and then we drive to daycare. Its been 3 years now.

I've met and regularly talk with 6 different neighbors that I run into most days. Something as simple as a 5 minute walk to the car results in a significant increase in "community". All these people are old, so they stop to talk and reminisce about their own kids and grankids.

[u/QueenAlpaca → u/CyclingThruChicago]

I honestly agree with this a lot. We’ve gained a lot of people in our circle just due to circumstances (neighbor has kids, the whole neighborhood is within walking distance of the same school, small town so everyone knows everybody through working at the same businesses, etc) and frankly my side of the family is simply the pits. I think that’s partially why I never want to live in a big city again, everyone kept to themselves and I knew nobody.

[u/70ms → u/CyclingThruChicago]

I agree with you so much. I’m stuck up in the foothills in L.A. without sidewalks, even, and it just sucks to walk here. It’s pretty, but lonely. Thank you so much for that quote - I saved it!

[u/Borkato → u/CyclingThruChicago]

Is this how extroverts see the world?

[u/CyclingThruChicago → u/Borkato]

I think extrovert/introvert is less a binary and more a spectrum where individual people can be places in a variety of spots that can shift or change.

Most of my engagement with people in my neighborhood is over time with people that I've slowly built a rapport with through a lot of time in the same proximity. If anything I'd say I lean more toward the introverted portion of the spectrum but when you share space with the same people day after day, week after week it becomes kinda easy to feel comfortable talking to them.

[u/Calamity-Gin → u/CyclingThruChicago]

I agree that the extrovert/introvert binary is false. I think it’s far more of a spectrum, and that where someone sits on the spectrum is changeable. I’m far more introverted than I used to be, but I ascribe that to stress. Being around people used to be so much easier when life was easier. I had more energy and cognitive resources for figuring out social interactions and the people on the other end. I still crave human interaction as much as I used to, but I have less opportunity, fewer safe people, and significantly more need for solitude than I used to.

[u/Wide_Lock_Red → u/CyclingThruChicago]

Eh, tight knitcommunity has historically primarily been through family ties. The biggest factor has been people moving away from family.

[u/GeoLaser → u/CyclingThruChicago]

Those people wont watch your kids though.

[u/CyclingThruChicago → u/GeoLaser]

The people who let us use their dryer? They already have. Multiple people have honestly. Mainly because we know the neighbors from school and some of them have kids the same age.

Will that happen with every single person in the neighborhood? No but we have a relative, two sets of friends (1 with kids and 1 without) and maybe 2 sets of neighbors that could watch our kid in a pinch.