In his book Fragile Neighborhoods, Seth Kaplan argues that the decline of local communities, where people know one another and feel some sense of belonging, has encouraged such social problems as loneliness, the erosion of faith, and the decline of civic life—with all their attendant consequences. Patrick T. Brown writes in his review:
Crucially, Kaplan sees the fragility of American life not just in the low-income neighborhoods of inner-city Philadelphia, but in the isolation of otherwise well-off suburbs. His goal is to resurrect the idea of the neighborhood as a specific place with a distinctive sense of community. It’s a cultural narrative that runs counter to a mentality that prioritizes mobility over stability.
No amount of economic growth, he argues, can paper over the hollowed-out feeling of moving from a “townshipped” society to a “networked one.” We treat neighbors less as friends and more as connections, asking about suspicious footage caught on Ring cameras or posting about local nuisances, instead of getting to know our neighbors as people. Kaplan laments this shift by quoting the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: “The very concept of belonging to a place, a neighborhood, a locality—somewhere we belong and call home—has all but disappeared.”
Elsewhere, Kaplan has held up Orthodox Jewish enclaves, kept together in part by the need to live in walking distance from a synagogue, as a model to be emulated.
Read more on Public Discourse: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2023/12/91994/