Why are we retreating into our homes?
Diana Lind says it's a big problem, and she is right. I don't entirely agree with her about the reasons.
Kelly had a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday morning, so we drove back to the City on Tuesday night. In the morning, I found that the cupboards were bare: no milk, no coffee, nothing to eat. Then Kelly reminded me: “The Sovereign opens at seven.” Lattes and croissants, literally less than a five-minute walk from our door. Yet I had never done this before; I have an espresso machine.
Diana Lind, author of the excellent book Brave New Home and the Substack The New Urban Order, has written an opinion piece for the Washington Post describing how “America is becoming a nation of homebodies,” noting that nobody goes out anymore:
“Americans spend 1.5 hours more at home each day than they did just 20 years ago. The stats are worse for people between 15-24 years old.”
The problem with this is that the time alone is probably spent sitting, “triggering two of Americans’ biggest mental and physical health problems — social isolation and lack of exercise.”
Lind lists some of the causes, including screens, but suggests that the bigger problem is urban design. “if our phones, tablets, and video games are as insidious as they’re often portrayed, then part of the solution needs to be finding real-life environments and activities that can compete for attention with apps and streaming services at home.”
Lind quotes the shocking statistic that less than two percent of metropolitan areas in the USA are walkable, and those areas are prohibitively expensive. But I am one of “those who can afford homes in amenity-filled neighborhoods where easily accessible in-person experiences are just another privilege.” Yet, Wednesday morning was the first time I did a breakfast run to the Sovereign. Just having it accessible doesn’t mean that we use it.
Read Lind’s summary at The New Urban Order; she also includes links to the Washington Post, which didn’t work for me since I am a former subscriber who bailed on it. But I would like to add a few thoughts about why people go out less than they used to:
An aging population of homeowners.
The Canadian demographer David Foot once wrote, “Demographics explains about two-thirds of everything.” I think it goes a long way to explaining this. In 1980 (when I bought my first house), the average home buyer was 31 years old; now it’s 56, thanks to high prices and mortgage rates. Older people simply do not go out as often; it’s noisy, there are no bathrooms, and if they watch Fox News or CP24 in Canada, they're probably scared to go out after dark.
Meanwhile, the age of the average first-time homebuyer was 29 in the 1980s; it’s now 38, and they don’t have a lot of spare cash for going out.
It’s not just the little screens, it’s the big ones.
In the last twenty years, the price of a big flatscreen TV has dropped by 75% and the quality has improved dramatically. Meanwhile, the movie theatres have gone digital, so in terms of image quality, they are pretty much identical. The time window between theatre and video release has shrunk.
When I was a kid, there were four nabes (neighbourhood movie houses,) within walking distance, although one only showed Italian movies. Now, there is one, a reopened art house. In 1946, 90 million people went to the movies every week; by 1953, it was down to 25% of that because of TV. Between streaming and cheap big screens, we are going through a similar technological shakeout now.
Our bigger houses let us internalize everything.
I have seven espresso bars within 500 meters (.31 miles) of my home, yet I have an espresso machine. I was surprised to find that I had nine places to get pizza in the same radius, yet home pizza ovens are one of the fastest-growing appliances on the market. We have room for all this stuff.
We have traded the park for the backyard, the theatre for the media room, the pizzeria for the pizza oven and the espresso bar for the Breville Barista Express. AD Magazine shows 11 Designer-Approved Wellness Rooms to Incorporate Into Your Home. And of course, we have traded the hardware store and bookstore and everyotherstore for Amazon and have destroyed our main streets.
Our “third places” are disappearing.
A few years ago, I wrote Why the 15-Minute City Needs a Good Bar; It's a "third space" that's different from home or office. I quoted a 2012 article by Michael Hickey of Shelterforce:
"The vaunted 'third space' isn’t home, and isn’t work—it’s more like the living room of society at large. It’s a place where you are neither family nor co-worker, and yet where the values, interests, gossip, complaints and inspirations of these two other spheres intersect. It’s a place at least one step removed from the structures of work and home, more random, and yet familiar enough to breed a sense of identity and connection. It’s a place of both possibility and comfort, where the unexpected and the mundane transcend and mingle. And nine times out of ten, it’s a bar."
A wag in comments called it “The New Bourbonism.” Alas, the bar in the photo has closed, after 30 years of our patronage; so have many others. Perhaps, as Derek Thompson notes, everyone is going to the gym instead.
Lind has some suggestions for what we can do about the problem.
For starters, we can make maintaining our local public institutions an urgent priority. In many cases, we’ve failed to adequately support pieces of our social infrastructure, from public transportation to parks and libraries, or have let them become synonymous with social disorder. Staying in has become the seemingly rational choice. We should recast these public places as an investment not just for poorer people but for everyone, especially since more educated and affluent Americans also spend the most time at home.
She then gets all abundantish and calls for the easing of regulations and licensing requirements to make it easier to set up businesses. Having seen every second storefront in Toronto turn into a cannabis shop the minute it was legalized, I think a little regulation can be a good thing. But I absolutely concur with her conclusion:
“But it all starts with changing how we view the outside world on a personal level. We should treat “getting out” as a necessary health intervention rather than an optional luxury or a work burden. This might mean budgeting time and money differently, recognizing that the cheapest and easiest option — staying in — is costing us something else. Our health and our communities are worth the extra effort.”
My first reaction, reading Lind’s post, was to agree that this is an urban design problem, but then I say everything is an urban design problem, gimme the Goldilocks density and a good bike lane, and the problem is solved.
But I live in that walkable 15-minute milieu, and I still don’t get out enough; It has just become so easy and convenient to stay home with my big OLED TV, my Breville, and my erg (rowing machine). Diana Lind is right; getting out is worth the effort, and I am going to do it more often. We all should.
Some interesting thoughts.
One knock on getting coffee out vs staying home- at most places in the States, ordering an espresso shot that can be downed in one or two sips comes in a paper takeaway cup (lined with plastic). At many places, they also give you a plastic lid and sometimes one of those cardboard sleeves. Contrast that with Italy, where espresso is drunk at the bar in a reusable ceramic cup. It’s a ton of unnecessary waste in North America!
Like you I like to ride a bike, an e-bike in my case. I do it both for transportation and for fun. The difference is that I am rural. It is at least 20 minutes to the nearest coffee shop and that is not on my favorite road. As I ride I go past a lot of rural houses, most with big lawns, sometimes trees (but mostly not). Yet the only time I see people on their lawn is riding a lawn mower, or more rarely fetching mail. Why have a lawn if you don't use it? Why have a big house when you only use three rooms; TV, Kitchen and Bed? We have designed for separation from neighbors and nature. I prefer having frogs in the front yard, an orchard on the side, a big garden, and a forest nearby. Perhaps if people actually went outside once in a while they might discover themselves, and find they are not a reflection of opinions on Fox News.