This comment is not specifically about time, but it's related to your mention of social infrastructure at the end. I had (pretty naively) assumed that I somehow had a uniquely weird life that leaves me having, for example, only three people on my block that I've ever talked to (none of whom I am likely to talk to in the average month) (though as I write this, I'm wondering if the number being as high as three actually means I should consider myself lucky). It's very interesting to me to consider that my own seemingly unique-to-me circumstances might actually be quite similar in many respects to those of my neighbours.
It seems like there ought to be studies of this sort of thing, but I imagine it's pretty common. I've definitely lived places where my only interactions with neighbors is when they tell me not to park in the (public) street parking in front of their house. I'm lucky that right now we live in this proto-co-housing condo development (built in the 70s by an architect who built some of the first co-housing in the US a few years later) that was designed to encourage running into people. But three people on your block sounds pretty good.
It's hard to know what to do to overcome the cultural/built inertia of everyone keeping to themselves. One neighbor of ours wrote little post cards introducing herself and put them at everyone's doorstep. I think they included an invitation to hangout. Block parties also seem like a tried and true connector. Mostly I just try to overcome my automatic social anxiety reaction to hide when I see folks out and about.
This puts me in mind of Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of American Cities. I haven't looked at it in a while, but she was a big fan of cities that create the circumstances where people run into each other in the street. The idea being that causal, brief interactions with a diverse group of people is all around good.
This comment is not specifically about time, but it's related to your mention of social infrastructure at the end. I had (pretty naively) assumed that I somehow had a uniquely weird life that leaves me having, for example, only three people on my block that I've ever talked to (none of whom I am likely to talk to in the average month) (though as I write this, I'm wondering if the number being as high as three actually means I should consider myself lucky). It's very interesting to me to consider that my own seemingly unique-to-me circumstances might actually be quite similar in many respects to those of my neighbours.
It seems like there ought to be studies of this sort of thing, but I imagine it's pretty common. I've definitely lived places where my only interactions with neighbors is when they tell me not to park in the (public) street parking in front of their house. I'm lucky that right now we live in this proto-co-housing condo development (built in the 70s by an architect who built some of the first co-housing in the US a few years later) that was designed to encourage running into people. But three people on your block sounds pretty good.
It's hard to know what to do to overcome the cultural/built inertia of everyone keeping to themselves. One neighbor of ours wrote little post cards introducing herself and put them at everyone's doorstep. I think they included an invitation to hangout. Block parties also seem like a tried and true connector. Mostly I just try to overcome my automatic social anxiety reaction to hide when I see folks out and about.
This puts me in mind of Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of American Cities. I haven't looked at it in a while, but she was a big fan of cities that create the circumstances where people run into each other in the street. The idea being that causal, brief interactions with a diverse group of people is all around good.