How do you find community in the vast city? Read this article: A Friend Is a Stranger You Haven’t Met: Finding Community in the City
Pros and cons of city:
- Loneliness and disconnection vs promise of large networks in a dense living space
- There is a growing sense of social isolation in people who live in cities, which is recognised as health and social problems in society
- (See: Singapore: elderly suicide rates increase, Japan: upcoming industry for cleaning up lonely deaths, UK: British government appointed a ‘Minister for Loneliness’ earlier this year.)
- In a city, you get access to transport infrastructure, entertainment options and events for socialising, amenities, and job opportunities.
Analysis:
In this article, the author decided to do something about her sense of disconnection through attending a course for counselling qualifications. Instead of perpetuating the problem, she found ways to leverage on existing resources she had access to, and realises that practising empathy for others increases the ability of a diverse group to form a community.
We are highly connected to each other through social media and technology, but developing the soft skills of empathy for others to create a sense of community could be sorely lacking in today’s world.
Cities are not made to be utopias with no issues. While there are cons to living in a city, we have to recognise these are necessary trade-offs. It is also context-based, and different cities have their unique set of challenges their residents have to manage.
Food for thought:
- What could be other causes of this sense of disconnection of city-dwellers?
- Besides the elderly, which groups are also likely to be affected negatively by social isolation and what are the consequences?
- What is the ideal city life to you? How feasible do you think that is?
Useful vocabulary/ phrases:
- Polarised – divided into two very distinct groups; used to describe opposing camps with different beliefs.
- Vitriolic – filled with bitter criticism or malice; can be used to describe how people may interact online while hiding behind the anonymity of screen
- ‘tapped into a narrow, steadily atrophying social network’ – this phrase utlises the imagery of one’s social network in a decaying gradual decline due to neglect to show how one gets increasingly lonely.