I’m getting a lot of questions about “social infrastructure," the main idea in Palaces for the People. It’s a new concept, so I thought I’d explain it in a thread. I define social infrastructure as the physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact. (1/8)
Social infrastructure is not “social capital”—a concept commonly used to measure people’s relationships and interpersonal networks—but the physical conditions that determine whether social capital develops. (2/8)
When social infrastructure is robust, it fosters contact, mutual support, and collaboration among friends and neighbors; when degraded, it inhibits social activity, leaving families and individuals to fend for themselves. (3/8)
Social infrastructure is crucially important, because local, face-to-face interactions – at the school, the playground, and the corner diner – are the building blocks of all public life. (4/8)
People forge bonds in places w healthy social infrastructures – not because they set out to build community, but bc when people have sustained, recurrent interaction, esp while doing things they enjoy, relationships inevitably grow. (5/8)
Social infrastructure plays a critical but under-appreciated role in modern societies. It shapes seemingly mundane but actually consequential patterns, from how we move in our cities & suburbs to how we relate to strangers & friends. (6/8)
Social infrastructure is especially important for children, the elderly, and other people whose limited mobility or lack of autonomy binds them to the places where they live. But social infrastructure affects all of us, everyday. (7/8)
Social infrastructure alone isn’t sufficient to unite polarized societies, protect vulnerable communities, or connect alienated individuals, but we can’t address these challenges without it. It’s the best way to begin rebuilding our broken, divided society. (8/8)
