Becoming Resilient Starts With Building Relationships Where You Are

(Source: Unsplash/Maxim Tolchinskiy.)

A few weekends ago, I found myself sitting in a sunny living room, surrounded by a dozen and a half smiling women from church along with a bountiful array of gift bags and cards. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who would be excited to unwrap stuffed giraffes, pacifiers, and a copy of Goodnight Moon, but here I was, gleaming with gratitude for each gift for my soon-to-arrive baby. 

I’m a first-time mom and we’re in the home stretch: only about five weeks to go. The garage is full of packages needing to be opened and furniture needing to be assembled. Between all of that and trying to plan meals to freeze, I find myself occasionally overcome by the realization of just how much everything is going to change. Part of becoming a mom means preparing to rethink all the rhythms of life. Anecdotally, I know that I’ll need to rethink how I do everything from taking a shower to taking a trip!

I’ve thought about this on a personal level, but as an urbanist, I’ve also thought about how this life change will shape how I experience my city and how its various design features will make life easier or more difficult for our family. Obviously, I’ve thought about how the suburban development pattern, car-based design, and the lack of third places within my neighborhood will present challenges for daily living, especially for our one-car family. But given that relationships are also part of what it means to participate in a city, I’ve also wondered about what it will look like to build new social rhythms and connections fitting to this new season of life. I’ve started to track child-friendly events at the local library and to notice which coffee shops might be more kid-friendly than others. 

Living in a college town is a two-edged sword: on one hand, there are always new and interesting people to meet. On the other hand, it means always being on the standby for goodbyes as friends leave for new opportunities, new research positions, new teaching appointments. This summer, we’ve had an onslaught of departures… It has been the summer of goodbye parties, goodbye tears, and goodbye gifts. 

Building New Ties

I’m all too aware of the risks of isolation that come with becoming a mom in a suburban context, so as I process the departure of several friends, I know I need to take seriously the opportunity to build new connections. Just as I’m thinking about where the bassinet will go in our small accessory dwelling unit and the meals that freeze best, I know I also need to think about how I might establish new friendships, especially with other moms.

Like most people, I’m starting with the people already connected to the social circles I have, mainly church and the university where my husband works. These types of connections based on people with whom I share certain lifestyles and values are important, but the other day, I found myself wondering what it might look like to get to know folks closer to where we live: the people who might see me taking daily walks with a stroller. What would it look like to build relationships based on proximity? We’ve been in our current neighborhood for almost a year now and will remain in this neighborhood for at least another nine months, yet we don’t know a single neighbor. What if I tried changing that?

So Close, yet So Far

If the research is correct, this project of meeting new neighbors could simultaneously be one of the hardest things I ever do, yet also one of the most rewarding. For families, the potential benefits of knowing more neighbors are obvious, among them an improved sense of safety, trust, and connection. Neighborhoods “light up” in a way that’s only possible when you know the names of the people who live in the homes on your block. But despite the potential benefits, researchers like Robert Putnam, Marc Dunkleman, Charles Montgomery, and others have highlighted the tragic reality that trust and conviviality between American neighbors, especially those living in cities dominated by auto-oriented development, has been on a steady decline since the 1950s. Some have even gone as far as to declare a global “epidemic of loneliness.” 

This shouldn’t be a surprise given the ideological roots of suburbia. Historically, suburbs emerged from a widespread desire for more privacy, more distance away from people. The antidote to city living, it was believed, was a private home where one could commune with nature, away from the hustle and bustle, away from the crowds. Design also plays a role. Neighborhoods without clear boundaries, third spaces, and barriers against high volumes of through-traffic are neighborhoods where its hard to build a sense of community. And then there’s the increased pressures of work and money and the never-ending allure of Netflix and social media during our leisure time. 

So…it’s no surprise that the thought of meeting my neighbors is just a little bit scary. It truly will require a willingness to swim upstream, so to speak. But maybe this is the kind of “upstream” challenge more of us should take on, not only for the sake of more socially enriched personal lives, but for the sake of our cities. We write a lot about resilience at Strong Towns, but here’s the thing: it’s not magic. Resilient cities are the result of resilient neighborhoods, but you can’t have resilient neighborhoods without relationships.  

The Resilience-Relationship Connection

“Relationship” is kind of a scary word, especially when thinking about our neighborhoods. Who has time to build relationships with their entire neighborhood? What if we don’t have much in common with the people on our street but feel like we always have to say hi when we see them? What if people think we’re weird for trying to be friendly? What if no one reciprocates? I get all of that, but if we stop to think about the kinds of preconditions needed for resiliency to emerge, it’s obvious to me that some kind of street-level connectedness is simply essential. 

First, because in order for our cities to become resilient, not only do we have to be aware of resilience as a goal (rather than, say, growth), we also have to become aware of our city on a more granular level. We have to know what makes it unique, what are its weaknesses and liabilities? What are its strengths and assets? What does resilience even look like for our town? Of course, we can answer these questions from our own personal experiences and perspectives, but when we’ve taken the time to get to know our neighbors, we’re putting ourselves in a position to answer these questions from a variety of perspectives, strengthening our ability to truly advocate for the city as a whole, not just for what makes sense to us. 

Second, building resilience takes dialogue and negotiation. Becoming resilient means being willing to rethink how our cities have functioned up until now and to consider new approaches. It means being willing to rethink the policies, practices, and procedures that govern what can happen in our cities. It means being willing to rethink the design of our cities and what changes are needed for our towns to win at the “infinite game.” None of these things can happen unless stakeholders are able and willing to get together and imagine, discuss, and negotiate a vision for the future. This is much easier to achieve in cities that have strong networks of social capital. Neighborhoods, when fully cultivated, provide the perfect stage for individuals to build these kinds of networks.

Lastly, becoming resilient requires sacrifice and sacrifice requires trust. When humans aren’t actively bonding or bridging with people outside of their group, they’re most likely retreating further into their private social circles. Trusting people outside of those circles is pretty tough and it's more likely that the opposite will unfold: People may become more likely to distrust people outside of their circles. In this kind of context where people don’t trust each other, it’s much harder to cultivate a vision of resiliency, negotiate trade-offs, and cultivate buy-in.

For so long, we’ve been wired to see neighborhoods as primarily the stage for our private lives, as units of spatial, political, and economic organization. Part of becoming resilient requires that we begin to see neighborhoods as social units, too, as the main space where individuals can establish the kinds of loose but meaningful and highly valuable social ties that can make it much easier for our cities to envision and embrace more resilient futures. 

Of course, we can’t force people to step outside and befriend their neighbors, but there’s plenty cities can do: allow gentle housing density, make it easier for people to walk to local businesses, allow more small businesses to exist within neighborhoods. Really invest in parks and green space. Slow the cars. Narrow the lanes. Throw parties. Take seriously the social role neighborhoods can play in helping people feel less lonely and the role that connected neighbors can play in making cities stronger.

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Hear more from Tiffany in the 2023 Local-Motive Tour